Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research [Volume 38] 3031066952, 9783031066955

Citation preview

Laura W. Perna Editor

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research Volume 38

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research Volume 38 Series Editor Laura W. Perna, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each chapter provides a comprehensive review of research findings on a selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor, and sets forth an agenda for future research intended to advance knowledge on the chosen topic. The Handbook focuses on a comprehensive set of central areas of study in higher education that encompasses the salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries undertaken in the international higher education community. Each annual volume contains chapters on such diverse topics as research on college students and faculty, organization and administration, curriculum and instruction, policy, diversity issues, economics and finance, history and philosophy, community colleges, advances in research methodology, and more. The series is fortunate to have attracted annual contributions from distinguished scholars throughout the world.

Laura W. Perna Editor

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research Volume 38

With 14 Figures and 5 Tables

Editor Laura W. Perna Graduate School of Education University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA

ISSN 0882-4126 ISSN 2215-1664 (electronic) Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research ISBN 978-3-031-06695-5 ISBN 978-3-031-06696-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Like the preceding volumes in this series, Vol. 38 of Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research offers an invaluable collection of thorough reviews of research on topics that are of central importance to higher education policy, practice, and research. Each of the chapters in this volume represents an important contribution to knowledge. Individually and collectively, the chapters provide in-depth examinations of the state of knowledge on topics that are highly relevant in this current time. Together, these chapters offer important insights into current issues pertaining to: college students; faculty; diversity; organization and administration; community colleges; teaching, learning, and curriculum; economics and finance; policy; history and philosophy; and research methodology. This annual publication would not be possible without the intellectual leadership of an excellent team of Associate Editors. For Vol. 38, these exceptionally talented scholars and research mentors are: Ann Austin, Nicholas Bowman, Pamela Eddy, Nicholas Hillman, Shouping Hu, Adrianna Kezar, Anne-Marie Nuñez, Christine Ogren, Aimee La Pointe Terosky, Marvin Titus, and Marc Van Overbeke. Over the course of a year or more, the Associate Editors and I each work closely with selected authors to develop, produce, and refine the chapters that are included in this published volume. Equity is one strong theme that is present across chapters in this volume. Chapter authors consider issues pertaining to women and gender (Linda Eisenmann), “whiteness beyond (just) white people” (Tenisha Tevis, Melvin Whitehead, Zachary Foste, and Antonio Duran), and critical quantitative methods (Sam Museus). Other authors apply an equity lens to such topics as faculty development (Milagros Castillo-Montoya, Liza Ann Bolitzer, and Sylk Sotto-Santiago), governance (Demetri Morgan, Raquel Ball, and Felecia Commodore), and prestige seeking (Desiree Zerquera). Other chapters consider fundamental principles, like academic freedom (Neal Hutchens and Frank Fernandez) and processes, including criminal justice (Adrian Huerta), transfer (Catherine Hartman), pathways of PhD students to the professoriate (David Feldon, Annie Wofford, and Jennifer Blaney), and campus carry (Patricia Somers, Zach Taylor, and Kelly Soucy). Each chapter offers a comprehensive review of research findings on the selected topic, critiques the research literature in terms of its conceptual and methodological rigor, and offers

v

vi

Preface

an agenda for future research that will further advance knowledge on the particular topic. As in past volumes, this volume also includes an autobiographic essay. In Vol. 38, Professor Emeritus John Thelin, University of Kentucky, reflects on his personal and professional journey in an essay entitled, “Academic procession: Bringing the history of higher education to life.” Professor Thelin offers a candid description of the evolution of his research and scholarship, including the roots of his interests in sports, higher education, and history. He also shares how he has approached teaching, advising, research, and service, as well as his perspectives on the historical development of what is now the field of higher education administration. Volume 38 builds on a long and strong history of outstanding scholarly contributions. The first volume in this series was published in 1985. John C. Smart served as editor of the series through Vol. 26, when Michael B. Paulsen joined him as co-editor. After co-editing Vols. 26 and 27 with John, Mike served as the sole editor through Vol. 33. I am deeply honored that Mike invited me to serve as co-editor with him for Vol. 34 and that I have the privilege of serving as sole editor beginning with Vol. 35. I am grateful for the time, effort, and engagement that the authors and Associate Editors invested in producing these significant scholarly contributions. Because of these efforts, the chapters in this volume will undoubtedly provide the foundation for the next generation of research on these crucial issues. In this volume, Associate Editors were responsible for working with the following chapters and authors: Ann E. Austin, “Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints of Institutional Structures, Individual Agency, and Social Systems,” by David F. Feldon, Annie Wofford, and Jennifer Blaney Nicholas A. Bowman, “Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections Among Dimensions of Whiteness in Higher Education,” by Tenisha Tevis, Melvin Whitehead, Zak Foste, and Antonio Duran Pamela Eddy, “A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences,” by Catherine Hartman Nicholas Hillman, “An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory of Racialized Quantitative Systems,” by Samuel Museus Shouping Hu, “Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education,” by Patricia Somers, Z.W. Taylor, and Kelly L. Soucy Adrianna Kezar, “Getting to Where We Need to Be: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary Education through the Equity X Governance Paradigm,” by Demetri Morgan, Raquel Rall, and Felecia Commodore Anne-Marie Nuñez, “Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education: Implications for Research, Practice, and Policy,” by Adrian Huerta and colleagues Christine Ogren and Marc Van Overbeke, “Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature,” by Linda Eisenmann Aimee La Pointe Terosky, “Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” by Milagros Castillo-Montoya, Liza Ann Bolitzer, and Sylk Sotto-Santiago

Preface

vii

I had the privilege of working with the authors of the following chapters: “Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life,” by John Thelin “Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right: Contemporary Challenges and Directions for Research,” by Neal Hutchens and Frank Fernandez “Still Striving, and For What? Centering Equity in the Study of Prestige Seeking in Higher Education,” by Desiree Zerquera Sadly, one author, Gabriel R. Serna, Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, passed away in August 2022. Associate Editor Marvin Titus and I had hoped that this volume would have benefited from Dr. Serna’s expertise on higher education economics, finance, and policy. A first-generation, Hispanic college student, Dr. Serna was committed to advancing higher education access and opportunity for students from marginalized groups. This volume is dedicated in memory of Dr. Serna. Philadelphia, USA February 2023

Laura W. Perna

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John R. Thelin

1

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linda Eisenmann

23

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections Among Dimensions of Whiteness in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tenisha L. Tevis, Melvin Whitehead, Zak Foste, and Antonio Duran Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neal H. Hutchens and Frank Fernandez “Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary Education Through the Equity X Governance Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Demetri L. Morgan, Raquel M. Rall, and Felecia Commodore Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of Prestige Seeking in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Desiree D. Zerquera Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints of Institutional Structures, Individual Agency, and Social Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David F. Feldon, Annie M. Wofford, and Jennifer M. Blaney Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Milagros Castillo-Montoya, Liza A. Bolitzer, and Sylk Sotto-Santiago

95

149

203

265

325

415

ix

x

Contents

9

10

11

12

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Catherine Hartman

483

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patricia Somers, Z. W. Taylor, and Kelly Soucy

539

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education: Implications for Research, Practice, and Policy . . . . . . Adrian H. Huerta, Edgar F. Lopez, Maritza E. Salazar, Gabriela Torres, and Miranda Y. Munoz

589

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory of Racialized Quantitative Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel D. Museus

631

............................

665

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

669

Contents of Previous Five Volumes

About the Editor

Laura W. Perna is Vice Provost for Faculty, GSE Centennial Presidential Professor of Education, and Executive Director of the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (AHEAD) at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Her research uses various methodological approaches to identify how social structures, educational practices, and public policies promote and limit college access and success, particularly for groups that are underrepresented in higher education. Recent publications include Improving Research-Based Knowledge of College Promise Programs (with Edward Smith, 2020, AERA), Taking It to the Streets: The Role of Scholarship in Advocacy and Advocacy in scholarship (2018, Johns Hopkins University Press), and The Attainment Agenda: State Policy Leadership for Higher Education (with Joni Finney, 2014, Johns Hopkins University Press). She has served as President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), Vice President of the Postsecondary Division of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and Chair of Penn’s Faculty Senate. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Postsecondary National Policy Institute (PNPI) and previously served as a member of the Gates Commission on the Value of Postsecondary Education and the Board of Directors for the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Among other honors, she has received the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania, Faculty Alumni Award of Merit from the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Association, Early Career Achievement Award from ASHE, Excellence in Public Policy in Higher Education Award from ASHE’s Council on xi

xii

About the Editor

Public Policy and Higher Education, Dr. Constance Clayton Education Award from the Philadelphia College Prep Roundtable, and Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. She is also a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of AERA.

Associate Editors

Ann E. Austin Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA

Nicholas A. Bowman University of Iowa Iowa City, IA, USA

Pamela Eddy William & Mary Williamsburg, VA, USA

xiii

xiv

Associate Editors

Nicholas Hillman University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI, USA

Shouping Hu Florida State University Tallahassee, FL, USA

Adrianna Kezar School of Education University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA

Associate Editors

xv

Anne-Marie Núñez University of Texas El Paso El Paso, TX, USA

Christine Ogren Educational Policy and Leadership Studies University of Iowa Iowa City, IA, USA

Marc Van Overbeke University of Illinois-Chicago Chicago, USA

xvi

Associate Editors

Laura W. Perna University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA

Aimee La Pointe Terosky Department of Educational Leadership Saint Joseph’s University Philadelphia, PA, USA

Marvin Titus University of Maryland College Park, MD, USA

Reviewers

Gina Garcia University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA Juan Garibay University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA Leslie Gonzalez Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA KerryAnn O’Meara University of Maryland, College Park, USA Jeffrey Sun University of Louisville, Louisville, USA Kelly Wickersham Wisconsin Center for Education Research, Madison, USA

xvii

Contributors

Jennifer M. Blaney Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA Liza A. Bolitzer Kean University, Union, NJ, USA Milagros Castillo-Montoya University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA Felecia Commodore Darden College of Education & Professional Studies, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA Antonio Duran Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA Linda Eisenmann Department of Education, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, USA David F. Feldon Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA Frank Fernandez School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education, University of Florida College of Education, Gainesville, FL, USA Zak Foste University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA Catherine Hartman National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA Adrian H. Huerta Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Neal H. Hutchens Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, University of Kentucky College of Education, Lexington, KY, USA Edgar F. Lopez Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Demetri L. Morgan School of Education, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Miranda Y. Munoz Cuyamaca College English Department, El Cajon, CA, USA Samuel D. Museus University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA xix

xx

Contributors

Raquel M. Rall School of Education, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA Maritza E. Salazar Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Patricia Somers The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA Sylk Sotto-Santiago Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA Kelly Soucy The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA Z. W. Taylor University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA Tenisha L. Tevis Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA John R. Thelin History of Higher Education & Public Policy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA Gabriela Torres Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Melvin Whitehead Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA Annie M. Wofford Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA Desiree D. Zerquera University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life John R. Thelin

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brief Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New England to California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . High School and College Prep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Comic Books to Campus View Books: College Admissions and Images . . . . . . . . . . . . College Years at Brown University, 1965 to 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Going to Graduate School: University of California, Berkeley, 1969 to 1974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Berkeley to the Blue Grass: Professor at the University of Kentucky, 1974–1977 . . . From Kentucky to California: Gaining Experience in Administration and Public Policy . . . The College of William and Mary: Professor, 1981–1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Indiana University to the University of Kentucky, 1996 to 2022 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Going Around in Academic Circles: Research and Development, 1970–2022 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Historical Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Writing the Big Book: A History of American Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Cliometrics” and the Colleges: Historical Statistics and Higher Education Research . . . . . The Continuing Interest in the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Higher Education and the Public Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary and Conclusion: Coming of Age in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Synergy of Teaching, Research, and Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 3 3 4 4 6 8 10 10 11 12 14 14 14 16 17 18 18 19 20

Abstract

John R. Thelin’s essay, Academic Procession presents a biography of his experiences as a historian who studies higher education. The thread that runs through this account is his commitment to bringing the history of colleges and universities to life. His aim has been to connect past and present in exploring significant issues about higher education. For each era, he focuses on questions of access and J. R. Thelin (*) History of Higher Education & Public Policy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_1

1

2

J. R. Thelin

exclusion, uses of campus architecture as monuments and memorials, historical statistics on institutional budgets, public policies and higher education, college sports, student life and issues of race, gender, religion and diversity. His story goes back to 1960 and covers crucial events facing colleges and universities. He gives great attention to students and the changing experience of “going to college” as part of American life. It also includes an account of how research about higher education developed into a significant academic topic. The academic procession in which he has participated has taken place during an exciting, important era in American higher education. Keywords

History of Higher Education · Higher Education · Higher Education and Public Policy · Colleges and Universities · American social history · American popular culture

Introduction In 1908 Edwin Slosson, Editor of The Independent monthly magazine, concluded his nationwide tour of universities with a visit to the University of Pennsylvania where he exclaimed, “No other university, so far as I have found, has such a complete and convenient collection of materials for the present and future study of the institution.” He praised the archivist for saving copies of student publications, literary magazines, memoirs, posters, photographs, and artifacts of campus activities because he felt that files of catalogs, budget reports, and official records would not “satisfy the needs for future historians and biographers. They must have something more if they are to make theses dry bones live” (Slosson, 1910). Slosson’s claim inspired me. I first read his anthology in 1970 when I was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. More than a half century later, his commentary still kindles my passion and commitment. I hope my writing will enthuse readers by animating the history of higher education to “make these dry bones live.” So, to connect the past and present of colleges and universities, I wish to tell the story of how my own experiences and explorations have helped me try to fulfill Slosson’s writing invitation. As an undergraduate at Brown University from 1965 to 1969, I concentrated on European history, with courses in American history and sociology, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While reading works that cut across various centuries, nations, and events, I frequently wondered how social, economic, and political trends meshed with colleges and universities. Later, when I entered graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley in fall 1969, I refined that emphasis. Berkeley was a good place to meet, listen to and work with some of the outstanding historians, economists, and sociologists who happened to be studying higher education. I was introduced to them by my adviser, Geraldine Joncich Clifford, who was herself a superb historian of education. I owe a special debt to Harvard sociologists David Riesman and Christopher Jencks for their provocative

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

3

1968 work, The Academic Revolution (Jencks & Riesman, 1968). Historian Frederick Rudolph of Williams College also was influential with his classic work, The American College and University: A History (Rudolph, 1962). He later became a mentor and colleague. One characteristic of my approach to the history of higher education was that I persisted in asking questions about how popular culture fit into the story. This included my concerns about the lack of serious attention scholars had given to college sports in shaping American higher education. My faculty advisers shrugged their shoulders, suggesting they did not know a lot nor had much to say about the topic. But they encouraged me to pursue it in my own original research. Since I had been serious about college sports as a varsity wrestler and long-distance runner, this topic percolated – and has been integral to my teaching and scholarship ever since. This preview glosses over the details of my story. In telling about the evolution of my research and scholarship, I will first provide some biographical background as part of the Academic Procession. My subsequent section will deal with research issues and situations that have been recurrent in my writing for more than a half century, cutting across any one of the chronological categories I outline in the biographical narrative.

Brief Biography New England to California I was born just outside Boston, at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Our family moved from East Coast to West Coast, back and forth several times, because my father was an aerospace engineer who gravitated to new major projects every few years. One memorable move was to Amherst, Massachusetts from 1951 through 1955 where I was able to explore a New England college town. I was the youngest of five siblings, all of whom went to college. Eventually, we settled in Southern California where I went to school from third grade through high school in Whittier. The public schools were great and I thrived in the energy and optimism of Southern California. Los Angeles was an exciting place that was booming and confident. Illustrative of the civic pride was the transformation of The Los Angeles Times from a nondescript daily newspaper into an outstanding model of journalism that included new talents such as Tom Wolfe, sportswriter Jim Murray, columnist Joan Didion, and numerous editors and writers who gained a national following. The newspaper’s coverage of sports for high school, college, and professional teams added to the sense of community energy. Olympic sports, such as swimming, water polo, track and field as well as football, basketball, and baseball attracted participants and spectators. Nowhere did California’s combination of optimism and abundance shine more than in the statewide plans for higher education. The construction of new campuses combined with a policy of zero tuition for state residents placed the state at the forefront of national planning in the 1960s.The state’s commitment spread throughout public elementary and secondary education as well. I recall reading the October l7, 1960 issue of Time magazine whose cover story showcased Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, as American higher education’s “Master Planner.” I

4

J. R. Thelin

filed my copy of the magazine away as I thought this had lasting significance beyond an immediate current event. A decade later, after graduating from college, I retrieved the 1960 Time magazine issue for my own historical research projects about the transformation of American higher education. By chance, this history came to life as I later met and talked with Clark Kerr who earlier had been featured on the 1960 magazine cover. To me, the Time magazine cover stories shaped my role as a researcher whose aim now was to use those media articles as primary sources in writing history in our own time and about our own place.

High School and College Prep Going to college first meant getting ready for college. When I started high school in September 1961 I listened to the advice from my parents, teachers, and from my older brothers and sister that now was the time for me to focus on studies and sports. I did so enthusiastically. I attended Sierra High School, a large, new suburban high school where I was part of a small “college prep” cohort that had excellent teachers and an innovative course of studies. The five “solid” courses I took each semester required continual attention to new fields and topics, including advanced biology, chemistry, physics, four years of French, and four years of math. I figured out that the key to doing well in high school was to keep up with daily homework, assignments, quizzes, and weekly tests in all five courses. It was a different tempo than the term papers and final exams of college that lay ahead. Sports, the second half of the studies and sports combination, were also serious and central. Wrestling, along with track and cross-country, were my interests. Varsity sports in Southern California were excellent as local teams and athletes often won state and national championships. In my senior year, I was captain of the wrestling team, won most of my matches, and qualified for the California Interscholastic Federation tournament. These shaped my decision to be a college wrestler when I considered where to apply for college. In addition to studies and sports, I was involved in student government. I was elected president of our junior class in Fall 1963 and Student Body President for my senior year, 1964–1965. I liked the varied activities among the numerous student groups, leading me to help organize and sponsor school events that recognized their interests. The student body was diverse in terms of social class, and friendships were strong. In serving as student body president, I learned to listen to and then call on fellow students for help.

From Comic Books to Campus View Books: College Admissions and Images I was a serious student who continued to love reading outside books assigned for academic classes. Comic books, movies, television, advertising, and commercial art

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

5

persisted as my interests. Their graphics and storylines and energy enticed me at age 17 – just as they had done at age 7. Growing up in Los Angeles was a fertile place for reading, watching, and listening to a vibrant American popular culture. Movies, rock n’ roll, radio stations, spectator sports, pulp fiction, paperback novels, and commercial architecture became my enduring interests. Watching college sports at several different campuses increased my fascination with connections between colleges and the broader American culture. Eventually, the media coverage of popular culture made sense to me as central to as dramatic changes in American social history. In 1964 I was browsing paperback books at our local uptown bookstore. And then I unexpectedly came across historian Daniel J. Boorstin’s new book, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo Events in America (Boorstin, 1964). This was the book that helped me reconcile contemporary life with the historical record. Boorstin, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian who was a professor at the University of Chicago, gave legitimacy to what he called the “graphics revolution” of advertising, commercial art, public relations, posters, pulp fiction, and movies. He argued these had transformed American life. I found him persuasive. Thanks to his book, all the items I loved but that usually were not considered scholarly now were legitimate for me to study seriously. For me, Boorstin’s book was comparable to receiving a lifetime hunting license to explore American popular culture and then analyze why it should be a critical part of American history. In high school, I shifted from comic books to college view books and started writing away to colleges across the country to receive their admissions materials. The view books were a close cousin of comic books because both created a world of images I embraced and believed all of them. They relied on the “graphic arts” and mass production strategies Daniel Boorstin had explored and explained. Consider this passage from the 1963 college admissions viewbook, Preface to Pomona: Whatever an atlas may show, there are those who say that the westernmost out post of New England is Claremont, California, where one may live on Dartmouth Avenue, shop on Yale, and go to church on Harvard . . . But an institution’s heritage is not to be confused with its present. Pomona is basically a western college and a quite different place from what it would be where it located elsewhere. It is this very combination of New England ancestry and a California environment that gives Pomona its distinctive character.

Furthermore, a distinctive feature was that Pomona College was a founding member of “The Claremont Colleges,” which a public relations firm had promoted as “The Oxford of the Orange Belt.” It joined with Scripps College, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont Men’s College, Pitzer College, and Claremont Graduate School to form an academic community and image. Each week I looked forward to finding in my mailbox additional admissions brochures from colleges nationwide. I thought the admissions materials were creating a “fantastic voyage” for prospective students, images that had only a partial connection with the realities of institutional management and operations. For example, the new University of California at Santa Cruz gained a conspicuous place among college images because it sent applicants a view book in the Spring of 1965 even though it had not yet opened and had no students, alumni, traditions, or

6

J. R. Thelin

completed buildings. For the college public relations staff, the clever solution was to craft a view book that emphasized adventure and the coastal Redwood setting. The view book exclaimed and explained that students could be “academic pioneers who lived in twentieth century covered wagons.” What this meant was that freshmen in the first entering class would be living in trailers until the Oxford-style quadrangles were constructed (Thelin, 2018, p. 33). The editors of the Harvard College view book showcased sepia tint photographs of historic buildings and monuments with the enticing prose: “Age, like money, does not make a college great. But it helps!” Who could deny that? I was hooked. In the twenty-first century such innovations as the common application form allow – even encourage – a high school senior to apply to numerous colleges. This was not so in 1964. My parents restricted me to applying to four colleges. I was expected to pay for college without going into debt. This was before an era of Pell Grants and federal student financial aid. I was able to cobble together earnings from summer jobs, campus jobs during the academic year, funding from a small local scholarship award, along with some support from the California Department of Rehabilitation due to my severe hearing loss. I applied to Pomona College University of California, Berkeley, Brown University, and the University of Southern California. Quite by surprise, I received a letter from the founding Chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz inviting me to be a member of their first entering class – even though I had not filed an application there. One important consideration was that I was dedicated to competing in intercollegiate varsity wrestling. The Brown University wrestling coach had learned about my interest and also my high school winning record and encouraged me to apply. Also, in October 1964 News week featured a highly favorable article about the academic ascent of Brown University, titled “Brown Grows the Ivy.” All things considered, I decided to “go back East” to college and accepted the admissions and financial aid offer from Brown University.

College Years at Brown University, 1965 to 1969 Going to college in New England was exciting and challenging. The architecture, topography, and culture of Rhode Island and Massachusetts were in stark contrast to what had become familiar to me in California. The Brown University campus was historic and interesting to explore. The city of Providence was old and characterized by political machines, ethnic and religious factions, diverse neighborhoods, and a local economy that was in decline. I was fortunate to have roommates who became close friends and always welcomed me to their family homes in such nearby cities as Boston and New York City. One adjustment was not having the cohort of high school friends I had left behind. I devoted myself to coursework and academic exploration. Brown’s new Rockefeller Library was open until midnight. Its state-of-the-art facilities included carrels next to tall windows that provided a panoramic view of the campus and city. I studied there and wrote papers. Late one Saturday night after

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

7

having completed course assignments I indulged in browsing the stacks looking at books about colleges and universities. By chance, I came across a large volume edited by A.C. Spectorsky, The College Years (Spectorsky, 1958). Published in 1958, it was an anthology of student memoirs about campus life. Spectorsky had served for years as the editor for Esquire magazine and had a keen eye for biography and fiction. His volume was a rich source of accounts by students, ranging from medieval to modern eras. Excerpts from college humor magazines, recollections by famous alumni, and delightful accounts of college incidents by scoundrels and dropouts captured my attention. It provided a guide for the kinds of work I might use in my own papers for various courses. Spectorsky’s focus on student memoirs provided a catalyst in helping me to connect historical studies and higher education. I bought my own copy and relied on it as a source in my own academic career. One question Spectorsky’s anthology raised for me was how future generations of students would write about their own undergraduate experiences. My courses in history and in sociology seldom required textbooks. Rather, professors had us read scholarly works that defined the field. This led me to read a book that shaped my approach to historical study. It was The Waning of the Middle Ages by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (1954). His lyrical prose, eye for detail, and ability to convey the vitality and depth of the numerous rituals and rites of passage in the round of life for people in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries transported me into a new level of research and I began to develop my own distinctive historical imagination and writing style. A pivotal episode occurred in October 1967 during the Fall semester of my junior year. I took an upper-division course in Renaissance History, with an enrollment of about 60 students. One Wednesday morning at the beginning of class the professor, who had studied at universities in Italy and Greece, made an unexpected announcement. He said that he was suspending his scheduled lecture, opting instead to devote the class time to reading aloud a student’s essay. He said he had never made such a change in his teaching career. I was startled when he announced that he was going to read my essay about the changes from medieval life to the Italian Renaissance. What made this especially surprising to me was that I had written that paper after a long hard wrestling practice on Saturday afternoon. I was tired, then preoccupied with losing weight and getting in shape. Yet I wrote decisively to finish the paper by the Monday morning deadline. After Wednesday’s class, my classmates congratulated me. They respected good work and spread the word which helped establish my role among fellow students as a serious writer and historian. Thanks to reading and writing, I had found my voice and found my place within the Brown campus community. I carried through on my plan to combine academics and athletics. I was a member of the wrestling team and learned to balance studies with long, hard practices and college matches. Wrestling teammates were talented in both studies and sports. At Brown and I think as at many Ivy League colleges, there was a high attrition rate in varsity sports participation because student-athletes thought the time committed to a sport detracted from academic work and, prospects for eventual admission to graduate or professional schools later. Most varsity athletes had been recruited by the university coaches. However, since the Ivy League did not allow athletic

8

J. R. Thelin

scholarships, student-athletes were not constrained in their choices about activities and academics by the threat of a coach taking away financial aid. I chose to continue with varsity wrestling and the challenge of demanding practices, serious studies, and limited time. A sequel to my decision to balance academics and athletics at Brown was that in 2006 I was selected for the “Ivy League at 50” celebration to honor outstanding scholar-athlete alumni.

Going to Graduate School: University of California, Berkeley, 1969 to 1974 We often think of major decisions being based on big things. But sometimes highly personal factors are the tipping point. As a senior at Brown, I was all set after graduation to enter a PhD program in sociology at the University of Chicago where I had been accepted and awarded a research fellowship. However, one morning in March I looked out my window in Providence, Rhode Island, and saw a bleak sky, 32 degrees, and 4 inches of snow. I checked the nationwide weather report and saw that Chicago had 6 inches of snow and grey skies. At the same time, coastal California was 72 with sunny skies and a mild Ocean breeze. So, I decided to go home for graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. I was a serious long-distance runner then and the combination of weather and terrain was magnetic. Berkeley turned out to be a very good decision. In 1969 most Americans associated Berkeley with campus unrest and student protests. This was captured in the popular nickname “Bezerkley.” That was not a consideration for me. I loved the university and community because of its great scholars, movie theatres, bookstores, coffee shops, inexpensive international restaurants with, interesting architecture, and good for long-distance running. By chance I found a job doing higher education research at a campus institute. The projects drew from including economics, sociology, business, statistics, and public policy. My role was to provide a historical perspective. It was exhilarating. Illustrative of the research this group pursued was the work of sociologist Martin Trow. Martin Trow and Burton Clark added a new dimension in studying the collective behavior of students within a campus. Such research meant that I found the intellectual interests of the Berkeley faculty and graduate students to be lively at informal events such as brown bag lunches and late afternoon coffee talks. One memorable example was at the School of Education monthly seminar where Martin Trow discussed a draft of his paper on the connections of quantitative change and qualitative differences in higher education. He argued that American higher education worked reasonably well when asked to enroll about 60% of high school graduates. However, when colleges and universities moved toward enrolling about 75% of high school graduates, higher education systems started to break down. This informal presentation was the basis for Trow’s influential article published in Daedalus about transitions from elite to mass to universal access to higher education (Trow, 1970). Another example of intellectual energy were the works and initiatives by Economics Professor Earl Cheit whose study about “The New Depression in Higher

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

9

Education” had already gained national attention for its unexpected finding that most American colleges and universities were in financial trouble (Cheit, 1971). In 1974, Cheit contributed to the Berkeley higher education forum by offering a graduate course in the School of Education dealing with the evolution of professional schools outside arts and sciences. His title, “The Useful Arts and the Liberal Tradition,” provided a sorely needed history of nationwide trends in the role of, respectively, Schools of Agriculture, Engineering, Business, and Forestry. He argued that these academic units were relatively newcomers who had little academic prestige yet were successful in gaining a place in the university curriculum and budget planning. His case studies suggested that the conventional model of the liberal arts as the center of the university was not always accurate for the institutional history of many colleges and universities. Since there were few available books or articles on the topic, Cheit assembled his own original research documents and seminar notes, which eventually were published as a book in the series sponsored by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (Cheit, 1975). The University of California, Berkeley was a fascinating puzzle. For undergraduates, the media coverage about the “Knowledge Factory” and the “impersonality of the university” was for the most part accurate. One interesting custom during the first 2 weeks of every academic quarter was called “going shopping.” What this meant was that students would attend the first class meeting of, for example, six classes in order to obtain the coveted enrollment card. But eventually, a student could sift and sort, keeping four classes and dropping two. It was mass higher education’s version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Graduate students, however, faced a different challenge. National studies had pronounced that the University of California, Berkeley was the top campus in the nation and perhaps worldwide for graduate studies. Contrary to popular media coverage, for graduate students, the paperwork and labyrinth of bureaucracy were relatively incidental. The key for a doctoral student was to find a gyroscope and then consider and sort out professors who took an interest in one’s research interests. The official requirements were necessary but not onerous. However, without a faculty sponsor, one would flounder. With a sponsor, one had a chance to make a case for one’s line of research exploration. My impression of professors at UC Berkeley was that they were serious and busy. Some figured out that the “hidden curriculum” for graduate students was to be devoted to scholarship. I combined an MA in American History with a PhD in the History of Education. It meant I had to persuade professors from a variety of departments and fields to join my doctoral committee, cooperate with other professors, and allow me to bring my studies of popular culture into my proposed doctoral program. The chemistry of the committee was crucial for the doctoral qualifying essays, oral exams, dissertation proposal, and then dissertation research. History as a field of study was important to my doctoral program plans in two ways. First, I sought out and worked with Berkeley history professors Henry F. May and Lawrence Levine, who were influential at that time in bringing issues of social class, religion, and race into American social history. Second, I joined a relatively new national scholarly group, the History of Education Society whose conferences and

10

J. R. Thelin

their journal, History of Education Quarterly, provided an excellent forum for an emerging generation of scholars known as “the new historians of education” in their emphasis on looking critically at schools and colleges in broad national and societal context. For my PhD dissertation, I wrote a history of the images and realities of “The Ivy League” as part of the American ethos of higher education, prestige, and upward mobility from 1890 to 1970. That meant I could draw from such forms of popular culture as sports pages, fashion advertisements, and popular novels about college life. One of my aims was to avoid the “top down” perspective and formality of official, commissioned institutional histories. I relied on sociologist Burton R. Clark’s notion of “organizational saga” and “the distinctive college” in which one considered the legends, lore, student memoirs, and campus monuments as part of the higher education institutional biography (Clark, 1970). This research approach attracted favorable attention and I was one of eight doctoral students campus-wide selected to be a University Regents Fellow.

From Berkeley to the Blue Grass: Professor at the University of Kentucky, 1974–1977 When I finished my PhD in 1973 colleges and universities were in deep financial trouble known as “the new depression in higher education.” The academic job market had collapsed. I worked patiently at a variety of editing and research jobs and was hired as a lecturer at Berkeley until my big break came in. In April 1974 the University of Kentucky invited me to interview for a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Philosophical Studies in Education. The interview went well and the Dean of the College of Education offered me the position. I accepted the offer and moved to Lexington to start teaching in Fall 1974. The Blue Grass region of Kentucky was new to me – and I loved exploring it. I recall walking around the UK campus and looking at Memorial Coliseum, the huge indoor arena that seated 10,000 fans and transformed college basketball into a big-time sport when it opened in 1950. This was my initiation into the South and to Southern colleges and universities. I also met Sharon Blackburn, who was my tour guide as together we explored Lexington and central Kentucky. Sharon, whose family had moved from Virginia to Kentucky in the early 1800s, showed me the heritage and beauty of the Commonwealth. And we would marry in 1978. She has been my editor, researcher, co-author, and partner ever since.

From Kentucky to California: Gaining Experience in Administration and Public Policy My teaching and research in the history of education went well at the University of Kentucky and I devoted increasing attention to studying many facets of colleges and universities. I left Kentucky in 1977 to go to California to gain administrative

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

11

experience in higher education. I settled into the picturesque town of Claremont, home of the six Claremont Colleges. At Pomona College, I was Assistant Dean of Admissions and Assistant Director of College Relations. I also taught graduate courses in higher education and the history of education at Claremont Graduate School, located just up the street Eventually, the administrative work and contacts led to an exciting invitation in 1979 to be Research Director in charge of policy analysis for California’s 64 private universities and colleges, known as AICCU. This was short for the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. The group included such major research universities as Stanford, the University of Southern California, and Cal Tech along with liberal arts colleges and several small universities. It was high stakes in policy and legislative relations both in the state capitol of Sacramento and in working with congressional staff and national associations in Washington, DC. What I found was that there was an opportunity for me to in which higher education research focused on current issues could make a difference in policy and legislative deliberations in student financial aid and expanding student access to college. An individual who made an important difference in my approach to higher education research was Howard J. Bowen, who had just retired then as President of Claremont Graduate School when I joined Pomona College and the Claremont Colleges. Bowen was famous as an economist of higher education (Bowen, 1978) and had been highly respected as President of the University of Iowa in the 1960s. I sought his advice about substantive approaches to the study of colleges and universities. He urged me to continue to develop historical analysis as the lens to consider such higher education issues as costs of higher education, measures of institutional health, changing practices in admissions and financial aid, and a focus on equity and access in going to college. I found his encouragement that I emphasize my historical approach to be compelling given his own experience in economics and statistical analyses. As a mentor, he thought the fusion of quantitative and qualitative research was both interesting and useful in making higher education a serious field of study. While working in policy analysis and government relations I also started writing scholarly books and articles. Howard Bowen’s suggestions paid off for me when I got in touch with Alfred Schenkman, founder and publisher of Schenkman Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He first published my historical study of the Ivy League based on my dissertation, The Cultivation of Ivy (Thelin, 1976), and then in 1977 encouraged me to develop my second book, Higher Education and Its Useful Past (Thelin, 1982) in which I made the case for historical analysis as part of applied research in college and university planning.

The College of William and Mary: Professor, 1981–1993 Publication of my books and articles on higher education led me to decide that I wished to be a full-time professor. So, in 1981 Sharon and I left California for Williamsburg, Virginia where I was a professor at The College of William and Mary, and Sharon was an editor and writer for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. My

12

J. R. Thelin

role was to develop the higher education doctoral program and increase its presence at the Association for the Study of Higher Education and other outreach initiatives. In our 13 years there, I also served the College of William and Mary as President of the Faculty Assembly and liaison to the Board of Visitors and was President of the Community United Way. My teaching and research gained acceptance and recognition on campus, as I received the Phi Beta Kappa Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship and was named as one of five Chancellor Professors university wide. My major avocation was running. Our team of senior runners won a national championship, and I won the state ten-mile championship in the master’s division. Teaching and advising loads were heavy. Most graduate students in our Higher Education program combined full-time professional jobs with their doctoral degree studies. Given the limited time I had for research, I tried to select writing projects that were both interesting and manageable. One project that met these conditions came about in 1981 when the Editor of The Review of Higher Education invited me to serve as Associate Editor in charge of essay reviews for each issue. In a similar vein, in 1985 John C. Smart, Editor of this publication in its infancy – Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research – assigned me to write for each edition a chapter in which I chose a higher education topic and analyzed its historical development. These were interesting projects which included, respectively, such topics as selective admissions (Thelin, 1984), campus architecture (Thelin and Yankovich, 1987), institutional research (Thelin and Krotseng, 1989), university archives (Thelin and Baldwin, 1990), and a study of fiction about college life (Thelin and Townsend, 1988). I was able to call on graduate students and colleagues to join me as co-authors. In 1989 I received a major research grant from The Spencer Foundation for my proposed three-year study of scandals in intercollegiate athletics from 1890 to the present. Eventually, this led to Johns Hopkins University Press publishing my resultant book, Games Colleges Play (Thelin, 1994). The Association of American Research Libraries selected this for their award as the outstanding book of the year about sports. It was the start of my good collaboration with the editors and publishers at the Johns Hopkins University Press. My interest in and curiosity about different kinds of institutions nationwide led me to accept a professorship at Indiana University (IU) in 1993 with responsibility for developing philanthropy as a central theme within the study of higher education. It included an appointment to the faculty and advisory board of the university’s new Center on Philanthropy whose offices were in Indianapolis. At IU I was able to delve into the study of such philanthropic issues as endowments as part of immediate and long-term university financial planning as well as connecting higher education to the larger sphere of nonprofit organizations and agencies which I called “horizontal history.” Indiana University provided me an opportunity to be part of a “Big Ten” research university which was a member of the Association of American Universities.

From Indiana University to the University of Kentucky, 1996 to 2022 In 1996 I received a call from a colleague at the University of Kentucky. He told me that UK was searching for a senior professor in higher education and public policy.

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

13

Sharon and I missed Lexington so we were interested in returning. It was a chance for homecoming and for us to be close to her family. As a professor at the University of Kentucky since 1996, I found it to be a good place for freedom of inquiry and choice of research topics. Our department of Educational Policy Studies was dedicated to bringing such varied academic disciplines as anthropology, law, philosophy, statistics, and history to the study of significant educational issues. It included for me the opportunity to design and teach new courses in such topics as Higher Education and Athletics, Philanthropy and Higher Education, Historical Research on Education, and Public Policy Issues in Higher Education. Arranging collaborations with colleagues in other departments and colleges was encouraged. Above all, appointment as a professor at the University of Kentucky allowed one to be a participantobserver in the transformation of public higher education, especially at research universities, in the South. This was not a transient interest on my part. I transformed my curiosity into a serious research question and a formal grant application. In 2000, I received a major research grant from the Spencer Foundation to study how research universities in the South had developed since World War II. Central to my argument was that much of the “national” scholarly literature about research universities tended to give little attention to universities in the South that were members of the Association of American Universities. My commitment to scholarly research and professional service coincided because at the same time I received the Spencer Grant I also was elected President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). As president of ASHE, my approach was to keep a low profile and focus on identifying new talented among higher education professors and graduate students to assure the vitality of the field as we entered the twenty-first century. My ASHE presidential election was perhaps indicative of changing regional representation since most previous ASHE presidents were professors at Midwestern universities who were members of The Big Ten whereas my affiliation with the University of Kentucky (and, by extension, the Southeastern Conference) suggested growing inclusion of universities of the South in national organizations. It was a good opportunity to connect that governance and service to my Spencer Foundation grant about Southern research universities, including the social and political history of the South with the region’s distinctive history of higher education. My doctoral student advisee, Amy Wells, excelled as a research associate on this project who then would go on to make a distinctive mark in writing about how higher education in the South meshed with the initiatives of major foundations based in New York City. Around 2006, I was able to revive this research interest I had started earlier at Indiana University a few years earlier – namely, the study of nonprofit organizations and such practices as perpetual endowments, a legal and customary practice whereby educational and charitable chartered institutions accepted with little question that college trustees would be financially irresponsible if they were to spend down the principle funds in an endowment. This bore fruit a few years later at the University of Kentucky in my collaborations with Dr. Richard Trollinger, Vice President of Centre College as we critically analyzed these policies. Our archival research and historical case studies eventually led us to publish a book on Philanthropy and American Higher Education (Thelin & Trollinger, 2016). At the same time we collaborated on

14

J. R. Thelin

a research grant from the Aspen Institute which led to our receiving a research award from the Council for the Advancement of Education (CASE) for our studies of philanthropy.

Going Around in Academic Circles: Research and Development, 1970–2022 The preceding chronology stakes out particular periods and activities that have defined my professional life. In fact, I have focused on some themes repeatedly over many years.

The Historical Base I am a historian who studies colleges and universities as an integral part of American and European social history. This is essential in terms of the kinds of methods, sources, and logic I bring to studying significant higher education issues. Here are some examples of how this has played out over time.

Writing the Big Book: A History of American Higher Education I wrote A History of American Higher Education, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2004 in large part because one of my favorite books had gone out of print. For years I had relied on Frederick Rudolph’s 1962 classic work, The American College and University: A History. The book went out of print around 1983 and eventually, I had difficulty finding used copies for students in my course to read. Then, in 1988 I received an unexpected letter from Frederick Rudolph, who was by then professor emeritus of history at Williams College. He explained that he had read several of my articles and then asked me if I would consider writing a Preface for what was to be a re-release of his book. The new publisher would be the University Press of Georgia, which had obtained copyrights from the original publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. I was flattered by Professor Rudolph’s invitation and I agreed to take on this project. Long after the new edition of his book was published we continued to correspond. Eventually, I realized that since Rudolph ended his history dealing with events following World War II, there were new historical stories that had yet to be told. In 2002, the Editorial Director at Johns Hopkins University Press, Jacqueline Wehmueller, suggested that the time was right for a fresh history of colleges and universities that extended into the twenty-first century. I found this idea attractive because it would allow me to make the recent past part of the historical interpretation. I then worked with Editor Ashleigh Elliott McKown in drafting chapters and cooperating with the production staff.

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

15

One condition I requested was that I be allowed to discuss my book proposal with Frederick Rudolph. I did so and he gave me his support. I was committed to writing a fresh, original history that respected Rudolph’s classic work without imitating it. I wanted the book to be readable and concise, with the entire sweep of the history of American higher education interpreted in a single volume. In outlining plans for A History of American Higher Education, I wanted each chapter about a particular era to include explicit discussion of access and exclusion and analysis of issues pertaining to gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and social class (Thelin, 2004). I wanted to give attention to what I called those who were “left over” and “left out.” My intent was to allow readers to keep a running record of how changes in the composition of who went to college were taking place. I warned readers, as I had long cautioned my graduate students, that the history of higher education was not for the faint-hearted. It often included exclusion and discrimination as well as expanding opportunities and diversity. Thus, the sagas of institutional success had to be balanced with a sense of conflict and tension as well. In sum, I wanted my writing on the history of colleges and universities to include both celebration and criticism. Furthermore, I paid attention to campus architecture and the various monuments and memorials that colleges constructed – and sometimes tore down. My emphasis on architecture was less on the grand designs provided by architects and more on how students actually used buildings to suit their activities and projects. This included nicknames students created, such as Yale’s cathedral-like Payne Whitney Gymnasium which students called “The Temple of Sweat.” It also focused on town and gown relations, with campus construction in some cases leading to neighborhood destruction. This is one area that is ripe for more research by future historians. My dependence on works by colleagues included, for example, Maresi Nerad’s history of gender conflicts at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Nerad, who is both an astute institutional researcher and statistician as well as historian, used the term “academic kitchen” to analyze the saga of women as second-class citizens within a coeducational campus (Nerad, 1999). I also relied on the works and commentary of long-time colleague and friend, historian Linda Eisenmann, whose own research had focused on women in American higher education after 1945 (Eisenmann, 2007). Yet the limit of even a good historical interpretation is that there is no assurance that readers gain an appreciation for one of the defining steps in historical research – namely, reading original historical documents. Thanks to Johns Hopkins University Press Editorial Director Greg Britton, we found a solution, he proposed I compile and annotate an anthology of historical documents that would be synchronized with the major book as a companion volume. Two graduate students, David M. Brown and Jillian Faith, devoted a summer of intense research, review, and editing in working with me to compile a coherent, interesting anthology. If in the main book I referred to a speech, letter, or a notable event, I keyed it to corresponding materials in the anthology. Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education (Thelin, 2014) was designed to provide readers with the experience of analyzing

16

J. R. Thelin

sources, ranging from student memoirs and Hollywood movies to interviews with a faculty spouse, remarks at the dedication of a campus statue, and the reports of government agencies.

“Cliometrics” and the Colleges: Historical Statistics and Higher Education Research I have long been interested in the perspectives each academic discipline brings to research. A corollary is that some disciplines tend to dominate the research on certain higher education topics. Economists, for example, have been conspicuous in policy research in two areas: concern about the rising costs of college and probing student retention and graduation rates. My question was whether historians had significant contributions to make in studying such issues. Historians have potential because economists often are limited by their statistical databases. Compilation of key higher education indicators for institutions nationwide really did not start until the late 1960s, with what was then called “HEGIS” – short for “Higher Education General Information Systems.” This category later would be renamed “IPEDS” – an abbreviation for “Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems.” The limit to me was that economists could explore questions back to about 1970. Historians perhaps could push analysis back into earlier years to provide a sense of long-term patterns. In other words, I was recommending the creation of databases that represented “Historical HEGIS.” Consider the heated, enduring discussions in the media and in scholarly journals about “Why does college cost so much?” To me, that suggested perhaps there was some period when college may have been reasonably affordable. If things have become so bad, when were they good? My approach was to go back to 1910 to analyze tuition charges and institutional budgets. Prestigious colleges such as Harvard, Brown, and Amherst charged about $150 per academic year for tuition. Living expenses were low. Even when indexed for inflation, the price an undergraduate spent to go to college a century ago was low. In fact, I concluded that by keeping prices low, colleges offered students few support services and almost no financial aid. It was a pricing strategy that led to a high drop-out rate and a false sense of thrift (Thelin, 2015). This surprising finding then led me to ask whether American higher education had a “tradition of attrition.” Between 1970 and 2022 legislators scolded colleges for having low graduation rates. It was a significant concern because college leaders faced a perennial problem in responding to public and Congressional concerns over allegations of low retention and graduation rates in the present era. Critics of colleges presumed that there must have been some golden age perhaps in the early 1900s when almost all undergraduates were dedicated to their studies and graduated in 4 years. My research relied on systematic tracking of students at a range of colleges around 1910, leading to the surprising finding that graduation rates at historic, prestigious colleges were low (Thelin, 2009, 2013). For college graduation, the implication was that perhaps the “good old days” were not so good!

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

17

The Continuing Interest in the Study of Intercollegiate Athletics Each time I have completed an article or research project dealing with intercollegiate athletics I presumed that this would exhaust my involvement with the topic. I have continued to be wrong about this prediction. College sports have persisted in surfacing as a topic of serious concern by political leaders and higher education associations and of interest to the American public. It has included a demand for a historical perspective on recent developments in the character and control of intercollegiate athletics. I have been pleased to comply with requests to provide added analyses and articles. The unifying thread in my research about college sports is to dare to ask counterintuitive questions. For example, at The College of William and Mary in 1988 my good friend and colleague, Professor Larry Wiseman of the Biology Department, joined me in asking whether college sports programs were going broke. Our finding was that athletics departments frequently failed to balance their budgets. More surprising was our estimate that many NCAA Division I football programs often rely on subsidies from the university’s general fund (Thelin & Wiseman, 1989). Our vindication was that in 1989 at the inaugural hearings of the Knight Commission on the Future of College Sports we were invited to Washington, D.C. to provide expert testimony. Both university presidents and athletic directors squirmed, reluctantly conceding that we had made a legitimate point. My research on college sports led to additional projects. In 2002 the Harvard athletic department invited me to be one of their featured speakers at the 150th anniversary of the Harvard Athletic Association as the oldest intercollegiate athletics program in the nation. In 2008 the President of the NCAA, Myles Brand, appointed me to be a charter member and co-chair of the NCAA research advisory committee. Brand, who had served as President of the University of Oregon and then Indiana University, was the first university president to serve as President of the NCAA. He welcomed critical analysis of college sports and highlighted our research advisory committee’s symposium at the annual NCAA convention. Between 2016 and 2018 I wrote several articles about the place of athletic talent in admissions to academically selective colleges. This included Ivy League admissions and court cases involving lawsuits against Harvard in admissions bias. In 2018, the admissions scandal known as “Varsity Blues” provided yet another spotlight on the abuses of privileged families in the contest for college admissions (Thelin, 2019). In studying college sports as part of higher education, I have tried to connect the past and present. This approach served me well when in January 2021 I accepted an invitation from Professor Ronald Smith of Pennsylvania State University to join him and a team of four other historians to write an amicus brief for the United States Supreme Court in the case of the NCAA v. Alston. The case dealt with the rights of intercollegiate student-athletes to receive certain kinds of payments for NameImage-Likeness endorsements while still retaining their amateur standing. The Supreme Court accepted that brief into its docket for opening arguments on March 31, 2021. Then, on June 21st they rendered their decision, 9–0 against the NCAA. Justice Gorsuch in the majority opinion and Justice Kavanaugh in the concurrent

18

J. R. Thelin

opinion both relied substantially on our historians’ brief. We received an award from the Education Law Association for the outstanding Supreme Court Brief of the Year. A message for higher education researchers was that the brief showed that in current higher education debates, “history matters.”

Higher Education and the Public Forum Writing articles for refereed journals and books for university presses is, of course, central to scholarship about higher education. I do think scholars gain from taking time to present research findings about higher education in the public forum and popular press. For me, this has meant accepting invitations to write op-ed articles for national media and present talks about my research to various groups including national associations such as the Association for the Study of Higher Education along with numerous institutes and organizations nationwide. This has included presenting a Congressional briefing along with talks and other public events to other associations in Washington, D.C. such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Council of Independent College, and the American Council on Education. My op-ed articles have appeared in Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education as well as more general media such as The Conversation and The Washington Post. The challenge of the public forum is that an author has only a short time to make a significant point and gain the attention and questions of a discerning readership.

Summary and Conclusion: Coming of Age in Higher Education I came of age as a historian of higher education during the years in which Higher Education came of age as a respected field of scholarly analysis. That coincidental overlap was good for me as I gained a great deal by reading and working with influential and pioneering scholars from a variety of disciplines. They established networks of correspondence, edited scholarly journals, and wrote influential position papers and op-ed pieces. Their organizational work helped such organizations as the Association for the Study of Higher Education and the History of Education Society promote interesting research. These scholars included numerous colleagues who had served both as professors and also as university presidents and deans. They crossed disciplinary lines to draw from several academic fields where, despite or because of disagreements, the common thread was a shared concern that American higher education was important and imperfect. This was not always easy. Nor was it always a matter of academic or analytic controversies. For example, I recall the 1979 ASHE Conference held at the Hilton Hotel on Connecticut Avenue near DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C. where our research paper sessions were held in basement meeting rooms. Panelists and speakers who were trying to make a serious point about higher education and federal policies had to compete with the clanging of hammers by repairmen who were

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

19

installing new air conditioning ducts. Despite such annoyances, the disparate group of scholars who agreed on the importance of higher education as a topic worthy of study persevered in their work and discussions. And, today in 2022 I think it is fair to say that the study of higher education has been significant and substantive. My estimate is that the combination of collaboration, cooperation, and discussion has helped this success story over about a half-century reach maturity. Beyond and beneath that concise summary I extract some observations about principles that gave the study of higher education a sound base and its enduring character as a work in progress.

The Synergy of Teaching, Research, and Service A recurrent claim in the academic profession is that there is a conflict between “teaching and research.” I have not found teaching and research to be conflicting. Rather, I find them complementary. Second, at many colleges and universities, there is a group of faculty who defy the teaching versus research conflict who also are dedicated to institutional and professional service. This is the model I respect and have tried to achieve. My personal decision has always been to put teaching first over research and scholarly writing. The prospect of being unprepared for a semester course or for a class meeting has been a situation I have never wanted to face. I have benefitted from that priority as many graduate students with whom I have talked and taught over many decades have been both appreciative and talented. The universities at which I have taught have seldom provided abundant fellowships or financial aid for higher education students. The interesting result is that our courses and programs attract an interesting, resilient group who draw from diverse professional and academic backgrounds. Their original contributions and insights about higher education have been outstanding. I especially have appreciated working with them over many years as coauthors and later as colleagues. Watching and applauding their own academic and professional achievements reinforce my conviction that I have been fortunate to be in the right field in the right place and at the right time. I have been pleased when publishers have asked me to write about contemporary higher education issues. This included the 2013 project with ABC-Clio Press to write The Rising Costs of Higher Education. In 2017 ASHE colleagues Professors Marybeth Gasman and Edward St. John, in collaboration with Editor Heather Jarrow of Routledge: Taylor & Frances Publishers, invited me to write American Higher Education: Issues and Institutions (Thelin, 2017). These required me to rely on historical research less as the focus and more as the context in analyzing issues. I find interdependence to be crucial for good research and writing about higher education. I have had numerous mentors, colleagues, editors, research assistants, graduate students, and former students who have made research interesting and significant. In part, this is because their comments represent critical analysis and debate. I am indebted to them for their contributions.

20

J. R. Thelin

There also is reciprocity in the various facets of scholarly publication. I have been an author, a grant reviewer, and called on by a university press editor to comment on a manuscript submission or book proposal. And, college and university archivists were generous in tracking down documents. These collaborations created a community of scholars. This community has enhanced my commitment to writing about higher education from a historical perspective. And the opportunity to write and review these trends has been timely. For several decades American higher education has had excellent media coverage by Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education. The editors of these publications have provided a forum for op-ed essays featuring scholarly research findings about issues facing colleges and universities. I appreciate these both as a researcher and as a reader because they confirm the vitality of higher education as a field of study and discussion. The editors of this annual volume of Higher Education: A Handbook of Theory and Research have good timing. I am grateful to Editor Professor Laura Perna, a respected colleague, for inviting me in August 2021 to participate. My long-time colleague and friend, the late Professor Michael A. Olivas, immediately encouraged me to accept the invitation. I did so and filed my manuscript on June 30, 2022 – which coincidentally is the day I retired from my faculty appointment. I appreciate very much the opportunity to go full circle in the Academic Procession, in step with respected colleagues in our exploration of and participation in higher education.

References Boorstin, D. J. (1964). The image: A guide to pseudo-events in America. Harper and Row. Bowen, H. R. (1978). Investment in learning. Jossey-Bass. Cheit, E. F. (1971). The new depression in higher education: A study of the financial condition of 41 colleges and universities. McGraw-Hill. Cheit, E. F. (1975). The useful arts and the liberal tradition. McGraw-Hill for the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Clark, B. R. (1970). The distinctive college: Antioch, reed, & Swarthmore. Aldine. Eisenmann, L. (2007). Higher education for women in Postwar America, 1945–1965. Johns Hopkins University Press. Huizinga, J. (1954). The waning of the middle ages. Doubleday Anchor. Jencks, C., & Riesman, D. (1968). The academic revolution. Doubleday Anchor. Nerad, M. (1999). The academic kitchen. State University of New York Press. Rudolph, F. R. (1962). The American college and university: A history. Alfred A. Knopf. Slosson, E. E. (1910). Great American universities. Macmillan. Spectorsky, A. C. (Ed.). (1958). The college years. Hawthorn. Thelin, J. R. (1976). The cultivation of ivy: A Saga of the College in America. Schenkman Publishers. Thelin, J. R. (1982). Higher education and its useful past: Applied history in research and planning. Schenkman Publishers. Thelin, J. R. (1984). Cliometrics and the colleges: The campus condition, 1880–1920. Research in Higher Education, 21(4), 425–437. Thelin, J. R. (1994). Games colleges play: Scandal and reform in intercollegiate. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Thelin, J. R. (2004). A history of American higher education. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

1

Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life

21

Thelin, J. R. (2009). The attrition tradition in American higher education: Connecting past and present. American Enterprise Institute Monograph. Thelin, J. R. (2013). Numbers, please! History of Education Quarterly, 53(2), 150–156. Thelin, J. R. (2014). Essential documents in the history of American higher education. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Thelin, J. R. (2015). Why did college cost so little?: Affordability and higher education a century ago. Society, 52(6), 585–589. Thelin, J. R. (2017). American higher education: Issues & institutions. Routledge. Thelin, J. R. (2018). Going to College in the Sixties. Johns Hopkins University Press. Thelin, J. R. (2019). An embarrassment of riches: Admissions and ambition in American higher education. Society, 56(4), 329–334. Thelin, J. R., & Baldwin, R. G. (1990). Thanks for the memories: The fusion of quantitative and qualitative research on college students and the college experience. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. VI). Agathon Press. Thelin, J. R., & Krotseng, M. V. (1989). Higher Education’s odd couple: The campus archives and the Office of Institutional Research. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. V, pp. 180–197). Agathon Press. Thelin, J. R., & Townsend, B. K. (1988). Fiction to fact: College novels and the study education. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. IV, pp. 183–211). Agathon Press. Thelin, J. R., & Trollinger, R. W. (2016). Philanthropy and American higher education. Palgrave Macmillan. Thelin, J. R., & Wiseman, L. (1989). The old college try: balancing academics and athletics in higher education. ASHE-ERIC. Thelin, J. R., & Yankovich, J. (1987). Bricks and mortar architecture and the study of higher education. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 3, pp. 57–83). Agathon Press. Trow, M. (1970). Reflections on the transition from mass to universal higher education. Daedalus, 99(1), 1–42.

John R. Thelin is University Research Professor in the History of Higher Education & Public Policy at the University of Kentucky. An alumnus of Brown University he concentrated on history, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was a varsity letterman in wrestling. John earned his MA in American History and PhD in the History of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. He also has been a professor at The College of William and Mary and Indiana University. He served as President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Among his books is A History of American Higher Education.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education A Review of the Literature Linda Eisenmann

Contents Imagining a Gendered Lens: Three Calls over Forty Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender, Women, and Intersectionality Working in Tandem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review of the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Femininities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Masculinities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intersectional Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coeducation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professionals and Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Politics and Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions and Recommendations for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26 31 34 35 48 57 67 75 82 85 87 88

Abstract

This chapter reviews scholarship on the history of women and gender in American higher education published since 2000, using the conceptual framework of a gendered lens which analyzes the impact of gender on structures, events, decisions, and behavior, even when women or men are not present. Historians have made impressive progress applying this lens to curricula, extracurricular activities, college regulations, differential treatment of students, students’ enactments of femininity and masculinity, and the impact of a gendered faculty labor market. Two related themes also appear: women and intersectionality. Regarding women, robust exploration continues, featuring two arguments: commitments to women’s

Christine Ogren and Marc Van Overbeke were the Associate Editors for this chapter. L. Eisenmann (*) Department of Education, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_6

23

24

L. Eisenmann

needs were seldom paramount in collegiate decision-making, and historians increasingly see women’s activism as only part of a larger story about markets and institutional self-interest. Regarding intersectionality, greater awareness that overlapping identities affect experience has expanded studies of different groups of students and faculty. Overall, historians have made most progress examining women’s participation, LGBTQ students and faculty, and intersections of higher education with race. Less progress appears around religion, class, and the impact of policy. The field would benefit from additional attention to racial identities beyond white and Black women, to transgender individuals, to campus staff beyond faculty, and to use of theory. Keywords

Women · Gender · Higher education history · Masculinities · Femininities · Policy · Religion · LGBTQ students · Coeducation · Professionals · Southern higher education · Race · Title IX · Faculty · Deans of women · Expectations for students · Intersectional identities Throughout my academic career, I have identified myself as “a historian of women’s higher education.” Coming of (scholarly) age in the late-1980s, just as women’s history was establishing itself as a powerful tool, it seemed right both personally and professionally to use that lens to explore the meaning of higher education for female students and academic professionals. But in the last few years, I have begun to identify myself as “a historian of women and gender in higher education.” Based on that expanded conception, I created a new course called Gender and Education; I edited a special issue on history for the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education; I organized a panel for the History of Education Society called “Gender and Higher Education: Where Are We? Where Should We Go?”; and I proposed a discussion for the 2022 Southern History of Education Society meeting that asked, “Do We Have a ‘Gendered Lens’ in the History of Higher Education? And, Do We Know It When We See It?” There’s no denying the strength and proliferation of work on women’s higher education over the past 40 years, but this growth highlights intriguing questions of how the field has developed more recently and whether it has connected to wider issues of gender and its intersections with other aspects of identity. To explore these new developments, this chapter examines the historical literature of the past two decades through a gendered lens. The focus is not on gender as theory – as useful as that can be – but rather on how gender and its connections with other identities shapes and is shaped by educational practices, policies, and spaces. As discussed more fully in the following section, a gendered lens expands the historiography to consider gender as an influence in higher education, even when women and men are not present together. Historians are beginning to recognize that people develop their understandings of gender over time, that college can be a time of accelerated gender exploration and development for students, and that faculty enact their careers within a gendered setting and labor market that affects opportunities for women and

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

25

for men. Strong work in the field is beginning to adopt a gendered lens that looks, for example, at curriculum, extracurricular opportunities, rules and regulations, differential treatment of women and men students and faculty, expectations for how students cultivate their understandings of femininity and masculinity, and how faculty deal with a gendered labor market that historically has privileged men. Using a gendered lens reveals the prominence of two themes that run through and often overlap in the historiography: women and intersectionality. Regarding women, historians are continuing a robust exploration of their campus involvements, with a gendered focus that expands our understanding of women and their experiences, along with newer findings that go beyond earlier historiographic phases that, initially, “reclaimed” women in histories where they were absent and, later, asserted and demonstrated women’s agency on collegiate campuses. In the most recent literature, two related arguments appear: first, that commitments to women’s needs were seldom paramount in collegiate decision-making that involved women, and, second, that the attribution of significant change to women’s own activism is only part of a larger story about the role of markets and institutional self-interest. Regarding intersectionality, greater awareness that overlapping identities involving race, class, and religion interact with gender in affecting people’s experience has led to expanded studies of different groups of students and faculty, both those who identify as women and those who do not. Increasingly, historians are developing a deep literature on the experiences of Black collegians and faculty, but fewer have examined other ethno-racial groups or students from middle-class or working-class backgrounds, or how religious background interacts with other identities, including gender. The chapter begins by looking at how several prominent historians of women’s higher education have advocated for using gender as a key historiographic lens. The first such appeal came in 1983 from Geraldine Jonçich Clifford, who – in the midst of historiography that she considered still caught in the “women-as-victim” model (p. 13) – recommended examining gender issues even in places where women were not present. Finding only minimal progress on Clifford’s suggestion, Mary Ann Dzuback repeated the call in 2003, arguing that gender must be considered as the central element of all higher education history. Recognizing some progress, Margaret Nash extended the idea in 2018, urging historians to jettison what she called a structuralist approach to higher education which views men as holding all the power and always in the position to decide whether or not women should be included. Nash advocated for exploring the varieties of power that people – including women – hold at different times and in different settings. The arguments by Clifford (1983), Dzuback (2003), and Nash (2018a, b) constitute a call for using a gendered lens in our historical explorations; that is, for seeking and analyzing the impact of gender on structures, events, decisions, and behavior, even when women and/or men might not be present. This chapter recognizes the power of their idea and uses the gendered lens as a conceptual framework for examining recent historiography. Because gender-focused studies often weave together ideas about women and intersectionality, I use those as two background themes throughout the scholarship and demonstrate how they appear in the literature, which I organized into six different topical areas. Because so much work examines how students encounter and subsequently enact gender expectations on campuses,

26

L. Eisenmann

the first two areas explore femininities (topic number 1) and masculinities (topic number 2). These two areas are the most robust in recent historical work, ranging from studies of fraternities to body image and the gendered expansion of curricula in science and physical education. While intersectional elements are sometimes present in these studies, a third topical area looks specifically at intersectional identities (topic number 3), especially scholarship on race, class, and religion. Here, work on Black women and men represents the strongest line of inquiry, while scholars offer some perspective on how higher education engages with class and with different varieties of religion. Two strands of research have been particularly strong over the past two decades and merit their own examination around the interaction of gender, women, and intersectionality: the study of coeducation (topic number 4) and investigations of professionals in higher education (topic number 5). Interpretations of the impact and workings of coeducation have shifted considerably over time, moving from an earlier view that women were always disadvantaged and unwelcome on mixed campuses to a more nuanced assessment of schools and settings that demonstrate greater equity, especially normal schools and land-grant universities. The literature on higher education professionals has primarily explored how women deans of the early-twentieth century developed student affairs into a professionalized field, with men following their lead. This area also examines how female faculty, including on Black college campuses, negotiated opportunities for their teaching, research, and financial support. Finally, new literature is developing on how gender is implicated in national policy and politics (topic number 6). The 50th anniversary of Title IX, as well as the continued growth of national student loan programs, has prompted explorations of their gendered aspects, suggesting that some of women’s advances in higher education happened incidentally rather than through concerted planning. Overall, I focus primarily on books and articles written since 2000, mostly because other reviews (Eisenmann, 2001, 2018) have covered the earlier development of the field, and arguably, the use of gender as an analytical tool has grown most significantly over this recent period. The review concentrates on works that intentionally study gender and will not include synthetic histories of higher education or studies of institutions and individuals where gender is a passing aspect of the author’s inquiry.

Imagining a Gendered Lens: Three Calls over Forty Years Historians looking at women’s experience in American higher education usually suggest that the 1985 publication of Barbara Miller Solomon’s In The Company of Educated Women marks the new, sophisticated synthesis of material on women that had been appearing since the mid-1960s (Gordon, 1990; Horowitz, 1987; Palmieri, 1995). That is, by 1985, Solomon had enough raw material from studies of colonial women’s push for education, the development of women’s colleges, women’s use of higher education over time, and the growth of the female professoriate to pull together a remarkable summary and analysis of two centuries of American women’s engagement with advanced learning. Her work – which focused on women without a

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

27

particular emphasis on gender – laid the groundwork for hundreds of subsequent studies of access, experience, finances, and institutions, informed by her strongly asserted framework that “education evoked opposition” when sought by women and by her focus on “a dialectic between women’s demands for education and the opposition they encountered” (p. xviii). Appearing two years earlier than Solomon’s book was a lengthy and powerful article by Geraldine Jonçich Clifford (1983) called “‘Shaking Dangerous Questions from the Crease’: Gender and American Higher Education,” published in Feminist Issues. In many ways, Clifford’s piece is a sharper, more challenging foundation than Solomon’s for reviewing the historiography of gender in higher education because Clifford insists that historians must consider the impact of gender, both when women were present on campuses and when they were not. Although Clifford pays considerable attention to developments for women, she prompts readers to see these developments through a wider gendered lens, addressing what was happening beyond women’s concerns, what male students and faculty were experiencing, and how institutions were being developed around assumptions about their clientele and their purposes. Clifford uses the term “gender” rather broadly and, for the most part, simply speaks about men and women. She offers no explicit discussions of LGBTQ students or faculty, or people who challenged gender norms. However, rather presciently, she recognizes that scholars’ understanding of gender could very well change with time and with deeper examination: “This does not imply using static conceptions of sex roles and gender psychology. What is male and what is female have changed over time and across distances, and they will change again” (p. 13). Clifford posits that the very presence of women in programs, on campuses, and in educational jobs threatened the previously masculine – and masculinized – view of higher education. This setting had been created by and for men, managed by men, and with access controlled by men, and Clifford notes anxiety that “threats to the masculinity of higher education – effeminization – might come from the presence of even some women students” (p. 48). Amidst the power of this masculinized approach, Clifford argues, “There is little reason to think that higher education was truly exempted from the influence of gender and gender-thinking, even when it was exclusively male in its student body, faculty, administrators, and trustees” (p. 15). That is, male leaders of colleges and universities remained aware of what they needed to do to sustain their efforts, and continued to resist the participation of women as students and faculty. Thus, Clifford asserts, “If this is true, then gender fundamentally shaped the college and university before women appeared in the institution to threaten to change or challenge or call attention to its sexual nature” (italics in original, p. 15). In Clifford’s analysis, this “gender-thinking” went on primarily in people’s minds; but, when provoked by the increasing presence of women students and faculty throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, moved “from the unconscious to the conscious level of response and reaction” (italics in original, p. 15). Through that response and reaction, we see the frequent opposition to women’s participation that is such a sturdy theme in writing by Solomon and others. Clifford in fact celebrates the work – especially scholarship informed by social history – that built a new record of women’s engagement with higher education.

28

L. Eisenmann

However, she laments what she calls “the oppression model” that has “dominated early women’s studies research” (p. 7), with its emphasis on “woman-as-victim” (p. 10). She suspects that scholars’ own personal experience led them to look for “the roots of powerlessness” (p. 10) in the educational past, creating an “additive or compensatory stage of women’s scholarship . . . with the goal of consciousnessraising still somewhere in the background” (p. 12). Clifford then calls for a reconceptualization of both the questions historians explore and the writing of collegiate history, suggesting that the field has reached what Thomas Kuhn called a “paradigm shift” (quoted in Clifford, p. 12) where instead of simply adding new layers, scholars must build a new framework. For her, this would mean a “genderinformed history” (p. 15) that reimagines our understanding. She closes by demonstrating and modeling such a history, examining developing scholarship in four areas of inquiry: women and pedagogical change, women and their relationship to institutions (such as schools), women and institutional change (that is, how institutions changed as women entered), and “women and institutional anxiety” (that is, the perceived threat they posed to the status quo) (p. 15). Overall, Clifford asks us “to advance from writing a history of women in higher education to that of thinking about the role of gender in higher education” (p. 13). Although scholarship on women’s educational experiences boomed in the twenty years after Clifford’s article, her call for explicit examination of gender even when women were absent was not a preeminent focus of that work. In 2002, for her presidential address to the History of Education Society published in History of Education Quarterly (2003), Mary Ann Dzuback implicitly revisited Clifford’s idea, issuing a new call for understanding – and examining – the central role of gender in American higher education history. Dzuback, like Clifford, observed that, for the most part, historians had not turned to gender for their analytical focus: “If women were not there, the reasoning seemed to be, gender need not be studied” (p. 174). Rather, Dzuback argued, gender was seen as “merely an important concept primarily for understanding access” (p. 174). That is, the oppression model that Clifford observed two decades earlier continued to predominate. Dzuback, however, called for a much more potent application of gender analysis to educational history. She argued forcefully that “[t]he story of higher education in the United States is a story that cannot be understood without thorough attention to gender as the fundamental defining characteristic of American educational institutions, ideas, and practices” (p. 174). Collegiate institutions had been organized to educate and form male leaders, especially in the early United States. Their curricula were built around the knowledge such men needed; their practices emphasized behaviors these men needed to develop; and their campus life fostered relationships among men who would become leaders of the state, community, and industry. Not only was there no place for women in such a framework, but the very idea that women might seek a place – as they increasingly did by the late-nineteenth century – prompted fear “about how the feminine presence would affect [the institutions’] masculine character, their intellectual rigor, and their extracurricular life” (p. 173). For Dzuback, power factors into men’s resistance to women’s presence on college campuses. Citing theoretical understandings of gender promulgated by Joan Scott

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

29

and Gerda Lerner, she emphasizes that men’s use of power often regulated how men and women were expected to behave, as well as their relative access to opportunities and activities. Noting Lerner’s argument that “education was critical to the creation of feminist consciousness,” Dzuback extends the thought to higher education institutions, arguing that “[g]endered assumptions organized their missions and practices. Gender was repeatedly invoked to justify relations of power within them” (p. 176). Going even further than Clifford, Dzuback asserts the importance of a gendered lens: I argue that gender is the central story of the history of higher education. We simply cannot understand the most basic and normative concepts shaping the development of formal education without analyzing for gender. (p. 174)

Having issued her challenge, Dzuback demonstrates what such a reconceptualized history could look like, offering three examples. The first examines the field of teaching itself, as one where “men have been repeatedly displaced by women,” resulting in a gendered devaluation of the prestige and power of those roles (p. 176). A second appears in work like Nancy Beadie’s (2002), who examines the thinking of founders of educational institutions, such as religious groups or the state itself, finding gendered reasons in the creation, operations, and funding of schools and academies. The third case, exemplified by Kim Tolley’s (2003) study of the science education of American girls in relation to that of boys, examines what was thought to be the appropriate knowledge for young people, and for what purposes. This sense of the importance of knowledge not only changed over time but is often related to beliefs about students’ intellectual capacities. Dzuback follows these brief examples with a lengthier application of gender to her own study of female professors, demonstrating how women worked to infiltrate – and change – the male-dominated culture of academe. Overall, Dzuback echoes Clifford in arguing that a gendered lens does more than simply add to the historical narrative; it must reconceptualize that history completely. A third call for using gender as an analytical lens came fifteen years later from Margaret Nash in her edited volume, Women’s Higher Education in the United States: New Historical Perspectives (2018a, b). Like Clifford and Dzuback, Nash acknowledges that important ongoing work was enriching the historiography of higher education, but she asserts that historians had not used gender in a robust way to analyze developments across higher education. Like both Clifford and Dzuback, Nash argues for looking at power as a way into this analysis. In her introductory chapter, “Thoughts on the History of Women’s Education, Theories of Power, and This Volume,” Nash clarifies how her book – irrespective of its specific title – is about both women and gender. She asserts that scholars have primarily approached the history of women in higher education as following “a progressive trajectory of increasingly democratized access” in which women were generally added into a story of ever-expanding opportunity (p. 3). But, simply showing how and where women assumed a place does not change the overall narrative, she argues. Nash speculates that this is largely “because historians have taken a structuralist approach, and kept men and male institutions as the norm, into

30

L. Eisenmann

which women were either accepted or not” (p. 4). So, like both Clifford and Dzuback, Nash sees historians as mired in the additive model, even if the sites for our questions have expanded. Like Dzuback, Nash looks to Joan Scott’s reading of Michel Foucault for a different way of understanding how power functioned in the development of higher education. Scott posited that “gender is a primary way of signifying relations of power” (Scott, quoted in Nash, p. 5), but Nash also notes Foucault’s assertion that power itself is everywhere, “diffused and always relational” (p. 5). So, says Nash, power is not inherent in the educational structures themselves, but rather in the practices that help enact that power. She then applies this idea to how we might write the history of women’s access differently. Looking at Solomon’s (1985) work with its strong emphasis on access, Nash suggests that we could frame history differently than the idea that men had the power, women tried to get in, and then created spaces of their own when they could not. In that view, “power is something that exists and that can be seized, held, or withheld” (p. 5). Instead, we could reimagine educational history as an exploration of “flashpoints,” that is, times when contestations over power arose. Nash explains, “we might ask, for any time and place, what is the nature of the power that particular women have, as students, instructors, staff, or as college president?” And further: “What understanding of ‘women’ is being created in this moment, and who benefits from that decision?” (p. 6). Nash then demonstrates how the approach she advocates is exemplified in the 12 chapters of her volume, particularly how their authors pose new questions: Who was excluded from education and why? What can those exclusions tell us about constructions of race and gender, and about the social meaning of education? What did students themselves have to say about their education? What roles did faculty and administrators play in perpetuating or expanding particular views of gender, race, or the link of education to citizenship? How did women’s inclusion transform both the institutions and our understanding of the purposes of higher education? (p. 2)

Nash concludes her introduction by noting that her book does not constitute a comprehensive history of women in American higher education, even though there are often calls for such a volume that might update Solomon. In fact, Nash argues, such a comprehensive study is neither possible nor desirable. While such a narrative has the appeal of clarity, she suggests that the very differentiation of students, settings, advocacy, curriculum, and genders is what forms the history. Looking at “who was excluded” supports Clifford’s earlier call to see how gender influenced historical developments, even when a particular group was not present. And it confirms Dzuback’s argument that we cannot understand even the “basic and normative concepts” without attention to gender and the power surrounding it. Supporting the calls for historical reimagination by Clifford, Dzuback, and Nash, and reinforcing their contention that gender is found in the most basic of situations on campus even when it seems to be absent, a recent non-historical study of college student development (Patton et al., 2016) emphasizes the point that gender is “a strong organizing force” (p. 193) on any given campus, and one that influences cisgender students, whether or not they recognize it. Clifford, Dzuback, and Nash

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

31

would agree about the impact of gender, applied both historically and contemporaneously. Their stress on the power of a gendered lens guides our examination of the recent historiography.

Gender, Women, and Intersectionality Working in Tandem The scholarship cited above highlights how a gendered lens connects with the themes of women and intersectionality as a set of tools guiding historians’ examinations of American higher education. Clifford, Dzuback, and Nash all have demonstrated how history can be reconceptualized through a gendered lens, and have indicated ways that explorations of women and, more recently, intersectionality can expand our understanding. This section looks at several studies that wrestle with the meaning of a gendered lens, especially as it engages with the themes of women and intersectionality. Because they examine larger issues rather than a specific setting, they can serve as a backdrop to the more specific work to be examined in the six topical areas to come, deepening our view of how gender, women, and intersectionality connect. Jeanne Boydston (2008), although not a specialist in higher education, illustrates how historians can apply a gendered lens to studying colleges and universities, but urges us to be certain that it is the most appropriate tool. Like Clifford, Boydston understands the development of women’s history as “both product and practice” (p. 561) via which women historians initially looked in the past for roots of their own experience. But as they did so over time, she worries that historians’ use of gender became “perfunctory,” treating gender as its own category “as if it were abstract and universal” (p. 576). Instead, Boydston urges historians not to approach their work with gender assumed, but rather to apply a “critical deliberateness” in its use, arguing: “I suggest that the primary-ness of gender in a given situation should be one of our questions, rather than one of our assumptions” (p. 576). She does not deny the power of a gendered lens but advocates moving from an assumption that gender is explanatory to a question of how it may be so. Nash (2018a, b), too, applies this idea of “critical deliberateness” in how she uses a gendered lens in women’s educational history, calling for specific histories that account for varieties of experience and gender identities. Just as Boydston (2008) asked whether historians have actually “exhausted the usefulness of asking what sorts of representational systems associated with ‘male’ and ‘female’ exist in particular times and places” (p. 575), the chapters in Nash’s edited volume range across time periods, types of institutions, ethno-racial groups, religious settings, gender expression, and student life, from racial exclusion in antebellum seminaries in the Northeast to advocacy by transgender and genderqueer students in Florida. Asserting that a comprehensive history of women in higher education is unlikely and even undesirable, Nash calls instead for the power of intersectionality, creating “an account that interrogates the links among concepts of gender, race, and class; views of citizenship and the appropriate contributions of various people to the polity;

32

L. Eisenmann

and the role of education in creating those citizens” (p. 18). Her gendered lens is both deep and wide. Scott Gelber (2007) examines how gender intersects with class in reviewing historical work over the previous 25 years on student access to higher education. He argues that historians have tended to look at university infrastructure and intellectual life more than at students, whose “voices are more difficult to locate in the archives” (p. 2254). Gelber reviews work that examines the separate experiences of working-class, immigrant, female, poor, Black, Latinx, and Asian American students, noting that all of these groups needed support to prepare for college, having been tracked away from collegiate preparation in their earlier high school enrollment. In fact, the success of different groups of women in entering – and sometimes in establishing – educational institutions became a model for others seeking increased access. Gelber suggests that women’s experience is the most thoroughly documented, but, even in this “rich” historiography, he notes that “relatively little historical work has analyzed the relationships between gender and socioeconomic status on college campuses” (p. 2263). After exploring the limited historiography on how students financed their educations, Gelber concludes with a short discussion on the outcomes of collegiate education, as influenced by class, race, and gender. “Women college graduates became more likely to obtain financial independence” (p. 2276) than women who did not pursue college, he notes, although these graduates were often underpaid and found limited career opportunities. The situation was even less satisfactory for Black female and male graduates, who faced racial discrimination. Ultimately, Gelber’s review indicates that the work on students’ access to college remains somewhat scattered and is not yet fully mature in examining intersections of class with gender and race. While Gelber focuses specifically on class, Michael Hevel (2017) uses the larger theme of intersectionality in his literature review of historical studies of college students, particularly addressing how gender, race, and class interacted to influence participation over time. His historiographic review treats Helen Horowitz’s influential 1987 book Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present as a useful demarcation for sophisticated analyses of students. Hevel finds implicit uses of a gendered lens and intersectional themes in Horowitz’s division of students into the four categories of college men, outsiders, rebels, and college women. These groups differed by gender and class, with college men and college women the most privileged, outsiders coming from poorer homes and backgrounds that differentiated them as groups new to college (e.g., Jews and Catholics), and rebels being one of the few groups where men and women shared similar experiences. While Hevel attributes to Horowitz a reorganization of the way scholars have approached the history of student life, he notes that “they have shied away from broad syntheses of the overall student population” that would match hers (p. 442). However, he finds an increased focus on investigating the impact of gender, race, and class as scholars examine student subgroups, across shorter time periods, and at specific types of institutions. Hevel first examines work on white female collegians and then highlights other histories that connect a gender lens to race, looking at African American, Asian

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

33

American, Latino, and Native American students. In reviewing work on both Black women and Black men, Hevel highlights scholarship by Linda Perkins (1997) and Stephanie Evans (2007) that looks at the experience of Black women students and faculty, and by Martin Summers (2004) on manliness and masculinity at Fisk and Howard universities. For a later era, Martha Biondi (2012) explores tensions between male and female activists around civil rights. Hevel compares the fairly robust historiography on Black students to the more limited attention to other racial and ethnic groups with a much lighter focus on gender. He examines recent work on LGBTQ students, noting that they became increasingly visible on campuses over time, and a growing focus for historians of higher education toward the end of the twentieth century. Hevel concludes with both a recognition of the value of intersectionality and a sense of its drawback. The expanded focus on particular groups in particular times leaves historians far from a synthesis on the history of students, which, Hevel argues, makes it more “challenging to understand changes and continuities over time” (p. 475). A study that applies a gendered lens to intersections with race is Marybeth Gasman’s 2007 article “Swept Under the Rug? A Historiography of Gender and Black Colleges.” Acknowledging her own previous inattention to gender in her work on Black colleges, Gasman explores why Black women and gender relations are so absent in the study of HBCUs. Her answer is informed by an intersectional recognition. Citing Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Gasman notes that Black women’s presence seems to disappear between Black men, who are usually seen as “the universal racial subject,” and white women, who are viewed as the “universal female subject” (Glenn quoted in Gasman, p. 761). “In effect,” she notes, “race has become masculine” (p. 782). Her review covers three themes: philanthropic outside control, internal campus relations, and Black women’s higher education. With external philanthropy, she finds that Black women as students or as professors rarely factor into campus debates or plans over how to use such financial support. Gasman calls instead for studying “the realities of gender differences,” women’s leadership roles, their views on institutional ties to philanthropists, and potential sacrifices women made for the good of the colleges (p. 769). In terms of internal campus relations, Gasman observes that scholarship on campus life, curriculum, and extracurricular activities rarely employs a gendered lens. Estimating that 60–70% of the student body at private Black colleges was female, she questions why women’s engagement – and the impact of gender – is not the focus of such inquiry. In terms of Black women’s HBCU experiences, she laments that, “When black women are discussed, they are often described as a drag on the quality of the curriculum and the institution as a whole” (p. 777). Closing with recommendations, Gasman calls for more work on coeducational Black colleges, including the choices, experiences, and leadership of their female students. She suggests several research questions that will expand the intersectional analysis: “How did black women shape the missions and activities of coed black colleges,” and what theories can we develop to study how women approached their educational choices and their professional lives? And finally, “Why were certain types of education and particular roles deemed appropriate for black college women?” (p. 782). After decades of writing that slighted women’s engagement with collegiate learning, historians have moved toward using a gendered lens to explore deep

34

L. Eisenmann

questions about the nature of women’s and men’s participation. Scholars increasingly recognize that, in Boydston’s (2008) words, “Gender is one set of historical relationships nested within a larger historical cluster of relationships from which it cannot, finally, be meaningfully disentangled” (p. 577). That is, being a woman – or a man – intersects with that person’s race, class, religion, and other characteristics such as region, pushing scholars to think about how those factors interact in any given set of experiences. The goal of drawing together women, gender, and intersectionality as recommended by Clifford, Dzuback, and Nash is, in Boydston’s framing, to create “historically grounded histories of particular processes of gendering” (p. 576). The literature discussed below represents scholars’ current efforts to write such grounded histories by applying a gendered lens in concert with explorations of women and intersectionality.

Review of the Literature Margaret Nash (2018a, b) has noted that no large synthesis about women’s experience has appeared since Barbara Solomon’s 1985 work In the Company of Educated Women. Similarly, Michael Hevel (2017) has suggested that recent historical work on students lacks the sort of synthesis that Helen Horowitz provided in 1987 with her book Campus Life. However, both Nash and Hevel speculate not only that the history of higher education is far from such synthesis, but further, that this state of affairs is appropriate, given recent sustained recognition to how gender interacts with issues of race, class, religion, time period, and region that have complicated historians’ examinations of collegiate institutions. I concur, and suggest in the following literature review that, while the field increasingly employs a gendered lens, it currently is marked by focus on the importance of difference. The strength of the literature on gender over the past twenty years lies in its efforts to ask questions about what gender has meant in particular times and particular places with attention to issues of intersectionality, ultimately suggesting that synthesis may be overrated. This review divides current scholarship into categories that help highlight the different ways that scholars have applied a gendered lens. The first two categories – Femininities and Masculinities – build on work in gender theory that emphasizes multiple ways of being masculine. As R.W. Connell argued in 1995, it is accurate to think of plural masculinities in examining ways that men learn behavioral expectations. That work has spurred a similar understanding about varied ways of being feminine – femininities. Although scholars (Hoskin & Blair, 2021; Schippers, 2007) differ on how to apply the idea of multiple femininities, the historiography is replete with studies of the role played by higher education in forming men’s and women’s gendered understandings of themselves and the world. The opening section of this review examines scholarship on the variety of messages women received, the behaviors they enacted, and the self-understandings they developed about how to be educated American women, suggesting that women were offered a variety of femininities as models. Then, I apply the same approach to men, looking beyond a single view of masculinity toward the varied set of messages men received. The next section

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

35

looks at Intersectional Identities, reviewing scholarship that applies an intersectional lens to issues of race, class, religion, and their interplay with gender, recognizing that work on Black women and men (usually considered separately) constitutes the strongest strand of this scholarship. While some work on class and religion is appearing, its focus is less developed than work on race. Following these treatments are three sections that are not marked by scholars’ use of an intersectional lens, but rather a focus on particular settings, roles, and activism that transmitted ideas about gender expectations for women and men students and faculty. The section on Coeducation demonstrates scholars’ efforts to expand earlier conceptions of how women and men managed their lives on mixed campuses, suggesting more interaction and engagement than previously assumed. The section on Professionals primarily examines women’s movement into the faculty and the deanship, with particular attention to how women built niches for their scholarship and grant-seeking, as well as women’s efforts to professionalize the field of student affairs. Finally, a small strand of work is examining the interaction of gender with Politics and Policy, especially in advocating for educational legislation and legislative protections such as Title IX. All of this scholarship demonstrates how a gendered lens has produced strong work that looks at women’s and men’s experiences across an array of settings and actions. As noted above, the review primarily focuses on scholarship since the year 2000, and on work that specifically uses a gendered approach.

Femininities This longest section of the literature review examines the abundance of work on how colleges imparted gendered expectations to collegiate women, along with women students’ responses. Much of this work recognizes that women were treated as interlopers on campuses that were rarely designed with their interests and needs in mind, whether in the early-nineteenth century or more recent times. As Dzuback (2003) argued, higher education was considered a male enterprise, and women’s involvement – even where tolerated – could threaten their femininity. The work in this section explores ways in which women received messages about their proper place, conduct, and use of higher education, sometimes via curricular offerings or extracurricular opportunities, other times via strict rules and regulations, and still other times with subtly articulated heteronormative expectations. The section looks first at five studies that take a wide-angle perspective on messages that women received across a variety of campuses and eras. These works explore a range of methods by which colleges exerted their expectations. That discussion is followed by a look at four studies that focus on particular ways of emphasizing expectations of femininity, including sororities, career aspirations, international travel, and dormitory living. Following is an examination of several studies looking specifically at higher education in the South, exploring a sense of “twoness” that white women felt as both southerners and Americans, and that Black women further experienced as a result of racism. The section on Femininities concludes with a look at several curricular areas and campus spaces where women experienced both freedom and

36

L. Eisenmann

restriction. Overall, the work presents more cases of limits and restriction than freedom and flexibility.

Expectations and Roles: Wide-Angle Studies Lynn Peril’s College Girls (2006) offers the widest sweep in its examination of American women college students. While historical, the book is written for a popular audience that is curious about how women entered higher education, their experiences over time, and their expectations about what college would offer them. Peril begins with the eighteenth century, explaining the paucity of formal education for women, remedied by the appearance of female academies and seminaries in the mid-nineteenth century. Then, she moves into a range of topics including women’s curricular choices, engagement with sports and fitness, living on campus, developing a collegiate “look,” dating and “husband hunting,” and women’s use of their education after graduation. Women students’ interest in men and in social life generally claims a large portion of the discussion. Peril looks at the ongoing discourse surrounding women in college, noting that, since the beginning, “the college girl has pressed cultural buttons regarding conflicting ideas about women and education, women and work, women and marriage, and at its very core, questions about womanhood and femininity itself. As a result, she’s been a lightning rod for criticism, advice, and regulation” (p. 11). Her argument resembles Solomon’s (1985) view that women’s education provoked opposition, but Peril’s particular interest lies in how messages were communicated to students. This leads her to a variety of materials, including fiction, prescriptive literature, advertisements, and guidance for women, as well as student handbooks, regulations, and other campus artifacts. Peril’s argument emphasizes that observers have generally understood and interpreted the lives of women students through a “mass-mediated vision that has often ignored social realties” (p. 12). That is, people saw what they wanted to see in college women. Because of that, Peril consciously chooses to frame her students as “college girls,” “for that is how the unmarried young women who attended universities and colleges have been described in both serious public discussions as well as popular culture” (p. 12). With this mass media focus, the book is especially useful for its attention to popular primary sources, such as advertisements, book covers, lists of rules, and photos, as well as its discussion of how women reacted to messages they received. Other “wide-angle” views of women’s education focus on particular time periods, rather than the entire sweep of history that Peril examines. Andrea Radke-Moss (2008) looks at women on coeducational land-grant public university campuses in the West, focusing on the 1870s (when these institutions were beginning to grow) until the close of World War I. The book will be discussed more fully in the section below on Coeducation, but merits mention here for its attention to how women were expected to engage with a coeducational setting and the progressive ideology of these institutions where women worked to find “ways to expand their own intellectual, social, and political spheres and to redefine what it meant to be a modern woman in America” (p. 16). In Radke-Moss’s view, women received messages about feminine expectations, but often ignored, changed, or subverted them.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

37

Margaret Lowe (2005) examines a similar time period, 1875–1930, but with particular attention to college women’s sense of body image. A strength of Lowe’s book is its look at women in three quite different collegiate settings: the all-female Smith College, which focused on white women; the all-female and historically Black Spelman College; and the coeducational Cornell University, by far the largest of these institutions. Lowe’s examination of expectations for college women is premised on the argument that “well into the twentieth century, the most pressing debates about women’s access to higher education were filtered through the prism of women’s bodies” (p. 1). From earliest concerns that advanced learning would unfit women for marriage and normal life (literally, damaging their health and reproductive capacities) to later issues around what marriage could mean to an educated woman, colleges worked to create settings that ensured health, supervision, and a focus on preparing women for their lives ahead. Like Peril, Lowe examines the prescriptions and approaches taken by the colleges, but her primary interest is the reflections of women collegians themselves, based on their diaries, journals, and letters, and she finds differences by site. Women at the two all-female schools had to counter the view that education, especially in a woman-focused setting, would make them too different from their peers and unfit for their presumed feminine futures. At Cornell, by contrast, women had to engage directly with male classmates both in classes and in living quarters, demonstrating that they could do so without becoming masculinized. Lowe thus finds “campusspecific student cultures” that considered race, class, and educational mission as part of the way of defining college women’s “suspect” bodies (p. 9). One of the most interesting elements of Lowe’s work appears in her focus on eating behaviors and women’s sense of the ideal body image. She suggests that, before 1920, college women were happily focused on the pleasures of eating and enjoying themselves, but that after new scientific understandings appeared, “a heavy body pointed to the Old World” of working class and immigrant women (p. 147). The shift to dieting, self-denial, and a glorification of slimness had begun, and, with it, a new view of the ideal college woman. This change was connected to college choice and access, Lowe argues, saying that “it arose at least in part from the fact that as white and black women claimed access to the life of the mind, it was their bodies that drew intense personal, public, and institutional scrutiny. As a result, . . . the college campus became a critical site where modern notions of female body image were mapped out” (p. 161). All three works – Peril, Radke-Moss, and Lowe – show how college women’s physical presence was repeatedly examined and regulated. Both Linda Eisenmann (2006) and Babette Faehmel (2012) look at post-World War II expectations for college women. Like Lowe, Faehmel focuses on material written by college women themselves, seeing this writing as a kind of conversation between students and a larger public discourse, thus informing her notion that women developed a “cultural literacy” in this “nuclear age.” Faehmel starts with the assumptions of Betty Friedan’s feminine mystique, puzzling over how the Smith College students Friedan studied and changed from being energized about the possibilities of career and profession to their embracing a narrow model of marriage and motherhood. In Faehmel’s view, these women were not unthinking followers of

38

L. Eisenmann

an unconsidered future, as Friedan suggests. Rather, “they actively participated in the definition of their gender role,” choosing to view marriage and motherhood as “essential prerequisites for happiness” where women were active participants (p. 2). In fact, Faehmel argues, women learned through college to differentiate themselves and their futures from men: “In this masculinist environment, insistence on feminine distinctiveness was a remarkable assertion of agency, the product of experience, and the result of a realistic weighing of options” (p. 7). Faehmel recognizes that her use of women’s own writing limits her study to primarily white middle-class women who had the flexibility to entertain options. Nevertheless, she frequently addresses the thinking of women who were outsiders, including Jewish and Catholic students and recipients of financial aid. Overall, these women were explicit about many of their decisions around where to attend college, how seriously to study and develop critical thinking skills, how to engage in campus life, and especially how to negotiate expectations around dating and sexual activity. These women became “culture brokers” in the rhetoric of their era, but “the overall lack of support for female achievement strengthened heteronormative elements of campus life” (p. 57). Ultimately, they succumbed not primarily to Friedan’s version of a feminine mystique, Faehmel argues, but to the combined effect of three mystiques: “the myth that a longing for community equaled weakness, the myth that being part of a nuclear couple sufficed to give their life meaning, and the myth that only brilliance justified idiosyncrasy” (p. 179). Thus, going too far outside expectations was simply too costly for women who had already made big decisions. My work (Eisenmann, 2006) also considers this issue of multiple expectations for postwar women, especially how these expectations influenced women’s choices about college. I present four “ideologies” that framed expectations in the era: patriotic, economic, cultural, and psychological. The patriotic ideology pushed women to do their part to support the postwar effort; the economic approach encouraged them to work, but only in fields and jobs that did not supplant returning veterans; the cultural ideology matches the public discourse around women’s role in the home described by Faehmel; and the psychological addressed ways that women could avoid the dissatisfaction and ennui cited by Friedan. I suggest that the power of these ideologies affected the way postwar educators treated and planned for women students, as well as their expectations for women’s curricular choices, their campus engagement, and their career plans. Noting that women always constituted at least a third of college enrollments (and considerably more during the War), the book suggests that they were nonetheless treated as “incidental students” (pp. 44–45) when educators developed plans, policies, and practices for their campuses. The book examines the many researchers and study groups who argued for different and creative approaches to women’s education, belying the view of the 1950s as a low point for attention to women. However, few of these more progressive ways to treat women students were adopted widely; ultimately, this disregard for women’s capacities and contributions allowed them to fall behind when the later 1960s and 1970s produced huge commitments of federal money and growth for research-oriented universities.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

39

The wide-angle view represented by Peril, Radke-Moss, Lowe, Faehmel, and Eisenmann emphasizes the ongoing effort to dampen women’s opportunities – or at least the effect they would have – generally because of assumptions that too much education was both unnecessary and somewhat inappropriate for American women. These authors’ attention to how colleges (and the public discourse) conveyed messages, along with how women received and interpreted them, shows continuities over two hundred years of collegiate education.

Expectations and Roles: Focused Lenses Rather than looking generally at messages women received about college and femininity, several authors use specific areas – sororities, career planning, international travel, and dormitory life – to examine how college women absorbed expectations over time. These studies use deep looks at particular settings and case studies to their advantage as they deepen the theme of women. Margaret Freeman (2018) looks at college sororities for white women from 1910 to the 1970s, examining how they used “heterosocialization” to emphasize the appropriate vision of domestic womanhood, supplementing guidance that otherwise might have been less available on their coeducational campuses (p. 117). Freeman argues that, no matter the decade, concerns arose around whether educated women would become unfit (physically and emotionally) for lives as wives and mothers. Sororities stepped in to provide lessons in behavior and standards during these students’ “formative transition from girlhood to womanhood” (p. 115). Yet, as effective as the organizations were in influencing women’s behavior, some outsiders worried that “sorority sisters might become so accustomed to their sorority ‘family’ that they would be unwilling to graduate to a heteronormative model after college” (p. 119). In other words, the homosocial environment might become too appealing. As a result, Freeman suggests, the sororities “began to publicize their greater interest in preparing members for heterosexual marriage,” addressing issues of class and race “by encouraging regular socializing with fraternity men and other men from the same social, religious, and racial backgrounds” (p. 119). With this turn, Freeman sees sororities actually becoming more focused on men’s expectations than on developing creative approaches or widened expectations for women. Even with heterosexual marriage as the goal, sorority women could not be overtly sexual or give the impression that they condoned sex before marriage. Highlighting the complicated gendering around marriage and sexuality, Freeman argues pointedly that, “in many ways sororities were never strictly organizations for women, but were, instead, for the benefit of the men the sororities sought to attract” (p. 133). Jo Anne Preston (2004) uses the lens of career aspiration to explore expectations for college women. She reexamines a 1928 survey of all living graduates and non-graduates conducted by Radcliffe College, in celebration of its fifty-year anniversary. Reflecting a prominent concern around college women of that era, the survey asked, “Can a woman successfully carry on a career and marriage simultaneously?” The affirmative answer by 73% of responders surprised Radcliffe administrators, leading then-President Ada Comstock to declare, “We have come to see, I believe, that marriage is essentially far more compatible with continuation of a

40

L. Eisenmann

woman’s career than has been assumed” (p. 173). In fact, Radcliffe did prepare its women students for both career and motherhood. Preston describes how the college urged its graduates to challenge expectations, even while mired in a “deeply gendered labor market” (p. 175). However, Preston notes, the actual material on the questionnaires revealed that the graduates’ “predictions were too hopeful” about being able to balance career with marriage (p. 174). In fact, the majority of respondents were holding jobs, but not while married; if they married, it was generally later in life. The survey also asked graduates what might support a better balance between work and marriage. Carefully choosing a supportive husband, picking a flexible career like teaching, and having a strong personal constitution were the individualistic suggestions, seemingly focused more on how to temper women’s expectations than on advocating changes in the work world that would better support their participation. Jennifer Redmond (2016) uses the lens of international travel to examine how women engaged in behavioral expectations for femininity, but, in this case, as a way of expanding rather than constricting their prospects. She studies women students at Bryn Mawr College who won the college’s travel and research fellowships between 1900 and 1930, prestigious awards created to honor President M. Carey Thomas’ own experience traveling and studying in Europe. Fellowships enabled both studies during the school years (an early foreshadowing of junior year abroad), as well as graduate work. Like other curricular and campus arrangements at Bryn Mawr, the international fellowships were specifically designed to match the best that a “gentleman’s education” would offer, even if the grand tour of the Continent was less prominent in men’s education than it had been before 1900. As Redmond notes, such travel was seen generally as “a necessary component of an educated identity” (p. 150), especially for men. Redmond finds gendered elements in more than the goal of a gentleman’s education. She also suggests that the tours taken by women inevitably focused on the works and achievements of great men, as the “female traveler was wholly subsumed in a male world” (p. 150). Ultimately, as women completed their travels successfully, they fulfilled Bryn Mawr’s expectations for women’s capacities, establishing that “the ‘scholar abroad’ was a persona that women could inhabit as easily as men” (p. 161). Margaret Nash (forthcoming) uses the college dormitory as a setting to explore gendered understandings of campus life in her article “Whiskerinos, Orange Queens, and Bedlam at the Dorms.” She examines the creation and operation of two residential spaces at Riverside Junior College (California) in the 1930s, in a rare look at campus life in the junior college world. Nash argues that “concepts of gender, race, and class are relational and contextual,” and that a case study like hers reveals “the contingent and locally specific ways that identity is constructed” (p. 3). At RJC – a campus of less than a thousand students – men actually outnumbered women, which Nash suggests explains the prominence and prestige of the Riverside football team on campus. Nash explores how the gendered expectations of male football players influenced campus life, creating the ideal for manly performance. Given the challenges around propriety for women in the era and the difficulties of finding local housing, both a social space (“the Cottage”) and then a dormitory were created for women through local

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

41

philanthropy. Women’s costs were kept low through their cooperative sharing of work and responsibility. When men subsequently argued for their own dormitory, the building was quickly usurped as a space for just the football players, under the assumption that their importance on campus entitled them to special privileges. Unfortunately, the men neither paid their bills nor contributed to cooperative housing; in fact, the dorm vastly overspent its budget due to the football players’ prodigious eating. To remedy the shortfall, campus women were asked to raise money to support the men’s dormitory; after all, Nash notes, women had previously sold tickets for football games and supported other campus fundraisers, such as what man could grow the most impressive beard (the “Whiskerinos” of her title). Although women had raised money earlier – including for poor neighbors in Riverside – Nash explains that they had done so based on their beliefs about who deserved help and why. The football players’ cavalier treatment of their dormitory privilege, coupled with the expectation that women classmates would simply step in to fix the situation, actually resulted in huge protests by the women, challenges by other Riverside men, and dumbfounded reactions by the football team that their privilege was being questioned. Nash finds gendered implications in all of these reactions, especially in how women and non-football men students resisted the intrusion of a hegemonic campus ideal that had previously seemed unquestioned. These four authors – Freeman, Preston, Redmond, and Nash – use specific aspects of campus life to explore how women engaged with expectations for their femininity. Freeman suggests that sororities capitulated to the heteronormative expectations for collegiate women, whereas the other three found settings – in travel, career plans, and dormitory life – that allowed women students some expanded approaches to how they would engage with collegiate expectations.

Southern Higher Education A small stream of recent scholarship on the theme of women has looked specifically at how higher education served women in the South, with particular focus on the latenineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Overall, this work engages with – and sometimes challenges – the idea that Southern institutions were attached to a particular, non-progressive view of femininity and tied to older views of how men and women should divide responsibilities for public and private life. This work also attends to the differing racial expectations for how Black and white women would use education. Amy McCandless (1999) covers the longest sweep, looking at the entire twentieth century, and the biggest scope, looking at white and Black college students in a full range of institutional settings. Her theme, which she weaves through chapters on access, curriculum, campus life, and the impact of war and depression, is that of “twoness.” Following other historians of the South, she argues that its residents identified as both Southerners and Americans, and further, that layering gender, race, and class on their experiences deepened the sense of living with two different histories for each person in the South (p. 2). McCandless engages the common presumption that Southern higher education lagged behind that in the North by demonstrating the factors that challenged the

42

L. Eisenmann

growth of education in the southern states and influenced the commitment to educating women, whether Black or white. Noting that the South had more women’s colleges (both public and private) than any other region, she suggests that these colleges tried to be so many things at once – preparatory school, finishing school, and college – that they ended up spreading themselves too thin, rendering them always short of funds and challenged to meet accrediting standards. Her book traces Progressive Era reform efforts that affected the white institutions, noting that reform of Black colleges ran about 30 years behind. While differentiating between education for Black and for white women, McCandless outlines two curricular approaches found in both settings: traditionalist, which focused on the liberal arts and “cultivation of the mind,” with little attention to vocational implications; and utilitarian, which prepared white women for homemaking and family life and prepared Black women for work, especially in the schools (pp. 53–54). Sarah Case (2017) likewise examines schools for white and Black women, focusing on the New South era in the decades after the Civil War. She focuses on two Georgia institutions: Lucy Cobb Institute for white women in Athens and Spelman Seminary (later College) in Atlanta. In this era, neither school was properly considered a “college,” but Case argues for their importance in preparing women for futures as citizens of the New South. Her goal is to explore “what female education indicates about the multiple and complex ways that racial and gender ideology functioned in the New South” (p. 2). And, although the two schools were quite different in their student bodies, their curricula, and their educational missions, Case suggests that they were actually similar in “the attention given to cultivating modesty and sexual restraint, . . . [and] concerns about female sexuality and respectability” (p. 2). This restraint and the purity it signified actually became markers of racial progress, she argues. Case further connects the racial goals of the two institutions. At Spelman, founded by white missionaries, the early curriculum was a mix of industrial and academic training, and Case notes the goal of training female leaders of the race. Education would differentiate these Black women, primarily as “a key marker of respectability” through reform of the students’ characters (p. 69). The ideal was a future career as a teacher, nurse, or missionary whose position would obviate the era’s presumptions about Black women’s heightened sexuality. At Lucy Cobb, Case argues, white students were prepared to become “active participants in the culture, economy, and politics of the New South,” but, in the process, also to bear responsibility for maintaining a sense of white supremacy. Just as Black women were educated to be pure and chaste to counter racial stereotypes, “white supremacy was dependent upon white female sexual propriety”: “Segregation and disenfranchisement, justified as a means of protecting white women, required their conformity to a respectable and chaste femininity” (p. 126). Thus, the institutions emphasized expectations of chastity and modesty for all the students. Just as Case demonstrates that many women – both white and Black – moved into respectable reform activities and other public commitments after their schooling, Joan Marie Johnson (2008) finds similar results in her study of white Southern women who chose to attend the Seven Sisters colleges in the Northeast, rather than remain near home. She examines nearly 1000 women who attended these women’s

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

43

colleges between 1875 and 1915, generally out of the assumption that colleges were stronger in the North. In choosing these schools, the women entered without obvious “practical aims,” but “sought the intangibles of a liberal education, a bettering of themselves, sharpening of their minds, and building of their characters” (p. 4) – like the traditionalists of Case’s study. Yet, these southern women experienced considerable culture shock on the northern campuses. Johnson argues, for instance, that chastity was a key virtue for southern women, but that industriousness marked a virtuous northern woman. What the southerners found was an unexpected set of activist and feminist professors who challenged women to make a difference, both while students and after graduation. Johnson traces, through their diaries and correspondence with family back home, how these women negotiated their southernness as they encountered new ideas at college. They did not abandon their sense of being southern, and, in fact, created a network of Southern Clubs to support one another on campus. Their different views about race and about women’s futures posed obstacles to identifying fully with their northern classmates, but the southerners did imbibe the idea of community commitment after graduating. Johnson demonstrates the large numbers who moved into leadership roles, both paid and unpaid, after returning home. She argues that the women “melded their ideas about independence and leadership” learned in the North with “traditional Southern gender roles,” eventually helping to forge change in the New South (p. 2) through engagement in women’s rights and suffrage, consumer leagues, women’s clubs, education, and other social reform efforts. Overall, the “twoness” that McCandless cited affected southern women collegians regardless of whether they remained in the South, always reminding them of expectations about women’s appropriate role, even while exposing them to new ideas through higher education. Many graduates, both Black and white, served in public roles – both paid and unpaid – after graduation, always sensitive to expectations of propriety.

Other Campus Spaces Some of the scholarship on the theme of women explores how they encountered expectations of femininity, while it concentrates on even smaller settings than those cited above. This work does not fit neatly into a single subcategory, even though it all deals with how campuses used curricula or other spaces to promote expectations for women students. Physical education, athletics, music, and home economics all identified with particular ways of being womanly, whereas engineering marked an area where women’s participation was unexpected and generally unwelcome. Finally, women’s centers and their differentiation from women’s studies programs demonstrate a split in how women built resources of their own. Physical Education Martha Verbrugge (2012) focuses on women’s engagement with both physical education and campus sports in Active Bodies. Tracing the history and role of physical education across the twentieth century, Verbrugge examines programs in both schools and colleges, with a particular focus on female physical educators: how they were trained, what philosophies they practiced, how they

44

L. Eisenmann

understood women’s bodies and the role of physical activity, and how they managed careers in a field that was typically undervalued. As Verbrugge notes, although the attention given to women’s athletics has increased greatly during the past fifty years, the field of physical education “remains distinctly gendered, hierarchical, and insecure” (p. 13). In her book’s middle chapters, Verbrugge often employs an intersectional perspective as she focuses on collegiate settings, from private women’s colleges and coeducational universities mostly serving white women to historically Black colleges and universities, finding greater differences between men and women than by race. One chapter compares the efforts of women physical educators at the University of Nebraska and Howard University. In spite of the differences between these institutions, Verbrugge concludes: “Physical activities at Nebraska and Howard were distinctly gendered: elite competition for men versus mass participation for women, athletic prowess and specialized training [for men] versus diverse skills and lifelong participation [for women].” And further, they emphasized “the public display of masculinity versus the inconspicuous cultivation of femininity” (p. 78). In other words, women engaging actively in competitive sports seemed too masculine; they needed ways to strengthen their bodies while still seeming womanly. Verbrugge observes some class differences, as well, in women’s settings, showing how field hockey and tennis – usually identified as sports for the wealthy – predominated at the expensive and elite Bryn Mawr College, where they barely “tolerated” basketball, whereas at coeducational and more affordable Stanford University, women’s basketball was the primary sport. As she summarizes, “Between the 1920s and 1950s, institutional identity determined women’s physical activities at American colleges and universities” (p. 150), both in the sports that were offered and in the approaches to physical education. Verbrugge also explores gender issues in how physical educators viewed themselves and their students, showing that they always defaulted to a binary understanding of men’s and women’s bodies as well as of race. Believing firmly in views about biological determinism, these “physical educators taught twentieth-century Americans how ‘to do’ masculinity or femininity, whiteness or blackness, and other identities that biology supposedly encoded” (p. 8). But, at the same time, in this tightly heteronormative environment, female physical educators found their own sexuality continually questioned: “Every female educator and coach, regardless of sexual orientation, lived under a cloud of suspicion that could sidetrack, or even terminate, her career” (p. 7). As Verbrugge notes, those suspicions continued over time, even if they became slightly more muted. Linda Perkins (2021) also looks at physical education and participation in sports, with scholarship specifically about Black women at both HBCUs and predominantly white campuses across the twentieth century. She notes ways in which Black women experienced discrimination, including being prohibited from joining athletic teams on many white campuses, especially outside the East Coast; having to create their own separate teams and find their own opponents, such as a sorority league; and being restricted to teaching Black youth only, even when fully trained as physical education teachers. Yet Perkins notes one way in which Black women gained a place on teams: by majoring in physical education, as team participation was required for their degrees.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

45

Overall, Perkins argues that the early-twentieth century was a “golden age of sports for college women,” but that by the 1940s, some previously popular sports for females “were being questioned as diminishing women’s femininity” (p. 46). Physical education classes mixed with a stress on exercise with concerns about proper physical development, leaning heavily on “feminine refinement” (p. 50). Black women leaders followed this approach, along with white teachers; for instance, Rosemary Reeves Allen, who led physical education at Howard University for four decades, created a curriculum that not only focused on sports, but also on “anatomy, beauty, body aesthetics, charm, dance, and hygiene” (p. 51). As Howard and other Black institutions wished their female students to be known for their refinement and poise, by the 1940s, competition in sports was downplayed “in the name of femininity” (p. 59). Overall, both Verbrugge and Perkins highlight the conflicting messages about femininity that women received in athletics and physical education. Their participation should enhance their health, but never at the expense of appearing feminine. Home Economics Megan Elias (2008) analyzes home economics, which as a curricular and career area designed specifically for and by women, demonstrates expectations about women. Elias examines both the academic setting of home economics and its popular expression through careers in nutrition, design, and sanitation. She begins with nineteenth-century works on the domestic economy, such as those by Catharine Beecher, tracing the arc of home economics from a key site for women’s professionalism in the early twentieth century, to a diminished field that was often denigrated as anti-feminist decades later. Elias stresses the origins of this movement to “professionalize domestic work and domestic space,” where, in addition to teaching women how to manage their homes and family, leaders would also create “new professions that were connected to the element of home life” (p. 1). Home economics securely entered academe after 1900, in keeping with the Progressive Era’s commitment to applying scientific principles in everyday life, and Elias describes how the field flourished on most campuses for several decades. But in the post-WWII era, and especially with the rising feminist movement, home economists – to their surprise – attracted the ire of feminists: “Because they generally considered themselves progressives and concerned with raising the social status of women, home economists were shocked to discover that second-wave feminists did not see them as allies” (p. 162). Their work was gradually coopted by corporations that used advertising to emphasize their role in helping women manage their homes. Ultimately, Elias suggests, the movement had mixed and limited success. It built “liberationist” careers for many practitioners and leaders, but was unable to convince a wider public – especially other academics – that their work was changing women’s lives. Elias argues that these leaders “did not have the category of gender to work with” in ways that would have enhanced this connection of domestic economy to liberation (p. 188), leaving this woman-focused field without ongoing support. Music While the field of music is less female-identified than home economics, its focus on culture and refinement frequently marks it as an expectation for women’s involvement, especially in nineteenth-century female seminaries and academies.

46

L. Eisenmann

Jewel Smith (2019) explores the role of music and music training at four female academies in the Northeast: Litchfield Female Academy and Music Vale Seminary in Connecticut, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in Massachusetts, and Troy Female Seminary in New York. Noting how little attention historians have paid to understanding where music fit in these institutions, Smith suggests that treating music as merely “ornamental” or an “accomplishment” has obscured the important role played by the field. Like Nash (2005), Smith agrees that such “accomplishments” actually conferred middle-class status on women, along with preparing them to make good homes for their families. Smith suggests that music was, in fact, seen as part of the liberal arts curriculum at these schools: it was delivered as an academic subject, as well as being a constant part of both classroom and extracurricular activity. Her detailed analysis of primary sources – bolstered by her own background as a musicologist – enables Smith to report on fees charged to music students, the actual instrumental and vocal music that they studied and performed, public presentations by the students, and the backgrounds of their teachers. Her discussion of how the seminaries employed their own advanced students and graduates outlines the beginning of a career path for women, even though the four schools differed on whether they expected graduates to use their skills to seek employment. For instance, Music Vale Seminary, as the only music-focused institution in the study, placed more emphasis on seeing students move into teaching. But all four institutions valued music as not only a potential new employment opportunity for women, but also a marker of female respectability and deep education. Engineering Engineering, with its long dominance by men, represents a clear contrast to a discipline like music or home economics. Amy Bix (2005, 2013) examines the field of engineering in the twentieth century for a particularized case of women pushing to enter a masculinized field. She argues that, “Even more than in science, American engineering has a gendered history, one which for decades prevented women in any significant numbers from finding a comfortable place in the predominantly male technical world” (2005, p. 321). Even in the 1950s, after a strong postwar push to expand science, women constituted only about 2% of engineering students; by 1996, their proportion was 18% (2005, p. 321). Her work explores the slow movement of women into engineering, attributing considerable progress to the activism and mutual support of women scientists and other advocates, as well as national manpower programs designed to engage women in science. Bix’s 2005 article explores how philanthropy for women in the sciences – especially through the advocacy and engagement of the Society of Women Engineers – pushed several institutions toward a more open consideration of women. Her book Girls Coming to Tech! (2013) examines three geographically varied institutions – Georgia Tech, Caltech, and MIT – that took different approaches to supporting women. At Georgia Tech, a court challenge had been threatened; Caltech leaders resorted to the outdated view that women could help civilize male classmates; and MIT responded to concerted advocacy by internal and external activists. Overall, although still recognizing challenges women face in science, Bix argues that “narrow assumptions about proper gender roles” that ascribed science to “men’s intellectual sphere and workplace” have slowly changed (2005, p. 320).

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

47

Women’s Centers Whereas the woman-focused field of home economics withered with the rise of second-wave feminism, women’s studies and the women’s centers that grew out of them prospered after the 1970s, promoting a much more expansive set of expectations for women than had previously been seen on campuses. Sylvia Ellis and Helen Mitchell (2010) study the origins and development of women’s centers since the 1970s, noting that they are usually one of two types: research centers or resource centers, with women as their focus and clientele. Researchoriented centers grew out of and were primarily affiliated with academic women’s studies programs and faculty on a particular campus. Ellis and Mitchell assert that relationships between the two sorts of centers were “not always an easy partnership, partly because feminists within Women’s Studies needed to build academic credibility” and sometimes worried that association with the activist nature of the resource centers would detract from the academic image they were trying to build (p. 249). Their article focuses on resource centers, especially their creation through activist commitment of students, campus feminists, and community advocates. The authors describe how the confluence of “demographic, political, and legal forces” in the late1960s and early-1970s prompted creation of safe spaces for women to learn about feminist issues but also to plan political activity (p. 244). The centers began in a variety of ways, some supported strongly by their institutions, others operating more as student-run clubs struggling for space and recognition. Those centers that survived the earliest years “did so because they went through a process of evolution,” the authors suggest; those that did not were “characterized by tension, rupture, and conflict” (p. 249). In assessing the impact of women’s centers over time, Ellis and Mitchell cite three accomplishments: providing crisis intervention to students; giving an opportunity for women to engage in leadership; and an overall raising of the profile of women’s issues on campus. Although they doubt that the centers have had much impact on bettering the environment for female faculty, the authors nonetheless argue that ongoing responsiveness to “female agendas” has marked their success (p. 256). Their work on women’s centers is an unusual example in the scholarship on femininities that connects academic curriculum with student support services.

Summary The expansiveness and variety of work on femininities demonstrates the continuing role of higher education in promoting, and even inculcating, expectations for how women should understand and conduct their lives. Some studies that use an intersectional lens, such as those on Southern women or on the role of physical education, show how the themes of women and intersectionality can entwine. As these authors show, the very presence of the female body on campuses challenged expectations for women’s behavior. Whether they were asked to limit their participation in sports, temper their enjoyment of food, or dress to attract men, women received messages that they played a subordinate role to men on the campus. Women had to become experts in “cultural literacy,” in Faehmel’s framing, always assessing how to balance their own needs and goals with a larger sense of what would be open and allowable for them. Although the scholarship highlights a few places where women stretched the understanding of femininity – notably, home economics in its early days, women’s studies and women’s centers, the pursuit of engineering, international travel,

48

L. Eisenmann

a fight over a dormitory – it also demonstrates the power of campus rules and regulations, curricular opportunities, career options, and heteronormative organizations to limit women’s flexibility. While women pursued a variety of ways to “be feminine,” these choices were not always welcomed or accepted.

Masculinities Scholars are recognizing how a gendered lens can also prove useful in examining the experiences of men college students. Just as women students absorbed varied messages about how to be “feminine,” so, too, did men receive a range of information about how to be “manly” on their campuses. As Nash (forthcoming) observed in her study of dormitories for female and male students at Riverside Junior College, large differences appeared between the male football players who dominated campus life with their assumed hegemony, and other male students who were less involved in athletics and campus competitions. This pluralized understanding of “masculinities” (Connell, 2005; Kimmel et al., 2005) has drawn attention from historians who examine how colleges transmitted ideas of manhood, and the last twenty years are marked by nuanced work that differentiates among the messages men received, as well as their responses. Several of these historians implicitly recognize the argument by Clifford (1983), Dzuback (2003), and Nash (2018a, b) that messages about masculinity were potent on both coeducational and all-male campuses. In fact, in a robust application of a gendered lens, several suggest that the very absence of women pushed men to demonstrate and articulate their ideas of manhood, sometimes to differentiate themselves from women but also to distinguish themselves from other men with different approaches to masculinity. As with the literature on femininities, the scholarship on masculinities includes work that takes a wide-angle view of how men experienced and used college to refine their sense of self as well as scholarship that explores specific means of transmission. This discussion divides into three sections: wide-angle perspectives that treat different eras and settings; work on more specific means of transmitting gendered messages, including fraternities, athletics, and mass media magazines; and studies specifically examining the experience of gay and non-binary students, along with other efforts like drag that challenged gender norms, and finally, efforts to purge LGBTQ students from campuses.

Expectations and Roles: Wide-Angle Studies Scholars who take a wide-angle view of how ideas about manhood were transmitted to college men apply a gendered lens to all-male settings like early Harvard University and southern institutions like the University of North Carolina. Conrad Edick Wright (2004) looks at early Harvard and its explicit work to “form gentlemen” in the era before the American Revolution. Emphasizing the absence of women at the university (certainly not as students or professors, and only a few as workers), Wright notes how Harvard nonetheless taught its men that only as educated gentlemen would they become appropriate husbands and community leaders.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

49

“At the start of this journey,” Wright notes, “they were callow and unformed; by its end they hoped to leave college as gentlemen” (p. 17). At the same time, the university itself was rigidly hierarchical – a “relic of the medieval great chain of being” (p. 20) – and young students quickly found that professors and upperclassmen dominated their lives and the sense of proper manhood that they absorbed. In fact, Wright suggests, the university operated as if a family, albeit one with only a patriarch and older brothers. Students observed – and were tested on – behavioral expectations through “a never-ending commitment to personal improvement and social order” (p. 22) that, through mental training and social refinement, were intended to produce “a polished elite” (p. 26) for New England. And, Wright notes, the polish and refinement were more important than advanced learning: “No one gave the possibility of an intelligentsia even a thought” (p. 26). More sensitive to the role advanced learning could play in preparing educated gentlemen, Timothy Williams (2015) examines the University of North Carolina in the antebellum years to trace how “intellectual manhood” was developed by and for young men from the South. Noting the scholarly tendency for work on southern manhood to emphasize gendered traditions of chivalry and the growth of a planter class of elites, as well as the rowdiness of collegiate life, Williams argues that university life at North Carolina was actually marked more by the engagement of middle-class students, representing “the South’s embourgeoisement” (p. 3) and the rise of an educated class. His book offers three claims to distinguish this approach to Southern intellectual culture. First, and perhaps countering McCandless’ (1999) idea of “twoness,” Williams explains that “the transition from boyhood to manhood, not regional identity, was students’ most pressing concern” (p. 2), and, further, that manhood itself was defined by its contrast to boyhood and not to womanhood. Second, the focus on maturation privileged the individual self for students; that is, much of university life – both inside and outside the curriculum – was devoted to helping young men understand themselves as mature individuals. The third is the focus on middle-class culture in North Carolina as having more in common with wider American values than with anything unique to the South. Williams stresses the impact of both the all-male and all-white population of the university, noting that “men’s gendered power in the South ultimately came from within all-male peer groups” (p. 8). Thus, he examines literary societies, as well as items like speech education in the curriculum and the prominence of student writing in diaries and autobiographies, all designed to instill the virtues of “restrained manhood,” which valued judgment, propriety, and integrity, all geared toward preparing men for their roles after college. So, although relations with women would be important in their futures, these southern men – especially middle-class students – recognized that they needed to secure their places within the male world of intellect and leadership. Charles Holden (2018) also studies the University of North Carolina, but in a later era, the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth centuries. He suggests that this southern university resisted the move to more “aggressive” models of manhood that were appearing at northern and eastern institutions, generally due to economic and social pressures. UNC, Holden argues, was able to hold more than one ideal of

50

L. Eisenmann

manhood simultaneously, prizing a strong body and physical strength while also emphasizing “morality and good personal character,” virtues that he connects to a Victorian ideal (p. 122). Agreeing with Williams’ earlier call for integrating the history of the southern experience more tightly into studies of the university and masculinity, Holden suggests that UNC was able to comingle “different models of manhood,” helping students value competition and strength at a time when American manhood was described as “being in crisis” (p. 125). Holden argues that UNC, while perhaps not unique among southern universities, benefitted from leaders who promoted its movement into the ranks of modern universities, even after the financial devastation of the Civil War. He concludes with a reminder of not only the financial challenges but also the ongoing agricultural base and rigid state political systems that offered few opportunities for either women or immigrants in the state. Williams’ and Holden’s examinations of the South through a focus on North Carolina’s flagship university is expanded by Alexander Macaulay’s (2009) study – albeit of a much later era – of how The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, built the ideal of male citizen soldiers. Even after World War II, The Citadel continued to serve white men, and Macaulay explains how the nature of manhood prized by these citizen soldiers was defined partly by the absence of both men of color and women, at least until very much later in The Citadel’s history. Black cadets were admitted beginning in 1966, but women were not until 1996, challenging the school’s earlier approaches to ideal masculinity. Each of these studies suggests that a variety of ways of “being manly” existed on campuses over time, but that the differences were recognized and emphasized in some cases (University of North Carolina), but downplayed at others (Harvard and The Citadel).

Specific Means of Transmission Fraternities Fraternities and athletics are obvious places where masculinity is performed on campuses and gendered expectations abound: in homosocial living arrangements and sports teams, men engage in competition, learn expectations for behavior, and are judged and observed by other men. Several scholars examine these settings, often suggesting the power they have over both those inside and those outside of them. Syrett (2009) has studied the role of Greek life as a place where men learn and enact their senses of masculinity in The Company He Keeps, a history of white collegiate fraternities from their antebellum establishment to the present. Emphasizing his own gendered lens, Syrett describes his work as “a book about the history of gender, about how men in college have thought about masculinity and how they have acted it out” (p. 7). Noting that changes clearly have occurred in the “archetypes of masculinity” (p. 2) over these decades, Syrett offers three findings from across a variety of institutions and programs. First is that performing masculinity, or “being manly” in its older phraseology, is the way that men have “gained prestige and respect,” especially from other men. He explains that the importance of various factors such as “class, race, religiosity, sexuality, athleticism, recklessness” might denote different views of masculinity in different times or settings, but that, as his second theme explains, men are always aware of the current standards, even if they know internally they are unable or

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

51

unlikely to meet them. The third and related theme is that some men become anxious when facing these standards, which leads some to “overcompensation” (p. 2), often generating criticism of the exaggerated behavior of fraternity men. Syrett argues that “fraternal masculinity” was the “preeminent or hegemonic form of masculinity on college campuses, the standard by which all other college men were measured” (p. 3); in other words, these views of what it means to be a man framed everyone’s understandings, including other students who were excluded by race, class, or gender. Implicitly highlighting the intersectional nature of these influences, Syrett shows how fraternity life affected everyone on campus, as men tried to assert and establish their authority. Syrett acknowledges that race and class have always been issues for fraternities, but he also explores fraternities’ connection with women and with homosexuality over time. He shows how treating women or gay men as foils often led to violent and cruel behavior by fraternity men, arguing that “this shift in masculinity to self-consciously valorize heterosexual activity was perhaps the most decisive development in fraternities’ history and would have some of the most profound effects for other college students” (p. 5). Laurie Wilkie (2010) examines the development of one particular fraternity, Zeta Psi at the University of California, in a “microhistory” of 1870 to 1956. Wilkie’s work is unusual in two ways. First, she employs her training as a historical archeologist to study the “material life” of this fraternity as it was literally unearthed during the excavation of a campus dump for the creation of a new building. And second, she frames her study around the play Peter Pan (1904) by J.M. Barrie, drawn to its focus on lost boys growing up in a homosocial environment and dealing with its era’s changing expectations of masculinity and femininity. Wilkie finds parallels in Zeta Psi fraternity life, where the “lost boys” are members of this single fraternity over time, also experiencing shifting expectations. “I have come to see the university campus as a Never Land,” she explains, “where men attempted to flee the approach of adulthood by embracing primal masculinity” (p. 36). Like Syrett, Wilkie argues for the significance of fraternities as places where, as women moved more noticeably onto campuses (she calls the University of California “the front lines of the gender skirmishes” of the early twentieth century), they became “enclaves where men could, under the guidance of tradition and alumni, navigate and respond to the changing social landscape while actively creating new masculine identities” (p. 15). Wilkie offers the interesting observation that current negative views of fraternities may have caused scholars to decline to study them, creating a gap in academic literature. But she suggests that, like other fraternal organizations outside the campus, fraternities are actually “a product of broader dialogues about gender, race, and power in the United States” (p. 20). She has been drawn to study Zeta Psi out of concern that manhood and masculinities are often portrayed in her field as “an essential and unchanging category, [whereas] in contrast, womanhood is seen as fluid and existing within a particular social-historical context” (p 25). Her work suggests that this has not been the case. Athletics Many histories of higher education have highlighted the role of athletics generally and football specifically as both an outlet for student energy and a way of

52

L. Eisenmann

channeling expectations for masculine behavior. Christian Anderson and Amber Fallucca (2021) have edited a volume on the History of American Football: Institutional Policy, Culture, and Reform, with chapters ranging across the participation of deaf players at Gallaudet College, the reinstatement of a football program at Brigham Young University, activism among student-athletes, and protests by Black athletes at the University of Wyoming. Although a gendered analysis is implied in many of the book’s ten chapters, Anderson specifically addresses it in his opening piece on “Myths and Stories from College Football’s First One Hundred Years,” where he lays out the book’s approach. Anderson frames football over time as relentlessly masculine, especially as it intersects with wider institutional and educational issues. Once football was established on campuses, it was used to both create and highlight masculine heroes. For instance, the Gallaudet players became “bona fide masculine heroes” (p. 8), views on masculinity influenced BYU’s decision, and the men of Dartmouth’s football team were described in press accounts as admired by “the dewy-eyed girls at a nearby women’s college” (p. 64). Another chapter, Hobson’s “Football Culture at New South Universities: Lost Cause and Old South Memory, Modernity, and Martial Manhood,” discusses how “college football developed out of two intersecting phenomena in post-Civil-War America – a crisis in American masculinity and the ‘collegiate revolution’” which saw growing universities increasingly focused on student life (p. 38). Hobson describes the anxieties men felt when watching the change around them, especially women’s educational advancement. To combat this, he argues, “American men embraced an ‘aggressive masculinity’ in which they could demonstrate and prove their manliness through their physical prowess and muscular physiques” (p. 38); football was “unparalleled” throughout the country in demonstrating manliness (p. 38). Tracing the particularities of football’s growth in the South, Hobson notes, however, that “college football itself developed a southern accent below the Mason Dixon Line” (p. 39). He argues that, even as institutions tried to reinvent themselves as part of a New South not tied to older views of chivalry, racism, and sexism, football remained a space where those older ideologies took center stage. In fact, he suggests that the very pressures to reframe collegiate settings as part of a New South that would welcome women and men of different classes and races may in fact have pushed schools to use football to reclaim and advance what seemed like a less aggressive new version of masculinity more suited to the new era, even while reassuring male participants through the sport’s notable martial rhetoric and sanctioned violence. Mass Media Daniel Clark (2010) looks outside the campus itself to explore how college-going became engrained in the choices of middle-class men by the 1920s. He examines four national magazines with widespread readership at the turn of the twentieth century – The Saturday Evening Post, Munsey’s, Cosmopolitan, and Collier’s Weekly – and their role in reimagining how the college could exert wider appeal and influence in shaping gender ideals for men. Clark studies the issue from two directions, looking first at what he calls the era’s “male anxieties,” as American men worried about competition from immigrants and women in a period when the

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

53

business world was changing its expectations for manly success, and, second, at how the magazines intentionally worked to reframe college as the appropriate – even necessary – preparation for success in this new industrialized world. The era glorified the self-made man, allowing someone like Andrew Carnegie to publicly denigrate college education as useless for business success. But, as business grew in size and importance in the United States, it offered new opportunities for leadership, along with the potential loss of individual autonomy. Clark suggests that middle-class men “compensated for the loss of autonomy and manly identity in the workplace by cultivating a hypermasculinity exhibited through once-suspected leisure activities rather than one’s occupation” (p. 7). College became a resource for developing these activities and frames of mind, and it became the goal of the mass magazines to demonstrate how the college could serve middle-class men. Clark calls this their “cultural construction” of what power and authority could look like as men became better educated and as they partook of collegiate athletics and fraternities to build relationships and manly strengths (p. 5). More than “passive reflectors of social trends” (p. 15), the magazines intentionally used editorial content, fiction, and advertisements to create a new ideal of a twentieth-century man. Ultimately, Clark argues, the magazines created “a reworked image of the college man and college life, newly charged with multidimensional possibilities to satisfy the contradictory expectations of American masculinity” (p. 81). Overall, studies that look at specific means of transmitting expectations around manliness – including fraternities, athletics, and mass media magazines – use a gendered lens to show places and methods by which a variety of possible masculinities were presented and ascribed to by both men and women students.

Gay Identity and Campus Purges In the last few decades, studies of gay men on campus have appeared as part of the literature about how men received and responded to ideals of masculinity. As Karen Graves (2018) outlined in a lengthy literature review, this work recognizes that LGBTQ students have always existed on campuses, but historians have only recently used a wider, gendered lens to study their experiences. Patrick Dilley (2002) brings to his work the perspectives of both a historian and an expert in student development theory. His Queer Man on Campus: A History of Non-Heterosexual College Men, 1945–2000, is one of few book-length treatments of gay students as they experienced college life in the recent past. The first part of his book not only engages with the extant historiography on gay students, but also frames his investigation around queer theory, identity development theories, and theories about non-heterosexual students. In doing so, he triangulates ideas about how students develop in college and how gay identity develops to allow him to explore five decades of college life for non-heterosexual students. Dilley explains that the common aspects of identity development include experiences (what happened to students), senses (how they perceived what happened), and sensibilities (the meanings they assigned to the experiences) (p. 6). Through interviews and document analysis, he creates seven “identity types” that reflect gay men’s experiences and their self-identifications, emphasizing how language,

54

L. Eisenmann

understandings, restrictions, and opportunities differed for non-heterosexual college students over time. Three identity types correspond to particular eras: 1940s to late 1960s – homosexual, where sex and identity were considered quite private; late 1960s to present – gay, with a publicly announced identity and interest in social change; late 1980s to present – queer, with a quite “publicly deployed” identity and opposition to normative culture. He finds four other identities stretching across time periods: “normal” men whose homosexual interest did not affect their self-identity; closeted men who recognized attraction to men but rarely acted upon it; parallel men who could shift identities depending on the context; and denying men who absolutely rejected feelings for or attraction to men (p. 5). Dilley’s look at how non-heterosexual men engaged with college life led him to a second project, on student organizing around LGBTQ issues at universities in the Midwest (2019). He builds this story, again set in the recent collegiate past, around not only how students advocated for their own campus organizations, but also the role those organizations played once established. The focus in the 1970s, for instance, was on gay liberation, wanting “not a seat at the table but rather to overturn the table” (p. 3). As understanding and acceptance of LGBTQ students changed over time, so did the goals and approaches of their organizations. In the 1980s, Dilley suggests, students focused on “building communities with a common culture,” especially as services expanded for non-heterosexual students, and on connecting with other minority groups on campus. The impact of AIDS in the 1990s pushed students toward stronger organizing once again. And in the most recent past, assimilation on campus became a goal. In comparing the organizational histories over time, Dilley identified four themes internal to the groups, and four external. The internal themes included efforts at recognition, visibility, vocality, and representation. The external themes included focus on outreach, awareness, inclusion, and policy changes. Clawson (2013, 2014, 2018) has also explored the relationship between gay identity development and campus advocacy in several examinations of Florida universities. Clawson (2013) first considered the efforts of Hiram Ruiz to establish a Gay Liberation Front organization at the University of Florida Gainesville campus in the early 1970s; the organization was not widely supported at the time. Clawson’s 2014 article remained centered on the Gainesville campus, but also looked beyond to show how other Florida institutions reacted over time to campus organizing. Clawson continued this study of Florida by examining the role of drag on several public campuses, emphasizing the advocates’ ongoing efforts to educate their peers about gender-queer identity “as crucial to the struggle to end gender and sexual oppression” (2018, p. 286). The emergence of drag at several institutions became a way where these “intersectional spaces” not only allowed queer students to interact and express their gender identities, but also where “heterosexual people can encounter queer identities in a setting they perceive to be entertaining” (2018, p. 286). In a sense, then, Clawson describes the drag shows as having “elements of pedagogy” for these campuses (2018, p. 288). Nash, Mireles, and Scott-Williamson (2018) also explore drag on campus, recognizing it as a way that, for a variety of reasons, students have used it to challenge

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

55

traditional gender norms. Wishing to show how often drag actually was found on campuses – and not always performed by LGBTQ students – the authors explore various examples across an array of sites, starting in the late-1800s and moving into the 1940s. Attempting to situate their study within a larger history, these authors acknowledge a paucity of scholarship on drag in collegiate settings, noting it has more frequently been studied in nightclubs, vaudeville, theatre, and even the military. They discuss Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club, known for its drag performances, but also parties and stage performances where men and women at various campuses dressed in the “other gender’s” clothing. At times, these events were played for comedy, but in doing so, the authors suggest, they “reinforced male dominance rather than functioning to obfuscate or complicate gender norms” (p. 82). Noting that “drag appeared at single-sex and coeducational colleges and universities in a wide variety of settings, including mock funerals and textbook burnings” (p. 82), they emphasize its widespread acceptance, even though it has been little studied by historians thus far. All the authors who study LGBTQ students on campuses, as well as those who explore drag as a means of challenging gender norms, include discussions of the difficulties and discrimination students experienced. Other scholars examine actual purges of homosexual students that occurred on campuses, arising from worry that heterosexual norms were being violated and proper “manly” development threatened. William Wright (2005) examines what became known as Harvard’s Secret Court which, in the 1920s, victimized men who were suspected of homosexual activity or interest. Wright tells the story via the suicide of student Cyril Wilcox in 1920, stretching beyond Wilcox to other students, deans, and off-campus individuals. Wright explains that records of the court’s work are available in the university’s archives, especially in the dean of students’ disciplinary records. Although no names are assigned to the students in these records, Wright’s work and that of editors at The Harvard Crimson, enabled them to tell the stories of several named men, including their interrogations and expulsions, the subsequent efforts by a few to return to Harvard, and the long-lasting negative impact of their experiences with the court. Explaining the shifts in thinking about homosexuality around the turn of the twentieth century, Wright emphasizes that campus administrators convinced themselves that the behaviors they found were actually unusual aberrations that would not occur under “normal conditions” (p. 61). Thus they became committed to rooting out the ringleaders of what they presumed was a poisonous vice, and, then, any other students who were implicated. In the end, Wright speculates that little was actually accomplished by the court’s fervency, concluding that “it had certainly driven every campus manifestation of homosexuality deeply underground, . . . suppressing what were essentially surface expressions of gayness” (p. 138). Nash and Silverman’s (2015) look at purges at three public universities in the 1940s – Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin – emphasizes the “sea change in administrative responses to homosexuality on campuses between the ad hoc ‘secret court’ of Harvard in the 1920s and the building of permanent administrative machinery in the 1940s” (p. 458). What had changed contextually, they suggest, was McCarthyism, purges within the federal government, and findings like those of the 1948 Kinsey

56

L. Eisenmann

Report Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which suggested that men participated in homosexual activity (as well as adultery) much more often than commonly presumed. Unlike the Harvard deans who felt they just needed to expel the few violators, the schools which purged students in the 1940s did so via much more public and established procedures. In fact, Nash and Silverman stress that these campaigns to identify and punish homosexual students were designed to be public; the schools kept track of the cases in what literally became “indelible marks” on students’ records (p. 441). Graves (2009) studies a statewide purge in the early 1960s in Florida, pursued by members of the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, widely known as the Johns Committee for its leader; her 2018 review also examines other studies of the Johns Committee. Graves notes that challenges to teachers’ presumed homosexuality had occurred throughout the twentieth century, but that the “intensity and scope of the Florida purge make it historically significant” (p. xii). Although her book’s primary focus is on schoolteachers who were investigated by the committee and who had their credentials stripped if found “guilty” of homosexuality, she also examines the experiences of staff at the University of South Florida, as well as those of a group of civil rights activists, who were called before the committee. Graves contrasts the experience of K-12 teachers to these others, noting that the university personnel and the civil rights advocates were supported by several national groups, including the NAACP, the American Association of University Professors, the American Association of University Women, and local media. Further, their hearings before the committee were conducted publicly. All of this contrasts with the experience of schoolteachers, who found little support or advocacy in the intense private scrutiny they experienced before the committee. Ultimately, although she finds some resistance among those called to testify, Graves characterizes the story as one of “stealth, silence, [and] control” (p. xv) during a particularly repressive period for LGBTQ people.

Summary Over the past twenty years, historians have studied the campus transmission of expectations of masculinity, increasingly employing a gendered lens across a variety of settings and time periods, via an array of methods. These studies are increasingly nuanced in their recognition that men reacted to these expectations in different ways, depending on their own positionality, including their class, race, sexuality, gender identity, and status on campus. Scholars like Williams (2015) and Holden (2018) suggest that some settings – like the University of North Carolina – succeeded in transmitting more than one understanding of how to “be” masculine on campus. Others, including the fraternities studied by Syrett (2009) and Wilkie (2010), or the football teams examined by Anderson (2021) and Hobson (2021), privileged a hegemonic view of competitive and aggressive masculinity that all campus participants – male or female – were expected to recognize as preeminent. Finally, scholars have begun to uncover more cases of how students challenged gender norms, like the men studied by Clawson (2013, 2014, 2018) and Dilley (2002, 2019) and, even when they encountered ostracism and punishment as in studies by Wright (2005) and Graves (2009), pushed campuses toward change, even if slowly.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

57

Intersectional Identities Although most historical studies of gender in higher education engage in some way with issues of race, class, and religion, some scholars foreground these factors, exploring the ways that students and faculty experience the intersections of race, class, religion, and gender in the processes of choosing a college, living or working on campus, and pursuing post-college plans. Work on race, especially the experiences of Black women, is the most developed of this scholarship, generally demonstrating strong gender divides between opportunities for Black women and Black men, as both students and faculty. A few studies explore other ethno-racial groups, but that work remains in earlier stages. Increasingly, as Gelber (2007) encouraged, scholars are looking at how class differences affected student choice and experience, recognizing the influence of family background in students’ opportunities and the way they approached college offerings. Finally, sophisticated studies are extending our understanding of how religion affected not only individual students – especially through family influence – but also the curricula and missions of schools, both religiously affiliated and secular institutions.

Racial Considerations Black Women Over the past few decades, Linda Perkins has written prolifically on the history of Black women in American higher education (1997, 2014, 2018a, b, forthcoming-a, forthcoming-b). Some of her articles on faculty professionals and sports (1997, 2014, 2018a, b, 2021) are cited elsewhere in this chapter. Perkins is currently completing a book-length study of Black women in higher education from the antebellum period to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Still under review, this book details a wide array of participants, settings, resources, and issues for Black women. Her overall theme is that the emphasis on race uplift affected Black women from their earliest educational efforts up to the 1960s, but that this ideal promulgated a particular gendered view that women best served the race as teachers and supporters of the Black male leaders of “the talented tenth,” and that, even when employed as academic professionals, women’s place was often restricted to teaching roles in institutions and fields typically identified with women. The opening chapters of Perkins’ book trace the idea of race uplift in the antebellum era and in the abolitionist colleges. After the Civil War, a number of Black women attended primarily white institutions in the North and the Midwest. In a chapter focusing on Black women in the “heartland” (▶ Chap. 4, “Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right”), Perkins uses Breaux’s (2003, 2010) work on Black women at public universities in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Nebraska to emphasize women’s participation beyond HBCUs and predominantly white colleges. The later chapters offer a strong discussion of Black women professionals on campuses, reviewing the history of Lucy Diggs Slowe at Howard and her advocacy for Black women students’ autonomy, as well as the approaches followed by women deans at other Black institutions. Perkins expands her earlier work (1997, 2014) on the Black female professoriate to discuss how

58

L. Eisenmann

women undertook and funded their graduate training, how they found jobs most readily at Black institutions, and how they negotiated issues of salary and prestige within a male-dominated setting. The book ends with a 1960s-focused discussion about tensions between Black men and Black women, exacerbated as women’s achievements rose and they sought expanded opportunities. Stephanie Evans (2007) has studied Black women’s experience across a century (1850–1954), with a dual focus on their educational history and their intellectual history. Evans explains her three goals of investigating women’s experience “from formerly piecemeal images”; interpreting the connection between women’s “cultural identify and knowledge production”; and inspiring contemporary educators to strive toward greater social equity (p. 13). She describes Black women as contributing to a “physical democracy” through their presence, as well as to an “intellectual democracy,” where everyone’s voice is heard (p. 13). In the book’s first part, Evans examines the antebellum, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow eras, noting, like Perkins, the focus on racial uplift and the limited employment options for women graduates, a situation that she suggests improved after World War I. Evans attends to both Black institutions and predominantly white schools, exploring women’s experiences through six memoirs, then through the biographies of the first Black doctoral recipients (Eva Dykes, Sadie Alexander, Georgiana Simpson, and Anna Julia Cooper), moving in the second part to explore Black women’s intellectual thought and contributions, especially via the scholarship of Cooper and Mary McLeod Bethune. Evans employs an intersectional gendered and racial lens, noting that Black college women “were caught in a unique social contract” by being both Black and female (p. 15). Even while recognizing limitations inherent in this situation, Evans argues convincingly that, through their intellectual engagement, these women moved themselves and educational thinking for Black women beyond victimhood or the role of outsider. Kabria Baumgartner (2019) joins Evans and Perkins in offering a book-length examination of Black women’s experiences. Baumgartner explores Black women’s activism in desegregating schools and academies during the antebellum era in the Northeast. Noting how easily women’s activism has been overlooked, Baumgartner’s stated goal is to write “African American girls and women back into the history of early American education while also enlarging the scholarship on northern black activism” (p. 6). While agreeing with Perkins and others about the push for Black women’s respectability as a means of race uplift, Baumgartner adds a second significant idea: a “distinct call for purpose.” She explores the meaning of this “purposeful womanhood” for Black women in galvanizing them to push for educational access but also to “value themselves and to do something of value in a world that failed to recognize them as valuable” (p. 4). Since the world was all too ready to diminish or deny Black women’s virtue and intellect, these early advocates undertook a challenge through opening education and through pursuing careers as “educator-activists” whose self-definition went beyond that of “teacher” (p. 7). Two particular strengths of Baumgartner’s work are its superb use of hard-to-locate archival material and its localism, through which she explores deeply the specific local conditions – for example, in the Massachusetts communities of Salem and Nantucket – that shaped Black women’s access and opportunities.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

59

While Baumgartner focuses on activist pioneers who opened schools for Black women prior to the Civil War, Marcia Synnott (2008) studies the Black women who desegregated universities in the South after 1954. Noting that scholars more frequently focus on the Black men who prominently pushed to desegregate campuses, Synnott examines the reasoning behind and the choices of several Black women to become plaintiffs in desegregation lawsuits or to step forward as collegiate applicants. Synnott suggests that both women and men shared a commitment to using education as “an avenue of individual and racial advancement,” explaining that in their choices, the women “pursued both their own individual interests and the wider campaign to desegregate higher education across the South” (p. 199). In a chilling reminder of the real danger in these decisions, Synnott notes how easily white men could justify violence against Black men “on the assumption that they posed a physical and sexual threat to white females” (p. 201). She cites the belief of NAACP attorney Charles Hamilton Houston that, by bringing forward Black women as plaintiffs, they could shift attention from individuals to the larger issue of the universities’ resistance. She quotes Houston’s claim that a Black woman’s “rejection. . .would have much more publicity value than a rejection of a man” (p. 201). However, in a summary that echoes the work on Black women by Perkins, Evans, and Baumgartner, Synnott explains that these women still faced racialized gender stereotypes that pushed them to over-emphasize their academic qualification and their propriety, even while their acceptance was challenged and their participation restricted. Native American, Mexican American, and Chinese Students Recent scholarship examining racialized women other than Black Americans is fairly sparse, particularly work that employs a gendered lens. Three such articles appeared together in Nash’s (2018a, b) edited volume, Women’s Higher Education in the United States: New Historical Perspectives: Jennifer Talerico-Brown on American Indian women’s education, Victoria-Maria MacDonald and Alice Cook on Mexican American women in the Southwest, and Huping Ling on Chinese female students. TalericoBrown examines the educational career of Cleo Caudell, a Choctaw woman in Oklahoma who took advantage of educational opportunities and connections to attend the Haskell Institute, then Bacone College, moving on to the University of Redlands in California to earn a bachelor’s degree, and then to Hawaii for advanced study under the auspices of “Princess” Ataloa, a faculty member at Bacone. More attuned to the larger history of education for Indians than its gendered aspects, Talerico-Brown explains the paucity of options for Indian women and men before the 1928 publication of the Merriam Report, which pushed for upgrades in schooling for Indians. Only after such advances occurred was there “a rise, albeit a small fraction, in the number of American Indian students qualified to attend universities” (p. 189). Ataloa, a 1/16th Chickasaw who studied at Columbia University, recognized and took advantage of the white public’s romantic and ill-formed impressions of Indian women, eventually touring the country to demonstrate the clothing, jewelry, and music of Choctaw women. Even though she experienced some criticism for her approach, Ataloa’s notoriety and popularity allowed her to raise funds for

60

L. Eisenmann

Indian women’s education, including a scholarship that allowed Caudell to study in Hawaii. MacDonald and Cook use a gendered lens more explicitly to study three generations of Mexican American women and their college going between 1920 and 1965. They first outline four factors that influenced Mexican Americans’ choices and educational opportunities: a focus on family needs over the individual; patriarchal structures inherited from Spain, Catholicism, and Mexican history, especially suggesting that women require protection and monitoring; ongoing discrimination that limited students’ educational preparation; and support from white allies to help students navigate the higher education landscape. The first cohort, 1920–1937, generally studied at two-year colleges and envisioned careers in teaching – thought to be non-threatening and temporary work – and in this era, as well as later, Mexican American women tended to choose Catholic women’s colleges for their presumed alignment with family values. In the second generation, 1938–1959, more Mexican American women began to choose college, even in locales (like Arizona and New Mexico) with no Catholic women’s institution, creating a challenge for families hesitant to expose their daughters to these more secular settings. Although many advances occurred in the Cold War period, the authors note that Mexican American women’s collegiate participation lagged far behind that of their male peers and of white and Black women, constituting only .09% of all college students in 1950 (p. 244). The authors call students of the last period, 1960–1965, “incipient Chicanas,” because they took advantage of higher education in the years before concerted activism. Even then, though, MacDonald and Cook find similar patterns of “uneven collegiate” participation that mark all the eras, where student attendance was challenged by finances, discrimination, and lack of encouragement and opportunity. The chapter closes with a strong methodological note about the challenges of identifying and studying Mexican American students through government or other data. The authors explain that scholars of other groups can often find records in the founding documents and archives of their schools that became colleges; the absence, however, of schools created for and by Mexican Americans poses an additional methodological obstacle. Ling examines Chinese women who came to the United States to study over three eras: a “pioneer” group from 1881 through the 1930s; wartime and postwar students from the 1940s to 1960s; and contemporary students from the 1970s to 1990s. Ling explores the socioeconomic background of students who came, as well as what financial arrangements enabled their study abroad. Christian missionaries, especially groups that had created schools for girls in China, supported most of the first arrivals. Those students chose fields assumed to be useful in their futures, especially education, sociology, chemistry, and home economics (p. 98). Ling also demonstrates that many of these students, while in the U.S., advocated for easing social restrictions on women back in China. By 1950, the proportion of female Chinese rose to nearly one in three of all Chinese students in the U.S.; these students most frequently were supported by Chinese government scholarships, along with funds from American institutions and benefactors. The author notes that students sent to America after the Communist takeover did so in order to inherit family wealth, which their parents had

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

61

transferred to the United States. Ling stresses the strong interest in science among this group. Students coming since the 1970s tend more frequently to be daughters of entrepreneurs, and are generally funded through their own families, Ling notes. Although Ling does not thoroughly explore gender differences between women and men students from China, the author does suggest that women’s move into the middle-class via professional choices has had “cultural and socioeconomic importance” in China and the USA. Although currently sparse, such work on Chinese, Mexican American, and Indian women suggests ways that a gendered lens can reveal intersections among gender expectations, family background, institutional missions, and educational outcomes.

Class Considerations Scholars have explored intersectional issues of gender and class in higher education in a variety of institutions. One perhaps unlikely setting is the group of Katharine Gibbs Schools, whose origins and development from 1911 to 1968 are studied by Marie Marmo Mullaney and Rosemary Hilbert (2018). While these secretarial schools started with only liminal connections to higher education, they strove over time to serve women who had graduated from college and sought a jump into the business world, as well as other women who sought their particular brand of classconscious training. The authors set the schools in the context of other clerical training opportunities (most quite short in length) and business-focused education that was appearing in both men’s and women’s colleges in the middle-twentieth century. Creating the schools as a way to support herself and her family after her husband’s sudden death, Gibbs wanted a program that would produce “self-directed women” (p. 77). She recognized that women might choose her school for two reasons: a career in business or for managing their own homes. Gibbs recognized the changes that were occurring as business grew along with new options for women in offices. “She seems to have been a master at exploiting the class divisions and ethnic prejudices that riddle all layers of American society,” the authors note, explaining that Gibbs’ schools “sold status consciousness along with gender-based vocational training” (p. 80). Over time, the schools’ marketing became quite classconscious, emphasizing their students’ poise, bearing, and gentility, including highlighting women who took Gibbs courses after graduating from various of the Seven Sisters colleges. Over time, the Gibbs schools took on trappings of prestigious colleges, including a study abroad program, protected residences (at New York City’s Barbizon Hotel), and courses in academic subjects that “denote the cultured person” (p. 88). Although the schools’ popularity waned with the 1960s women’s movement, Mullaney and Hilbert argue that they deserve historical attention for creating “a distinctive class- and gender-bound institution that moved women into economically sustaining, rewarding, and potentially upwardly mobile positions at a time when educated women had few opportunities for economic livelihood” (p. 93). A quite different exploration of class and higher education appears in Eric Platt’s (2017) Educating the Sons of Sugar: Jefferson College and the Creole Planter Class in South Louisiana. This book is unusual in focusing on how wealthy Creole planters in Louisiana tried to create a men’s college that would instill a gentleman’s education

62

L. Eisenmann

in their own sons, seeing them as destined for leadership in their isolated, classbound region of Louisiana. Platt’s book is actually a study of “the multiple lives and deaths of Jefferson” (p. 174), which could not sustain its creators’ goals over time. Jefferson College was chartered in 1831 by the wealthy Creole sugar planters of St. James Parish to “provide an intellectual foundation for their sons and heirs” through study of aristocratic architecture and secular liberal arts such as the planters presumed occurred in Paris. But a sturdy, lasting college focused on this class of men was not to be. Fire hit the campus in 1837, along with the national economic collapse; it closed in 1848 due to lack of support, but reopened as Louisiana College under the control of a local French immigrant who did not have the same class-based connections as the founders. As poor management and other issues affected the school, it was sold at the close of the Civil War to the Catholic Marist order, a group that actually pushed modernization of the campus and curriculum, with little attention to the original class-based efforts. In 1931, its final iteration was as a non-collegiate retreat house for the Jesuits. Platt concentrates on the earliest years of Jefferson, when it served as a “social thermometer for sugar planter culture,” the only college created by and for this class (p. 5), and he uses its founding materials and early plans to show how Jefferson’s “educational ideology . . . pertains to social class preservation” (p. 6). Platt finds that, over time and amid social class changes in Louisiana and the South, the “Creole sugar planters endeavored to preserve an ethnic aristocracy” through an antiquated approach to education, but ultimately “conformed to and merged with Anglo-Americans” of the region (p. 13). Working-class women students in an Ivy League setting are the subject of Jennifer O’Connor Duffy’s (2008) study of Radcliffe College between 1940 and 1970. Duffy conducted a secondary statistical analysis on Radcliffe’s 1977 survey of its living graduates, allowing her to study working-class students’ satisfaction with their collegiate experience, as well as their subsequent career outcomes in comparison to graduates of middle- or upper-class backgrounds. Dismissing the common suggestion that Americans believe theirs is a “classless society,” Duffy contextualizes her study in how class plays an important role in determining access and outcomes in higher education, especially for women, noting that “social class remains one of the most elusive and least understood cultural constructs in psychology and sociology” (p. 61). Working-class women constituted 8–10% of Radcliffe’s classes during these three decades. Duffy’s findings demonstrate some ways in which these working-class women were different from other Radcliffe students, leading her to emphasize the college’s success in bolstering their opportunities: in college, they relied more on college advisors for support and were quite satisfied with those relationships; they earned more master’s degrees but fewer doctoral degrees than other graduates; and they stayed in the workforce longer than others. For Duffy, the finding that working-class students generally matched the professional status attained by wealthier graduates marks the Radcliffe experience as a “gateway to mobility as opposed to class maintenance” (p. 146); in other words, working-class women were able to use college to advance beyond their class origins. Another study that addresses the social mobility of working-class college women in a similar time period is Jodi Vandenberg-Daves’ (2002) examination of women

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

63

who studied at the University of Minnesota between 1950 and 1985. While highlighting research on the social mobility function of higher education, Vandenberg-Daves notes, like Gelber (2007), how little scholarly and historical attention has focused on working-class students who choose college. Her work has an advantage over Duffy’s in its use of oral histories of 30 Minnesota graduates (21 white, 9 Black), who are divided into an older cohort that attended college from 1950 to 1965, and a younger cohort who attended during the rise of second-wave feminism, from 1965 to 1985. Although she finds differences between the two generations, the author suggests that “already by the 1960s, working-class women were appropriating the opportunity of access to higher education and reshaping cultural notions of women’s independence through their aspirations for college and its attendant promise of upward mobility” (p. 100). The older cohort saw college as a way to provide domestic happiness and security that they did not see in their own homes and communities, and they were drawn to occasional role models beyond the home. These women wanted control over their destinies, believed they could have effective professional roles, and “felt a sense of entitlement to the ‘cultural capital’ produced by the larger culture” (p. 105). The younger cohort was less attached to particular role models or to the desirability of domestic life, but sought independence above all and wanted to avoid the life patterns they observed in their class backgrounds. All of the women felt responsible for their own futures, and most of them did not dismiss their backgrounds: they simply wanted something better and more secure. Although surrounded by feminist ideals, these women generally did not identify with or borrow from feminism. Nevertheless, Vandenberg-Daves argues, they were “ahead of their time in developing aspirations for female independence” (p. 114) and developed their own “critique of working-class women’s subordination” (p. 115), using college as a vital stepping-stone as did the women studied by Duffy and by MacDonald and Cook.

Religion Religion constitutes one aspect of intersectionality, but one that scholars have combined with a gendered lens only variably. The literature on religion in higher education is strongest on Protestant settings, and less full on treating Catholic or Jewish students, even though those students’ collegiate participation might reasonably command more attention. Jewish Women There is not a great deal of historiography on Jewish women and college. Melissa Klapper (2002) examines Jewish family considerations around advanced education for daughters and sons from the late nineteenth century until 1920. Much of her article, “A Long and Broad Education,” considers choices around high school and how that training prepared girls for later life, which might or might not include college. Klapper argues that high school education generally supported and sustained female students’ connections with their families, only challenging the primacy of family values if a young woman’s sense of individualism became too important. Yet, gender factored into girls’ educational choices in many ways, Klapper finds. Girls and young women were expected to contribute financially to

64

L. Eisenmann

the family, and often to their brothers’ opportunity to pursue college. Parents frequently resisted girls’ interest in college, wanting them to move quickly into supporting the family financially rather than to experience “prolonging adolescence” through more schooling (p. 17). Likewise, parents viewed higher education as unnecessary for women, noting it was unlikely to enhance their daughters’ marriage prospects. In fact, in 1920, the proportion of Jewish men to women in college was five to one, even higher than the average overall male/female ratio of one to three (p. 19). In addition to these family considerations, Klapper addresses the cultural discrimination Jewish women often found on campus, including exclusion from extracurricular groups and clubs. In this era, Klapper notes, Jewish families supported education for daughters, but only insofar as it was not “endangering allegiance to home and family” (p. 23). Catholic Women Although Catholics have constituted a large portion of the American population, Catholic collegiate institutions are often overlooked in general histories of higher education, and, further, the place of women in those institutions is often ignored in the scholarship on Catholic colleges and universities. In an effort to remedy this lack of gendered attention, the Lilly Endowment sponsored a volume on Catholic Colleges in America (2002) that considers their origins, their connections with the nuns who founded and taught in them, and the ongoing issues for such institutions even as they chose coeducation. In an introductory chapter, editors Tracy Schier and Cynthia Russett stress the conservative view among most Catholic leaders at the turn of the twentieth century that advanced education was not needed for women. Kathleen Mahoney explains this resistance, tracing the historical origins of education for Catholic women, exploring first the European context and then how decisions were made in the American setting. She emphasizes the debate that occurred around conceptions of women’s intellect and their power. Regarding intellect, she contends that most Catholic leaders accepted that “women were simply not as capable as men”; regarding power, some worried that “advanced education for women violated God’s disparate plans for the sexes, dangerously threatening the social order” (p. 26). Yet, even amid concerns about the potential impact of both modernism and Americanism on students, Catholic leadership eventually moved to open colleges for women, generally preferring to educate women in single-sex settings. By 1905, Mahoney notes, ten Catholic colleges for women had appeared in the USA; by 1968 – their peak – more than 170 such colleges existed, both two year and four year. Mahoney suggests that three factors combined to produce this advancement for women. First was the need for higher credentials among teachers, with Catholic lay women and nuns increasingly seeking advanced education; the second was consensus that it was better to educate Catholic women in Catholic settings than to leave them to attend secular institutions, thereby protecting them and ensuring that they embodied their values of True Catholic women; and third was deference to the legacy of a centuries-long history of women religious being educated and becoming teachers and scholars (pp. 27–28). Still, Mahoney suggests, “Nothing did more to advance the cause of Catholic higher education for women than the number of

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

65

Catholic women studying in non-Catholic colleges and universities” (p. 47) and the attendant worry about how these settings might threaten their morality. The Catholic colleges transmitted strongly gendered expectations for women students, even as the schools prospered from the leadership and advocacy of the sisters who founded, taught, and sustained the institutions. Kim Tolley (2018) has focused on sisterhood orders who founded academies, seminaries, and later colleges across the United States. She challenges the theoretical idea that sisters entered a “patriarchal bargain” within the strongly hierarchical Catholic church, whereby religious sisters “treated male clergy as the locus of decision-making” (p. 226). In that view, local bishops dictated needs that the nuns simply fulfilled. But in her close examination of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Tolley suggests that the sisters’ “agency and independence” is evident in the school-founding work they continued over decades. The gendered aspects of their situation were clear, she explains: “The sisters were fully aware of their marginalized status within the Church’s patriarchal system; nevertheless, they did not acquiesce to the demands of local clerics when those demands conflicted with their perceived mission” (p. 226). Mary Oates (2021) examines similar issues from the perspective of one institution: The College of Notre Dame of Maryland, founded in 1895, which awarded the nation’s first baccalaureate degrees to Catholic women. She stresses the initiatives and strategies – as well as some of the failures – of the sisters who supported the college, arguing that, far from demonstrating “harmonious cooperation among Catholics,” the college was actually “a center of political and religious controversy” over time (p. 2). Its approaches generated concerns from outsiders for its firm commitment to class and racial diversity, to balancing liberal arts curricula with vocational training, and its engagement with the local community around issues of poverty and mission. Overall, although Catholic institutions for women were founded with missions to protect women students’ Catholic values, many of the colleges pushed boundaries through the activities and commitments of their leadership. Protestantism Andrea Turpin’s (2016) book, A New Moral Vision, is a model for exploring how gender influenced the development of higher education, even when men or women were not present on each other’s campuses, as well as for applying a gendered lens to an intersectional analysis. For Turpin, like Dzuback (2003), gender is the central story. Ostensibly examining shifts in the Christian religion that created a new moral vision for how higher education would prepare its students for engagement in the world, Turpin’s book also studies how colleges and universities interacted with the increased secularization of American society from the mid-nineteenth century to 1917. She is “retelling the narrative of the changing role of religion in the academy with attention to gender” (p. 29). Turpin differentiates her work from that of scholars who suggest that, as earlier denominational religion was disestablished from its position of prominence and authority on nineteenth-century campuses, the religious impulse went underground in favor of belief in the power of the humanities and nonsectarian ethics. Instead, she argues that it was the rapid increase of women’s enrollment in higher education that pushed institutions to

66

L. Eisenmann

determine a new approach, which in effect marked “the creation of a new ideal of student moral and religious formation – for both men and women” (p. 4). Turpin uses the term “relational spirituality” to describe the nineteenth-century shift from Protestant evangelicalism to Protestant modernity. That is, the earlier evangelicals emphasized a “vertical,” God-oriented spirituality, whereas the modernists emphasized “horizontal” and interpersonal relationships with others (pp. 17–18). Arguing that these distinctions represent more than esoteric discussions of religious belief, she explains that they affected the way educators approached the preparation of the next generation of American leaders. With growing attention to horizontal, interpersonal engagement, educators could begin to factor women into their sense of the purposes of education. In doing so, Turpin explains, these changes might have fostered both egalitarian education and ways of serving the world; but instead, they actually developed into more sex-specific ways of engaging men and women beyond the campus, resulting in institutions highlighting the students they were serving (men, women, or coeducated groups) more than the type of school they were. The first part of Turpin’s book sets up this framework of shifts in Protestant religious approaches and highlights how gender would be implicated in these changes, using Mount Holyoke and Oberlin colleges as two contrasting approaches to preparing women. The book’s latter two-thirds consider different types of institutions and how they approached the move toward Protestant modernism. Suggesting that prominent institutions provide the best vantage from which to view such shifts, Turpin studies men’s colleges (Princeton and Harvard), women’s colleges (Wellesley and Bryn Mawr), and coeducational universities (Michigan and California). Although both Princeton and Harvard created coordinate women’s schools, they worked to emphasize their commitment to preparing “highly influential people, who happened to be men” (p. 33). The women’s colleges took different approaches, she notes, with Wellesley stressing the unique opportunities open to female graduates – with their “combination of rigorous mental training and innate feminine sympathy” – in fields like social work. Conversely, Bryn Mawr envisioned a “genderless social structure” where women could interact with the world, all still in the service of “a godly social order” (p. 191). The coeducational state universities faced a different challenge, with their task of educating women and men together on the same campus and through public support. Turpin traces how Michigan’s presidents created a sense of an “ethical identity” of public service, promoting the university as an “ideal nursery for citizens of a vibrant democracy where men and women would cooperate together for the public good” (p. 209). Even so, at both Michigan and California, men heard a gendered message that their education could fit them for any public profession, while women remained limited to a sex-specific set of roles. Turpin concludes by suggesting some advantages to these new moral visions: colleges and universities began to reach beyond wealthy white students to draw in poorer and Black students, as well as those who did not identify as Protestant.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

67

Summary The work that emphasizes intersections of gender with race, class, and religion remains at varied stages of development, but overall supports Nash’s (2018a, b) notion that educational history is not now and likely should not be one synthetic narrative. Rather, work of the past two decades recognizes the importance of creating Boydston’s “historically grounded histories of particular processes of gendering” (2008, p. 576). Using a gendered lens, these studies reveal that women of different races, classes, and religions usually encountered highly gendered expectations for their initial access to college, their experience while on campus, and the opportunities they faced upon graduation. From the Black women faculty members at Howard University who were paid less for larger teaching loads than men, to the Protestant women on coeducational campuses who were pushed into narrow conceptions of public service, women of varied backgrounds faced discrimination both subtle and overt. But the literature also presents cases of resistance or advancement, such as the Catholic nuns who led St. Mary’s College with progressive ideals or the Radcliffe and Minnesota lower- and middle-class graduates who used their collegiate educations for social mobility.

Coeducation The first three topical areas considered above – Femininities, Masculinities, and Intersectional Identities – look generally at how institutions transmitted gender expectations to students, along with how students received those messages. The next three sections – Coeducation, Professionals, and Policy/Politics – use a gendered lens to explore situations or settings that framed gender ideas around specific roles or policies. As coeducation became the predominant mode of higher education throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, questions about how to plan for women and men studying and living together became increasingly important, even if the men’s needs generally took precedence. And as women moved more surely into the professoriate and collegiate administrations, they encountered the dilemma of working and succeeding in a gendered labor market that devalued their contributions and presented challenges to advancement. Finally, a look at politics and policy around higher education, especially the evolution of Title IX and federal student aid, reveals differing scholarly views on the impact of intentional activism versus unintended results. Work on campus coeducation has been quite robust in the past twenty years, developing along two general lines. First is scholarship that offers what might be considered a corrective to previous historiography which emphasized women’s lack of access and their budding agency in pushing for coeducational spaces. This developing strand finds new places where coeducation prospered (normal schools, land grant institutions, historically Black colleges), new reasons for women’s enrollment increases (market forces), and new understandings of how women and men negotiated the gendered spaces of higher education (religious colleges, public

68

L. Eisenmann

universities, coordinate colleges). The second line of inquiry is specific to the latetwentieth century movement to coeducation at longstanding women’s and men’s institutions, a shift which began quite abruptly in 1969 in the Ivy League and continued at a fever pitch for several years, with a few institutions making the change some years later. In both research strands – but particularly in the latter – scholars are finding that the influence of market forces predominated far more strongly than any special concern for the education of women.

“Corrective” Work on Access and Agency Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, studies of coeducation generally observed the important model offered by Lynn Gordon in Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era (1990), a book that itself shifted how historians studied coeducational settings. Recognizing that scholars had often focused on the first generation of women to attend collegiate institutions, Gordon turned instead to a subsequent era, roughly 1890 to 1920, focusing on how women experienced their time at two large coeducational universities – Chicago and California – and three smaller women’s colleges – Vassar, Sophie Newcomb, and Agnes Scott. At the coeducational institutions, women did not find an immediate or warm welcome, and Gordon traces how they created separate campus spaces and activities for themselves, building a separate experience out of necessity. Gordon’s is a story of women’s agency, a significant aspect of much of the historiography at the time she wrote. But some recent scholars have looked in different places and with different lenses to discern situations where coeducation was less contentious and more integrated than what Gordon described. Christine Ogren (2003, 2005) has regenerated interest in the normal school as a setting where women and men found – and claimed – leadership in intellectual opportunities, campus activities, and career plans. Ogren explains that the normal schools were not created specifically as women’s institutions, but since women increasingly predominated in the teaching force, they far outpaced men in nineteenth-century normal school enrollments. Because of their low position in the prestige rankings of higher education and their focus on preparing teachers, the normal schools sought and served non-traditional students, both women and lowerclass students. Ogren explains that the schools’ “culture seemed to adhere to the rural and lower-class view – necessitated by practical considerations – that gender roles were somewhat flexible” (2005, p. 151), and she observes such flexibility in the way women and men interacted on the campuses. Thus, her studies emphasize ways that women “normalites” created activities like literary societies and athletics that emulated those on university campuses and how they assumed leadership roles in these areas. Since a major purpose of the normal schools was to move their students into the middle-class and public role of teacher, the campuses became less bound to narrower views of gendered behavior. Andrea Radke-Moss (2008) similarly reclaims a campus setting as more genderbalanced than the previous historiography might suggest in her study of four Western land grant institutions, in Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and Oregon, between the Civil War and the early twentieth century. While not denying that these land grant schools had

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

69

gendered spaces, curricula, activities, and expectations, Radke-Moss emphasizes that hers is “not so much the story of the access to higher education as it is the practices of coeducation” (p. 1). Seeing these settings differently than how Gordon viewed California and Chicago, Radke-Moss emphasizes instances of negotiation and “gendered interaction” (p. 10) rather than separation in these settings, as she examines how women students “found ways to challenge the separation by rejecting traditional roles or simply adapting them to their own purpose” (p. 2). Radke-Moss acknowledges that these schools and their leaders were not immune to expectations of appropriate gender roles. But she emphasizes that, given their settings, their fresh opportunities, and what she calls the “administrative rhetoric of progressive land-grant education” (p. 17) that valued egalitarianism, the schools also innovated through flexible curricula and expanded campus opportunities. Radke-Moss is particularly strong in explaining two types of separation that occurred on these campuses: physical separation of spaces and “separation in word,” which she describes as the “language of expectation” that “reinforced the different moral, intellectual, and social expectations for men and women” (p. 61). She found these latter separations in course descriptions, campus newspapers, and rules and regulations, including the ongoing expectation that women would be the campus housekeepers who would serve as moral models for men. Even with these efforts at separation, however, Radke-Moss – like Ogren – stresses how women took advantage of opportunities around them. She offers a particularly strong look at the curriculum, showing how the schools all moved toward domestic science as the practical and appropriate training for women, but also how women used that training for career ends, such as pursuing teaching opportunities and as home extension agents. Another look at a mixed setting – but one where men and women were often separated – is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s edited volume, Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History (2004). Unlike Ogren and Radke-Moss, who look at larger groups of institutions, Ulrich’s contributors focus on the peculiar and shifting gendered relationships at the country’s oldest university. The Harvard/Radcliffe story is challenging because of Radcliffe’s long role as a coordinate institution – that is, related to but not fully part of Harvard University – until it was subsumed into Harvard in 1999. Because Harvard was able to assume that women were taken care of at and by Radcliffe, Ulrich notes that its history generally offers “a curiously constricted sense of what belonged to Harvard’s past” (p. 3), often simply ignoring women as students, faculty, and staff. “There was no conspiracy here,” Ulrich asserts, “just collective complacency and an ignorance compounded by separatism” (p. 5). Ulrich’s volume fits in the “corrective” category along with Ogren and Radke-Moss because she looks at gendered relationships even when women were kept separate from men. As she notes, “Because gender is a relational category, one cannot talk about ‘femaleness’ or ‘maleness’ without implying its opposite” (p. 1). Long before the establishment of Radcliffe in 1879, gender was an issue at Harvard, as Ulrich shows in looking at how the institution prepared “gentlemen.” Pulling interesting artifacts from the university’s archives, the volume traces portraits of men and women, and even the photo of a “Harvard toga,” a decorated dressing gown that was banned for Harvard men as “indecent apparel or women’s apparel” (see pp. 75–77). Ulrich

70

L. Eisenmann

also looks, for example, at the gendered aspects of a labor lawsuit in 1929 when Harvard fired 20 people who cleaned the campus library – all of whom just happened to be women – as well as the union organizing campaign for clerical and technical workers in the late-1980s that was led by young women and campus feminists. Charles Dorn (2008) also looks at one coeducational campus to study gender, the University of California at Berkeley during World War II. His “correction” consists of revising the view of how women used their opportunities on wartime campuses, arguing against seeing their efforts “solely as a consequence of declining male enrollments resulting from the draft” (p. 537). He frames women’s achievements at Berkeley in these years differently: “Industrious and determined, women challenged both tradition and social norms to further their curricular and extracurricular goals, champion strongly held political beliefs, achieve greater gender equality on campus, and prepare for roles both as paid employees and engaged citizens” (p. 537). Dorn looks at curricular programs that opened to women, especially the engineering training program, along with a concomitant set of “work forums” created to encourage women toward paid employment. In addition to choosing an expanded array of courses, Berkeley’s wartime women students relished the chance for campus leadership. A woman became the first female president of student government, and another the first female editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper. Disputing earlier studies suggesting that women merely stepped in during men’s absence, Dorn notes that women had made some advances into leadership roles even before the war, and did so via competition with male classmates. Then, during the war, women leaders such as the officers of the campus YWCA expanded their activism by challenging both the internment of Japanese Americans and several statewide efforts to strengthen fair employment practices. Dorn concludes with a quick look at how campuses changed after the War, but overall emphasizes continuity across women’s growing leadership rather than the time-limited advances achieved by women during wartime. Not only did some women win leadership roles before and during the War, but their involvement “indeed extended into the postwar era” (p. 562), challenging our assumption that women merely filled spaces vacated by men during wartime. The last piece in the “corrective” category is Sarah Manekin’s (2010) look at how markets influenced the entrance of women into the all-male University of Pennsylvania. Challenging previous histories of Penn that emphasize its longstanding “commitment to gender equality” (p. 300), Manekin contests the view of “a literature that focuses on pioneering leadership and self-conscious activism as the cause of wider access for previously marginalized groups” (p. 301). While not doubting the importance of activism, Manekin finds that, in the case of Penn, the creation of its School of Education in 1914 and its College of Liberal Arts for Women in 1933 were, in fact, “a direct result of the University’s struggles to align itself with elite institutions, maintain its fiscal stability, and resolve inter-departmental tensions in the wake of rapid expansion and the Great Depression” (p. 300). Even while attributing the expansion to market forces rather than activism, Manekin nevertheless finds that gender ideology was “ever-present” throughout these developments, “informing the ways in which men and women viewed these more immediate struggles and conditioning their responses” (p. 300). The School of

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

71

Education, designed to address market pressures, quickly became dominated by women students, who used enrollment there to access the rest of the ostensibly male university. This situation of seemingly de facto coeducation continued for several decades until Penn directly addressed it by creating the College of Liberal Arts for Women. Manekin traces administrators’ “gendered rhetoric” (p. 318) in their decision to model the coordinate situations at Harvard, Columbia, and Brown universities and by establishing a separate college at Penn. Noting her wish not to diminish a sense of women’s agency, Manekin concludes by suggesting that her study “has examined the issue of women’s access to higher education from the perspective of the gate-keepers,” thereby shifting our lens (p. 323). The five studies examined here – Ogren, Radke-Moss, Ulrich, Dorn, and Manekin – correct, or perhaps deepen, the historical understanding of how women and men engaged on coeducational campuses and how institutions planned these mixed settings. Ogren, Radke-Moss, and Dorn all suggest that women found and used opportunities for leadership and curricular engagement on campuses that were not as separately gendered as those Gordon (1990) studied. Whether because of prestige issues at the normal schools, progressivism among the land grants, or the prominence of female enrollments during WWII, women experienced campuses fairly open to their involvement. Yet Ulrich and Manekin, both of whom study Ivy League institutions, found much less flexibility or interest in sharing opportunities with female students, with universities choosing instead to segregate women whenever possible. In those settings, a view prevailed that too much prominence for women on campus diminished a school’s prestige and market presence.

Post-1960s Push for Coeducation: The Influence of Markets The second strand in the newer work on coeducation also engages the ideas of prestige and market presence, in this case, specifically examining the push around 1969 among longstanding single-sex universities and colleges to start admitting students of the opposite sex. In that year, prominent schools including Yale, Princeton, and Georgetown universities admitted their first female students; within a few years, other large and smaller all-male schools made the same move, including Boston College, Bowdoin, Colgate, Dartmouth, Duke, Lafayette, Notre Dame, and University of Virginia (Perkins, 2018a, b, Appendix A, p. 267). Similarly, all-female institutions, including Vassar, Connecticut, Skidmore, Pitzer, and Sara Lawrence colleges, also began to admit men. This rapid change has long interested higher education scholars, and the passage of 50 years of coeducation has prompted historians to reexamine both the decisions to adopt coeducation and the experiences of the women and men who chose these schools. Two striking findings emerge strongly across a variety of studies: first, that schools seldom admitted women (or men) out of commitment to gender equality; and second, echoing Manekin’s findings at Penn, that market forces and the threat that students would no longer choose single-sex settings, influenced this big decision. Leslie Miller-Bernal and Susan Poulson (2004) have taken the widest look at these schools, with two books: Going Coed: Women’s Experiences in Formerly Men’s Colleges and Universities, 1950–2000 (2004), which looks at institutions

72

L. Eisenmann

that explored or made the decision to shift; and Challenged by Coeducation: Women’s Colleges Since the 1960s (2006), which examines women’s institutions that either became coeducational, closed, or chose to remain single-sex. These two edited books, employing strong gender lenses, focus on both institutional developments and decisions, and the experience of students. While most of the case studies in Going Coed center on the late-1960s, some chapters also remind readers of the status of coeducation – and decisions to change enrollment – before that busy era. For instance, one chapter studies how and why the University of Rochester started as a mixed school, moved to separate women’s and women’s campuses, and then eventually moved back to full coeducation. Framing a theme that becomes familiar, the authors explain that this decision “was not made for reasons of sexual equality”; rather, it “translated into policies that the president believed would enhance the university’s reputation in science and research” (p. 55) by focusing expenditures and attention on those areas rather than on whether Rochester should educate its women and men differently. Going Coed presents particularly strong scholarship in the variety of schools it studies. While there is a section specifically on the Ivy League as a group, the book also looks at the challenge of bringing women into the notably “masculine cultures and traditions” at Dartmouth, the University of Virginia, and Boston College. The contributors study public and private institutions, including Catholic colleges, historically Black institutions, military academies (West Point and Virginia Military Institute), and community colleges, which while not generally single-sex, were often nonetheless sex-segregated in the curriculum. The editors summarize this recent history of coeducation by noting that “financial, demographic, and cultural factors” (p. 309) – all of which threatened the prestige and sometimes the solvency of schools that failed to attract students in a time of decreasing enrollments – influenced institutional decisions. “What is missing in this litany of reasons for adopting coeducation,” they note, “is a salient concern for the education of women” (p. 310). Miller-Bernal and Poulson followed Going Coed with an examination of women’s colleges as a group since the 1960s. In Challenged by Coeducation (2006), after first reviewing the history of coeducational and single-sex education, they demonstrate through compelling case studies four choices that women’s colleges made regarding “the overwhelming coeducation trend” of the late-1960s: admit men (Vassar, Wheaton, and Wells); develop tight relationships with a nearby men’s institution, sometimes through a coordinate relationship (Barnard, Spelman); create new programs to attract an expanded student body (Mills, Simmons); or simply close, merge, or be subsumed by another institution (Mundelein) (p. 11). As is obvious in this set of choices, not all women’s institutions fared well – or even survived – the era’s demographic and financial challenges. The authors, while looking at institutional decisions and developments, nonetheless keep their prime focus on “how women have fared as colleges have changed,” asking: Have formerly all-women schools retained characteristics that support women? Is different better for some of them? And has the “gender-equal” promise of coeducation been realized? The answers differ by setting, but these questions focus this wide-ranging study (p. 11).

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

73

While the two volumes by Miller-Bernal and Poulson encompass a range of settings, two authors have focused their work on single institutions: Paul Marthers (2011) on Connecticut College and Anne Perkins (2018a, b, 2019) on Yale University. Connecticut’s decision to admit men in 1969 is only part of Marthers’ exploration of this campus, which covers its founding as an alternative type of education in Connecticut, the influence of several Progressive Era movements including home economics and vocational education, and its effort to find a place in relation to the better-known Seven Sisters women’s colleges. Connecticut College had a more comfortable relationship with vocational education than some other women’s institutions, and the book details how President Rosemary Park led it more deeply toward the liberal arts in the decade before coeducation. Since the college had been created specifically to give women an all-female option in the state, admitting men would change its mission unalterably. The concerns discussed at Connecticut mirror those explored by Miller-Bernal and Poulson, particularly whether women’s issues would be pushed aside and the commitment to their education lessened, whether the faculty gender ratio would shift in favor of men, and whether the college could attract the sort of male students it wanted. Ultimately, Marthers argues, it was Vassar College’s decision to admit men that pushed Connecticut toward the same decision, emphasizing the influence both of cultural and market forces. Perkins, herself a graduate of Yale, examines not only its decision to admit women in 1969 but also the experience of the first cohort of women who attended, as both firstyear students (230 women) and transfers (345). Perkins argues that Yale was a bastion of both prestige and maleness, tracing the number of its famous alumni including Supreme Court justices, senators, attorneys, and business leaders. Yet her analysis reveals that the Yale story resembles some others in that not only market forces, but the particular market with which the institution most closely identifies, affected the decision to change. In Yale’s case, it was Princeton making public its decision to admit women, and Yale recognizing that many male students seeking a more open education in 1969 would likely choose Princeton over New Haven that pushed the change. Perkins keenly demonstrates the meager preparation for women students’ arrival at Yale and the scant attention paid to their needs. Yale’s president hired Elga Wasserman as a Special Assistant to the President for the Education of Women, without a dean’s title or authority, and Perkins explores how this anomalous role worked against not only Wasserman’s effectiveness but also better planning for women. For instance, because of the decision to assign women across all of Yale’s residential houses rather than housing them together, the women experienced tremendous isolation and challenges to concerted action. Using a set of nearly 70 oral histories with Yale students and administrators, Perkins describes the experiences of both individuals and the group, weaving the stories of five particular women into the larger Yale context. Perkins also demonstrates that male Yale students advocated for the admission of women, and many became allies once women enrolled. At the same time, other Yale men made life challenging for the new arrivals. With this mix of reasons and approaches at Yale, Perkins concludes with a familiar assertion: “Missing from [President Kingman] Brewster’s rationale was any notion of admitting women for reasons of equity or fairness” (p. 17). In fact, the committee charged with

74

L. Eisenmann

planning for coeducation (with only ten months’ advance notice) announced its goal of bringing in women “‘with the least disruption of the current pattern’ of education at Yale” (p. 23), hardly an indication of commitment to what women might need. Nancy Malkiel tells Yale’s story alongside those of other Ivy League men’s colleges in “Keep the Damned Women Out”: The Struggle for Coeducation (2016), which she supplements by examining the Seven Sisters colleges’ confrontations with decisions around coeducation and considerations of status changes at the two most prominent British universities, Oxford and Cambridge. A longtime dean and professor at Princeton, Malkiel admits that her personal experience affected her strong attention to that campus, but she also argues that the most prestigious institutions are important because they are regarded as models by others. Describing her book as “a study in institutional decision-making” (p. xvi), she is less focused on the experiences of individual students. Looking at such a variety of schools allows Malkiel to develop several themes. First is the importance of leadership as a key to the coeducation decision and the working out of details surrounding it. As she explains, effective leaders could envision a different future for their institutions and lead the way there. But, “[p]ut the other way, the less effective the leader, the easier it was for the many forces of opposition to throw sand in the gears” (p. xviii). The second theme is the importance of process; that is, the more “an institution invested in careful analysis and planning, the more likely it was to contain the opposition and introduce coeducation reasonably smoothly” (p. xviii). Her third theme – seen widely across her own and other studies – is self-interest, framing coeducation as a way to build stronger applicant pools and, notably, stoke the interest of male alumni fathers and grandfathers who could now envision their daughters joining their alma mater. Finally, echoing Perkins’ finding about male administrators and students at Yale, Malkiel recognizes that “the protagonists in this story are men” (p. xx). With the exception of President Mary Bunting of Radcliffe, every person engaged in the decision regarding coeducation was male. Summarizing the view in both strands of literature on coeducation, Malkiel concludes: This is not a story of women banding together to demand opportunity, to press for access, to win rights and privileges previously reserved for men. As appealing as it might be to imagine the coming of coeducation as one element in the full flowering of mid- to late-twentieth century feminism, such a narrative would be at odds with the historical record. Coeducation resulted not from organized efforts by women activists, but from strategic decisions taken by powerful men. (pp. xx–xxi)

Summary As Malkiel observes, men were the decision-makers on nearly all the campuses studied here, and they rarely recognized women’s needs or interests in their decisions to shift their institutions to coeducation. At men’s institutions like Yale, for instance, the articulated goal was to admit women with the least amount of disruption for men, suggesting that women were useful solely to enhance applicant pools and to appease men who wanted a coeducational opportunity. At the women’s institutions, conversely, the urgency of attracting men students forced leaders to place men at the

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

75

center of their decision-making, worrying about whether their institutions’ curricula and physical plants would attract male students, whether they could sustain a cadre of women faculty, and whether the campuses could retain characteristics of their women-focused early years once coeducation prevailed. Overall, the mix of literature on coeducation that employs a gendered lens suggests that some settings – particularly the normal schools and land-grant universities – may have realized the “gender-equal” promise of coeducation that Miller-Bernal and Poulson (2006) emphasized, but that other settings were dominated more by market concerns than by educational equity.

Professionals and Gender Work on gender and collegiate professionals has focused primarily on two roles: deans who were responsible for student life, and faculty members. A smaller strand has explored women as philanthropy professionals. The scholarship on deans of students has worked to “reclaim” that role as professional, and especially, on establishing that deans of women – a role no longer extant – were the ones responsible for moving the field in a professional direction; unlike other situations where male leaders determined direction, here the male deans followed women’s lead toward professionalization. The work on faculty, whether it studies the nineteenth or the twentieth century, finds women’s participation generally unwelcome and undervalued. Coeducational institutions, whether predominantly white or historically Black, viewed women faculty primarily as teachers, not researchers, and rarely placed them beyond roles in fields like home economics, teaching, or nursing. When institutions did hire women, they often assigned them larger teaching loads, lower salaries, and more difficult paths to promotion. Even in settings like women’s colleges, where a much larger proportion of the faculty were women, opportunities to conduct research and generate external funding to support it were limited and challenging to pursue.

Deans Carolyn Bashaw (1999) and Jana Nidiffer (2000), writing separately and then together (2001), have mined the careers and efforts of early deans of women to demonstrate their commitment to their work, to their students, and to craft their role in a professional way. As Bashaw (1999) notes, by 1900, as women students increasingly entered coeducational institutions, their growing presence seemed to call for a campus-based person to oversee their academic and – in the era of in loco parentis – their personal lives. Even with this growth, though, Bashaw explains that the women appointed to these early roles generally had no specific training and certainly had not had their own dean of women to model the role. Some had earned PhD’s and were seeking roles on university campuses at times when women found few opportunities to pursue scholarly work outside the women’s colleges. Bashaw (1999) explains that, although women were assuming these roles in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, “the position possessed none of the

76

L. Eisenmann

components of a profession – formalized graduate training programs, a coherent body of research literature, and a professional association. However,” she notes, “between 1900 and 1916, dedicated deans of women began transforming a nonstandardized job into a legitimate profession” (1999, p. 3). Nidiffer (2000) focuses on some of the earliest deans, particularly in the Midwest where the position was most common, examining the careers of Marion Talbot (Wellesley College, then University of Chicago), Mary Bidwell Breed (Indiana University), Ada Louise Comstock (the University of Minnesota, then Radcliffe College), and Lois Kimball Mathews (University of Wisconsin). Nidiffer contextualizes her study of these deans in the literature on professionalization, stressing their efforts to share information and strategies through networking, mutual support in hiring and recruiting, creating national organizations, and eventually building graduate programs and outlets for their research. Shifting the scholarly focus from the Northeast and the Midwest, Bashaw (1999) explores women deans in southern institutions, examining the careers of Sarah Gibson Blanding (the University of Kentucky, then Vassar College), Katherine S. Bowersox (Berea College), Agnes Ellen Harris (the University of Alabama), and Adele H. Stamp (the University of Maryland). Although she begins her study in the early part of the twentieth century, Bashaw primarily examines these women’s careers during the Great Depression, advancing the inquiry about the dean’s role past its formational period. In their 2001 edited volume, Women Administrators in Higher Education: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Nidiffer and Bashaw summarize much of the work on the deans’ early profession, emphasizing how they advocated for themselves and for the women in their charge, but also how their activism created a role for women on collegiate campuses where there had been none. Then, explicitly connecting women’s professional pasts with their increased opportunities in the present, several chapters explore how women moved into roles like physical education instructors, chief academic officers, and eventually, presidents. A theme throughout several of these chapters is the efficacy of networking and women-focused organizations like the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors (NAWDC). Extending the view of women deans as campus advocates rather than narrowlyfocused disciplinarians, Kelly Sartorius (2014) studied the career of dean Emily Taylor at the University of Kansas, which spanned the 1950s into the 1970s. Countering a view of the 1950s as a time when women took a backseat as both campus professionals and students, Sartorius argues for Taylor’s activism and feminism throughout her lengthy career. Taylor advocated for women’s needs, frequently challenging her president, fellow deans, and faculty colleagues when she felt their lack of support for female collegians. For instance, Taylor found ways to have physicians work with women students, including on contraception and pregnancy. Sartorius notes how Taylor – not unlike other deans required to monitor women’s behavior – supported women by keeping only informal records that allowed pregnant students to leave campus or deal with sexual assault quietly without public scrutiny. The seemingly innocuous act of issuing senior students

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

77

keys to their dormitories in the late-1950s was, in fact, Taylor’s way of “taking on parietals,” restrictive social rules that would give way a decade later. At Kansas, Sartorius argues, it was the dean who sparked this change, countering the common presumption that 1960s activist students were the ones pushing reluctant administrators toward change. “[F]ew historians have looked for an administrator prodding students to change. Taylor was that administrator” (p. 73), she notes. As a complement to eliminating parietals, Taylor believed that student “self-governance was about self-determination” (p. 73), and she pushed for the Kansas women to create and define their own student government. Here and in other work (2018), Sartorius examines the Associated Women Students (AWS) as an organization that helped women move toward greater autonomy and self-direction. Bashaw, Nidiffer, and Sartorius all emphasize how frequently the women deans were thwarted – or at least not supported – by campus colleagues who had yet to recognize the important role they played for a large proportion of the student body. They note the incipient feminism in the deans’ work, but focus on a few specific women rather than exploring the full range of deans’ backgrounds. That work has been undertaken by Janice Gerda (2004, forthcoming), with a particular focus on the earliest deans of women who worked between 1903 – when the first organized deans’ meeting occurred in the Midwest – and 1920. She has traced the professional and personal lives of 130 women deans who practiced between these years, using the roster of 1903 meeting attendees. Gerda’s persistent dive into the whole range of female deans has suggested a much wider set of backgrounds, experiences, and future roles than what earlier scholarship offered. In a chapter tellingly titled, “Most But Not All: Characteristics of Early Deans of Women and Learning from the Exceptions” (forthcoming), Gerda demonstrates that, while not an especially diverse group racially, there was “diversity of sexual orientation” among the group, as well as some religious differences (p. 7, manuscript). In terms of family origins, Gerda notes that “When studies of DOWs [Deans of Women] have been of a small number of people, the impression is that DOWs came from families of wealth and privilege, with at least middle class or professional fathers and established roots” (p. 7, manuscript). But her wider look reveals counter-examples, such as Dean Margaret Evans who was one of ten children born to immigrant parents. Like most college-educated women of the early twentieth century, most of the deans remained unmarried, but Gerda finds several who pursued the work after being widowed or who married later in life. A few, such as Ella Gertrude Shorb Martin, held the career while married and a mother. The notion that women deans only reluctantly turned to the deanship because of thwarted academic ambitions is belied by Gerda’s findings of deans such as botanist Winifred Robinson who chose deaning over research, and Minnie Stoner who left her full professorship in Domestic Science to become Dean of Women at the University of Wyoming. Gerda examines women’s career paths, countering a view of deaning as a dead-end job that deservedly was phased out later in the century. She finds a number of deans who stayed in the career for decades, but also some who later became college presidents or founders of their own school. Former deans took presidencies at Radcliffe, Oxford College for Women, Western College for Women,

78

L. Eisenmann

Pennsylvania College for Women, Sweet Briar, and Emanuel College. School founders included Martha Weaver’s School in Los Angeles and Abby Shaw Mayhew’s Physical Training School. Much of the work on deans of women moves toward reassessing their contributions and how they influenced higher education. Angie Klink (2014), for instance, examines the sequential group of five women deans at Purdue University from the 1930s to the 1990s, stressing how they advanced support for women across time at this single campus. Klink describes “the Dean’s Bible,” an actual book that was passed from one dean to the next, which served as a physical reminder that, when the dean “met with obstacle, injustice, or good fortune, the deans were always there for one another in presence and in spirit” (p. xii). Klink emphasizes these women as active administrators on both the campus and national scene, firm supporters of students, and committed to women’s rights and advancement. Schwartz (1997a, b, 2002, 2010) is one of few scholars to have studied both the deans of women and deans of men in his work exploring the origins of the student affairs profession. Aware that student affairs in the mid- to late-twentieth century moved away from assigning deans specifically to work with female or male students, Schwartz advances two conclusions about the deanship. First, he emphasizes that the field was created by women deans, and not by men, and he frames the feminization of a profession as enabling a new type of leadership for women. Second, he recognizes that women professionalized the field much earlier than its supposed to start with the 1949 publication of The Student Personnel Point of View, a book usually credited with reframing how deans should work with students. In his 2010 exploration of how and where the dean of men’s role fit into these developments, Schwartz is one of few scholars to look at the profession across several eras. A different approach to examining the field appears in Michael Hevel and Timothy Cain’s article, “The Queer Student Affairs Career of Stephen Lenton, 1970–1980” (forthcoming). Recognizing that, in the present, student affairs is generally viewed as supportive of LGBTQ students and issues, as well as a safe and comfortable place for LGBTQ practitioners, Hevel and Cain look at the 1970s when Stephen Lenton was pushed out of his dean’s job at Virginia Commonwealth University for his too-public advocacy of gay students, their organizations, and his own frequent off-campus speaking engagements on LGBTQ issues. Lenton left a considerable number of papers that allowed the authors to trace the development of his own sexual identity and the shifts he found at VCU, from early acceptance by administrators of his advocacy to their later rejection of his public persona and his activism. The authors interpret Lenton’s career in the context of student affairs as a changing field, one that well into the 1960s expelled and often entrapped students who were suspected of being homosexual, as well as a field whose own historiography has only obliquely considered the sexual identities of student affairs professionals themselves. The gendered lens has proven especially provocative in studying the history of deans of students, demonstrating the influence of early women deans in a field that later altered their roles almost completely, as well as exploring questions about how comfortably LGBTQ deans could function in the field.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

79

Faculty Most of the gendered historiography on faculty has been specific to women professors, at times including their relationships with male scholars on their campuses or in their fields. My own work (Eisenmann, 2006, 2016) broadly examines women academics in the post-World War II era, arguing that they were undervalued and consistently treated as lesser than men. Although women made up nearly a quarter of full-time faculty in this era, many of those jobs were at teaching-oriented institutions and smaller colleges; women constituted only 16 percent of the faculty at public universities, and 13 percent at private universities (2006, p. 59). Further, men’s work and career paths were assumed as the norm, “and little concession existed for choices that women needed to make around marriage, motherhood, and career” (2016, p. 252). Women academics were routinely overlooked as they tried to “manage academic careers during a postwar cultural moment that was little concerned with understanding – let alone exploiting – the contributions that women might make as professionals” (2016, p. 252). Other work on women faculty focuses on specific campuses or fields of study. Miriam Levin (2005) examines female faculty who taught science at Mount Holyoke College during its first century, from 1837 to 1937. Setting her study within the wider contexts of the development of science, the growth of higher education, and the influence of religion, Levin argues that this small women’s college in western Massachusetts was significant in preparing women scientists and in defining collegiate-level science education. As a group, scientists consciously divided their work and their teaching into what they deemed best suited to men faculty (research roles) and women faculty (teaching), as well as between larger universities (discovery of new knowledge) and small colleges (disseminating those discoveries); thus, women faculty at a small school like Mount Holyoke were doubly disadvantaged in carving scientific careers as researchers. However, Levin argues that “colleges as well as universities were sites of great activity and continuous engagement with the forces placing science at the forefront of American society between the 1830s and 1940” (p. 10). She explains that Mount Holyoke founder Mary Lyon from the start “hitched the fortunes of this evangelical New England institution to the rising star of science” (p. 1). Initially, the female teachers at Mount Holyoke worked under more experienced male scientists who taught at local colleges; but, over time, Mount Holyoke explicitly worked to professionalize its own teaching force and sought students who showed promise in science. With scientists in short supply nationally, focusing on scientific work “was a source of power and a means of advancement for Mount Holyoke faculty and graduates” (p. 3). Levin’s book is a creative and thoughtful study of how this college setting both supported and challenged the women making academic careers there. At their evangelical, missionary-focused college, Mount Holyoke scientists relied on the idea of missionizing their calling as science teachers. Levin challenges a common understanding that, as science developed within universities dominated by men, “women were outsiders, isolated individuals trying to get into the system,” eventually becoming “ghettoized in the natural sciences, teaching, technical and research associate posts” (p. 11).

80

L. Eisenmann

Dzuback takes a similar approach to examining the development of women faculty, centering her inquiry around the social sciences more than the natural sciences. Like Levin, she suggests that university-based, research-focused, and well-resourced opportunities were rarely provided to women. More often, due to limited opportunities, women social scientists developed careers at women’s colleges or less-wealthy, smaller universities. In a series of articles (2003, 2005, 2008, 2018), Dzuback examines the situation for women social scientists in a range of settings. In “Research at Women’s Colleges, 1890–1940” (2018), Dzuback uses Nash’s (2018a, b) idea of power as relational and diffuse to demonstrate how women faculty created strategies that allowed them “to become producers of knowledge, not only transmitters” (p. 140). She shows how faculty at Vassar, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Goucher colleges pushed to have research recognized as a primary function of women’s collegiate work, which must be supported by resources, by hiring women committed to research, and by recruiting strong students. Female faculty found sources of funding both on and off campus, and also devised ways to make their research useful to their communities, thereby enhancing the prestige of their work and of the colleges. Even so, the female faculty needed to press constantly for resources. Dzuback emphasizes the difference between their standing in their colleges and in the larger field: “Although these women scholars were not operating at the margins of their institutions, they were operating at the margins of their disciplines,” simply by being outside the better-resourced research universities (2018, p. 155). Dzuback (2008) also studied female social scientists working at research institutions, acknowledging that they were a much smaller group. Examining several institutions, she demonstrates how these scholars “had to negotiate carefully these institutional cultures, which were not by and large hospitable to women researchers” (p. 52). One strategy that worked successfully, at least at these four schools, was to create a niche for women researchers in special institutes or programs that allowed women to pursue research directions, raise money, and connect beyond the campus. With foundation support increasingly going toward university settings, wellconnected social scientists could begin carving out research specialties. Two such settings were the Bureau of International Research at Harvard/Radcliffe and the Department of Industrial Research at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, where women and men worked together as researchers and recruited both female and male students. Dzuback asserts that women “mobilized” several factors: “their own status as highly educated women, often in the top research training institutions in the country; opportunities for research within particular institutions; the availability of philanthropic funding for research; and connections with powerful male colleagues, all of which increased their institutional power” (p. 67). Linda Perkins has studied African American women in academe, including a series of chapters and articles over the past 25 years (1997, 2014, 2018a, b, forthcoming-a, forthcoming-b). In “For the Good of the Race: Married African American Academics – A Historical Perspective” (1997), Perkins demonstrates how Black faculty frequently were married to each other, making it easier for the woman in the partnership to manage a career and home. Some academic couples

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

81

worked at the same institution (an arrangement that was generally less possible for white women due to nepotism rules), while others managed commuting relationships to sustain their careers. Perkins also notes the prominence of women academics at teaching-oriented institutions, especially due to the still-developing status of historically Black colleges. The few Black institutions that attained university status – especially Fisk and Howard – generally hired only men, who thereby found expanded opportunities for research support, graduate students, philanthropic connections, and networking. Perkins’ study of Merze Tate at Howard (2014, 2018a, b) focuses on one of the few female professors at the nation’s premier Black university. Perkins demonstrates how Tate faced “enormous sexism at Howard” (2018a, b, p. 123) as a woman making her career in international relations. Joining Howard initially on a shortterm appointment, Tate had outstanding scholarly credentials; she had studied in Geneva, Berlin, Paris, and Oxford, and earned a doctorate from Harvard/Radcliffe. However, Tate was perceived by her department chair Rayford Logan as “a personality problem” (Logan quoted in Perkins, 2018a, b, p. 124). Even though Logan eventually hired Tate for a permanent position, Perkins details Tate’s and other women faculty members’ difficulties in being promoted, gaining equitable salaries, and holding fair teaching loads. Howard “was a very difficult place to work,” Perkins summarizes (2018a, b, p. 126); in the mid-1950s, 27 of Howard’s academic departments had no women faculty at all. Perkins notes how, although less studied than their male colleagues, these Howard women were notable for their research, service, activism in civil rights, and the power of their own networking to effect change. Overall, work on women faculty stresses their ongoing challenges in achieving equity in hiring opportunities, resources for research, teaching loads, and status across both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and across collegiate types including HBCUs, women’s colleges, and coeducational universities.

Philanthropy Dzuback’s emphasis on how female social scientists developed their work and careers highlights the impact of philanthropy, as well as the networking required to be noticed and supported by external foundations, all of which played an increasingly strong role in shaping the growth of higher education and research over time. In 2005, Andrea Walton assembled an array of authors to explore how philanthropy had engaged women and vice versa; that is, women as both donors and recipients of philanthropic support. Walton notes that the historiography of philanthropy has generally ignored both women and the field of education, suggesting this is due to “narrow conceptions of both philanthropy and education” (p. 3). If one focuses on large gifts and wealthy foundations, she explains, women and how they are educated may be less visible. But, expanding to smaller levels of support and looking beyond formal educational institutions (such as museums, voluntary associations, and missionary groups) offers a different picture. With the mid-twentieth century growth of universities, engagement with philanthropy grew. Walton’s volume covers various ways that women used philanthropy, demonstrating a different aspect of gender and professionalism. Some chapters detail

82

L. Eisenmann

women as philanthropists. Mary Richmond, for instance, used her work at the Russell Sage Foundation to “systematize social work” (p. 17) as it was becoming connected to university training. Sydnor Walker of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial fund developed a philosophy of grant-making that promoted her own view of research and the social sciences, especially by directing support to southern universities. Florence Anderson of the Carnegie Foundation developed an interest in continuing education for women, directing funds to several institutions, as well as to a national conference. Not all female philanthropists were equally fortunate at being able to direct their grant-making. Olivia Sage, for instance, faced considerable obstacles “in trying to use her substantial inheritance to advance women’s education” (p. 20) through the Russell Sage Foundation. Other chapters in the volume demonstrate how women educators networked creatively, engaging in philanthropy for their own ends. Martha Berry of Berry College went on “begging trips” for her new institution, finally finding a supporter in George Foster Peabody and the General Education Board. Some philanthropy was directed specifically to students. Three of the book’s chapters trace how recent graduates used external support to become missionary teachers in Turkey, to build African American campus sororities, and to advance women’s educational work in engineering.

Summary The scholarship that applies a gendered lens to professionalism reveals women’s continued, but only somewhat successful, efforts to gain opportunities, resources, and responsibilities equal to men’s. As faculty, women most frequently found themselves disadvantaged in hiring, salaries, teaching loads, and work responsibilities, placing them more often at small or teaching-focused institutions rather than universities known for research. Yet some scholarship demonstrates ways that women faculty – at both small and larger schools – used philanthropy, networking, and strategic research agendas to build strengths and notoriety on their campuses and in their fields. Likewise, women deans of students used networking and a shared strategic agenda to build and lead a profession between 1900 and the 1950s. Research is beginning to demonstrate the variety of professional paths, including those taken by married women and mothers, and various actions, such as focused activism on behalf of women students, that these deans pursued, even in places where they were rarely treated as leaders.

Politics and Policy A small strand of literature is developing that examines the gendered nature and implications of twentieth-century American legislative and governmental efforts. With the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, two new works (Tamura, forthcoming; Perkins, forthcoming-a, forthcoming-b) examine its origins, each stressing the agency and efforts of advocates beyond those in formal legislative roles. Tamura (forthcoming) notes that much of the Title IX literature either focuses on legislative efforts around its passage or on its iterative interpretations.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

83

She uses the lenses of social movement theory and social network theory to describe the interactions among several groups and individuals pushing for this new law aimed at eliminating barriers to women’s employment, admission, equal opportunities, and safety, exploring the wide set of feminist networks that interacted across government, education, and large-scale women’s rights groups. Yet, in this variety, Tamura recognizes a structural flaw: because these early liberal feminist activists were generally white college-educated professionals, they focused on colleges more than on other institutions or fields that would address a wider range of issues and incorporate a wider range of ethno-racial backgrounds; thus, it took some years for the wider implications and applications of Title IX to become more widely effective. Tamura explores how presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon engaged with Title IX, suggesting that their support was muted and interest-driven rather than growing out of any particular commitment to women’s rights. Using sociological theory about how social movements work, Tamura suggests that the weak ties of the various feminist networks actually helped with applying adaptive strategies and mobilizing resources to support the legislation. Ultimately, she argues for examining the interplay of class, race, ethnicity, and heteronormativity that was present in the creation of Title IX, although not always recognized or studied. Anne Perkins (forthcoming-a, forthcoming-b) looks at the early years of Title IX but with a focus on how its protections were applied to sexual harassment through the activism of students and lawyers concerned with practices at Yale University. Studying the first ten years (1971–1981) of the effort to recognize, name, publicize, and attack sexual harassment, Perkins finds that the first use of the term was by Yale students, faculty, and staff who in 1971 filed a sex discrimination complaint with the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, arguing that the “sexual harassment” they experienced from male Yale faculty was damaging their lives and their educations. Perkins interweaves the particular story at Yale with larger national developments around the understanding of sexual harassment, both on campuses and in wider employment settings. Yale is key not only for coining the term, but also for the impact of the lawsuit Alexander v. Yale (1977), which took the complaint to court. Alexander v. Yale became significant for establishing two key ideas: first, that individuals had a right to sue under Title IX, and, second, that Title IX could be used as a tool to protect women from sexual harassment. Like Tamura, Perkins stresses the agency and networking of individual women – especially women Yale students – in gathering information, publicizing their efforts, challenging the Yale administration, and bringing the lawsuit, all of which continued even as individual collegians and graduate students finished their degrees and moved on. Ultimately, Perkins notes that while Yale was not especially progressive around issues of sex discrimination and harassment, the efforts of its local advocates spurred change at many institutions across the country. Deondra Rose (2018) also looks at Title IX, but in the context of a much wider examination of higher education policy, particularly the creation of the National Defense Education Act student loan programs in 1958 and the financial aid provisions of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Rose sees these three programs acting in tandem to dramatically change opportunities for women’s access to education, and

84

L. Eisenmann

thereby, to deepen their engagement as both political and social citizens. She describes the impact of the three laws as a “one-two punch sequence in an assault against gender inequality in higher educational access,” calling it a “combination of redistributive [NDEA and HEA funds] and regulatory [Title IX protections] policy” (p. 3). At the same time, Rose suggests that the NDEA actually became a case of “accidental egalitarianism” because it granted its funds across gender and racial lines, but without any expressed intent of shifting or expanding the nature of collegiate populations. The legislation simply opened the funding to all students. Once NDEA created non-restrictive financial aid, the HEA followed suit a decade later, again without intentionally targeting new student populations (p. 4). That era, Rose asserts, valued the use of such legislation for redistributive effects; think of various Great Society programs of the 1960s, for instance. But, she argues, by the time of Title IX in 1972, that approach had given way to a more regulatory political environment that supported women students through Title IX’s investigative and regulatory tools rather than redistributing opportunities through financial assistance. While not denying the engagement of activists in helping to effect change, as posited by Tamura and Perkins, Rose declines to attribute the significant legislative advances to that advocacy: “While conventional wisdom suggests that such momentous advances would occur as a result of organized activity on the part of women’s rights activists, in fact these important advances occurred prior to the development of the contemporary feminist movement” (p. 12). Rose’s background as a political scientist and policy feedback scholar informs her quantitative analysis of the changes in women’s participation as a result of the three legislative programs, as well as women’s increased participation in what she calls markers of citizenship, such as voting. For instance, she found that the use of NDEA funding “corresponds to a 20.3 percentage-point increase in the probability that women will earn a college degree” (p. 156). Likewise, in recent decades, women’s political engagement as measured by voting, donating money to political campaigns, and attending political meetings has risen – all marks of engaged citizenship, Rose notes. She argues that women’s increased participation in higher education over several decades resulted in their stronger involvement as voters and as citizens, even if those changes were more unintended than planned. Rose closes her study with a call to look more deeply at whether these policies have had equal feedback effects for women and men across all backgrounds, and how they fit into the historical development of policies designed to connect education to the American welfare state, especially given that they were not created with the intention of dramatically changing educational opportunities for women or for people of color. More focused on the use and impact of government funding and research support than on particular legislative actions, Laura Puaca (2014) examines a forty-year (1940–1980) political effort by women scientists to connect their work to the larger issue of national security, thereby enhancing their own professional engagement, opportunities, and contributions. Puaca terms this effort “technocratic feminism,” whereby scientists “tethered their own interests to broader manpower concerns” (p. 2). Finding the roots of this issue in World War II and Cold War worries over an insufficient supply of scientific manpower, Puaca demonstrates how activists pushed

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

85

to have women scientists identified and welcomed into the cadre of researchers who could mobilize and militarize scientific advances. Looking chronologically, Puaca emphasizes how this national security frame empowered women scientists and educators prior to the rise of second-wave feminism. During WWII, for instance, women reformers pushed into campuses and into laboratories to continue and extend work that men had left due to the draft. After the war, and especially in the 1950s, as the federal government became a huge funder of scientific research and development, women scientists positioned themselves to take advantage of this federal financial backing, all while emphasizing their commitment to technocratic feminism. When second-wave feminism took hold in the 1960s, Puaca sees less interest by women in connecting themselves to national security goals. Instead, she suggests, both older reformers and younger activists reframed their arguments away from the technocratic approach and toward feminist goals, arguing that women scientists deserved expanded opportunities, even if their identification with national security eased in favor of emphasizing the egalitarianism of scientific womanpower.

Summary The gendered literature on politics and policy is mixed in its assessment of the power and efficacy of women’s own advocacy in the latter half of the twentieth century. Perkins (forthcoming-a, forthcoming-b) and Tamura (forthcoming) argue that women and their advocates strategically built coalitions, engaged networks, and used tools such as lawsuits and federal complaints to advance the protections built into Title IX. Puaca (2014) concurs, emphasizing the concerted efforts of women scientists to coopt the prevailing focus on national security to increase their job options and research support over a forty-year period. Rose (2018), however, declines to name advocacy as the major catalyst for changes in women’s collegiate participation after 1958. In her review of legislation in 1958 and 1965 that provided financial aid for all students regardless of gender or race, she finds little discussion of congressional or administrative intent to change the look of collegiate populations. While not diminishing the immediate and long-term effects of these changes, Rose nevertheless attributes them to unintended consequences of legislative actions.

Conclusions and Recommendations for Future Research Since 2000, historians have made impressive progress in applying a gendered lens to the history of American higher education, as urged by Clifford (1983), Dzuback (2003), and Nash (2018a, b). Overall, this gender scholarship has engaged the theme of women more deeply than that of intersectionality. Women’s experience is the focus of much of the literature examined in this chapter, and its hardiness demonstrates that historians are still seeking to insert and reinsert women into higher education history, as both students and professionals. I argue that this work on women has moved beyond its earlier focus on access or on women’s agency. Historians are now situating women’s involvement more widely, and in doing so have highlighted two related findings: first, that commitments to women’s needs

86

L. Eisenmann

were seldom paramount in gender-based decisions (that is, educational equity was not the primary goal, even in decisions that benefitted women), and, second, that the effort to attribute change to activism by and for women often revealed only one part of a larger story about markets and self-interest (that is, in many situations, advocacy for women was less efficacious than it might seem). Coeducational settings have attracted considerable historical attention, especially as single-sex colleges and universities have faded in prominence and number. Here, the gendered lens reveals the prevalent image of women as interlopers in higher education, where, in Nash’s (2018a, b) words, “men and male institutions [were] the norm, into which women were either accepted or not” (p. 4). For instance, male universities that chose to coeducate sought as little disruption for their male students as possible, whereas women’s colleges that chose to accept men found themselves having to position men’s needs as key in their decision-making, even as they worried about how their schools might maintain a sense of women’s history. Although the use of intersectionality as a theme is less developed than that of women in the historiography, combining it with a gendered lens exposes differences in the experiences of students and faculty by race, class, and religion. These differences are especially dramatic around race. For example, historians continue to find that all women professionals on campuses – both white and Black faculty – were generally unwelcome and undervalued by their colleagues. Black women, however, were considerably disadvantaged with fewer opportunities and resources than those of either white women or Black men. Gendered studies of the impact of class remain at an early stage but show how institutions like the Katherine Gibbs Schools or Catholic women’s colleges attempted to expand their student bodies by imitating schools with a wealthier student clientele. Scholars are moving steadily toward understanding the history of higher education through a gendered lens, whether men and women were present together or not. Like British historian Carol Dyhouse (2006), who titled her book about student populations in England’s premier universities Students: A Gendered History, many historians of the American settings are examining gender across a range of areas, from how students absorbed messages about appropriate femininities and masculinities to the ways legislation and policies affected students and faculty. Their work also heeds Boydston’s (2008) suggestion that, rather than assuming gender as the prime mover in any historical setting, scholars should ask whether – and if so, how – a gendered lens may clarify our interpretations; the historians examined in this chapter demonstrate a variety of ways to do so. Turpin (2016), for instance, started by looking at religion, wondering how changes over time in religious practice connected to ideas about inculcating morality in college students. By examining a range of institutions, she noticed that in some settings a gendered vision was promulgated, while in others, a more gender-neutral approach predominated, ultimately leading to differently gendered results. Rose (2018) started her inquiry by looking at the quantitative growth in higher education participation over recent decades. Examining federal initiatives that coincided with this expansion, she recognized what she termed “inadvertent outcomes” (p. 5) that greatly increased women’s college-going following this gender-neutral legislation. Rather

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

87

than finding activism by and for women as an explanation of this shift, Rose asked how and why such growth could occur via legislation that was not aimed at supporting them. Similarly, both Manekin (2010) and Malkiel (2016) question the impact of activism on pushing men’s campuses to choose coeducation. In a range of settings, they see market interests exerting a much stronger sway in decisions by campus leaders. Yet activism is a key variable in work by Tamura (forthcoming), Baumgartner (2019), Clawson (2013, 2014, 2018), Dilley (2002, 2019), and Anne Perkins (forthcoming-a, forthcoming-b), all of whom suggest that concerted effort produced positive results for women and LGBTQ students; Bix (2013) and Puaca (2014) argue similarly for the importance of networking in advancing women’s participation and career advancement. These careful applications of a gendered lens are producing more nuanced and expansive histories that address Boydston’s call for “historically grounded histories of particular processes of gendering” (2008, p. 576). That is, even as the field moves farther from synthesis, it does so by recognizing and honoring the importance of difference. The strength of the literature on gender over the past twenty years lies in its efforts to ask questions about what gender has meant in particular times and particular places with attention to particular intersectional aspects of people’s lives.

Future Directions As noted throughout this chapter, some aspects of the gendered history of higher education are more developed than others, and some newer tools, especially around intersectional issues, will likely prove useful in expanding our future inquiry. Recognizing varied femininities and masculinities should prompt historians to look more deeply at why and how colleges transmitted gender messages, along with how campus participants responded, especially LGBTQ students and faculty. So, too, will more sophisticated attention to the intersection of gender with race, class, and religion expand historical understandings. While the literature on Black women and men has been growing steadily, the same is not true for students and faculty of other ethno-racial backgrounds; likewise, deep studies of class have been slow to develop. The impact of federal policy on gender represents only a small current strand, with the exception of Title IX; histories seldom consider women as important actors in shaping the federal role, leaving a gap in the historiography. Historians of higher education seldom turn to theory in their analyses (I sometimes think of us as “theory-indifferent”), although we readily adopt thoughtful conceptual frameworks to aid interpretations, such as the impact of geographical space or body image on gender developments. Historians like Nash (2018a, b) who engages theories of power, or Tamura (forthcoming) who applies social network and social movement theories, or Dzuback (2008) who uses gender theory all provide useful models for ways of expanding our work through the use of theory. In 2020, I convened a group of gender historians at the History of Education Society annual meeting to consider where interesting new work is appearing and where they would like to see the field expand. The panel consisted of Andrea Walton,

88

L. Eisenmann

Linda Perkins, Michael Hevel, and Margaret Nash – all of whom are well-represented in this chapter. These scholars highlighted much of the work reviewed here, such as Baumgartner (2019) on race, Dilley (2002, 2019) on LGBTQ issues, Syrett (2009) on fraternities, Ogren (2003, 2005) and Radke-Moss (2008) on the impact of coeducation, and Baumgartner (2019) and Rose (2018) on the connection of higher education to democracy. In terms of future directions, Nash suggested thinking more about the plurality of masculinities and femininities, especially for college students in a period of identity exploration; I have adopted Nash’s suggestion in organizing this chapter. All four scholars advocated for more work on LGBTQ students and faculty historically, especially noting the paucity of work on transgender individuals. They also recognized the imbalance in work on racial identities beyond white and Black women, as evidenced in this chapter. Both Nash and Walton called for work on academic staff and college trustees, noting their near-absence in the historiography, arguing that such studies would likely surface issues related to class. The panel concluded with reflections on how the history we write speaks to the students we teach. Noting that they teach more students in higher education programs than in history departments, the panelists highlighted how often their students try to find themselves in narratives of the past, sometimes seeing students whose backgrounds resemble theirs and other times recognizing their absence. Historians generally have mixed views about how much to let questions from the present guide their examinations of the past. However, in this case, students’ interest in finding themselves in the past matches historians’ commitment to telling wider and deeper stories about higher education, especially by using a gendered lens around the themes of women and intersectionality. Borrowing from Dyhouse’s (2006) title, perhaps our goal when we examine any particular portion of higher education history, should be to write Higher Education: A Gendered History.

References Anderson, C. K. (2021). Myths and stories from college football’s first one hundred years. In C. K. Anderson & A. C. Fallucca (Eds.), The history of American college football: Institutional policy, culture, and reform (Perspectives on the History of Higher Education) (pp. 1–15). Routledge. Anderson, C. K., & Fallucca, A. C. (Eds.). (2021). The history of American college football: Institutional policy, culture, and reform (Perspectives on the History of Higher Education). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003138761 Bashaw, C. T. (1999). “Stalwart women”: A historical analysis of deans of women in the South. Teachers College Press. Baumgartner, K. (2019). In pursuit of knowledge: Black women and educational activism in antebellum America. New York University Press. Beadie, N. (2002). Internal improvement: The structure and culture of academy expansion in New York State in the Antebellum Era, 1820–1860. In N. Beadie & K. Tolley (Eds.), Chartered schools: Two hundrd years of independent academies in the United States, 1727–1925 (pp. 89–115). Routledge Falmer. Biondi, M. (2012). The black revolution on campus. University of California Press. Bix, A. S. (2005). Supporting females in a male world: Philanthropy for women’s engineering education. In A. Walton (Ed.), Women and philanthropy in education. University of Indiana Press.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

89

Bix, A. S. (2013). Girls coming to Tech! A history of American engineering education for women. MIT Press. Boydston, J. (2008). Gender as a question of historical analysis. Gender and History, 20(3), 558–583. Breaux, R. M. (2003). We must fight race prejudice even more vigorously in the North: Black higher education in America’s heartland, 1900–1940. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa. Breaux, R. M. (2010). “To the uplift and protection of young womanhood”: African-American women at Iowa’s private colleges and the University of Iowa, 1878–1928. History of Education Quarterly, 50(2), 159–181. Case, S. H. (2017). Leaders of their race: Educating Black and white women in the New South. University of Illinois Press. Clark, D. A. (2010). Creating the college man: American mass magazines and middle-class manhood, 1890–1915 (Studies in American thought and culture). University of Wisconsin Press. Clawson, J. (2013). “Existing and existing in your face”: Hiram Ruiz and the pedagogy of the Gay Liberation Front in Tallahassee, Florida, 1970–71. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 29, 143–147. Clawson, J. (2014). Coming out of the classroom closet: The emerging visibility of queer students at the University of Florida, 1970–1982. Educational Studies, 50, 209–230. Clawson, J. (2018). “The rest is all drag”: Trans-gressive Women in higher education history. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan. Clifford, G. J. (1983). “Shaking dangerous questions from the crease”: Gender and American higher education. Feminist Issues, 3(2), 3–62. Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities (2d ed.). University of California Press. Dilley, P. (2002). Queer man on campus: A history of non-heterosexual college men, 1945–2000. Routledge Falmer. Dilley, P. (2019). Gay liberation to campus assimilation: Early non-heterosexual student organizing at Midwestern universities. Palgrave Macmillan. Dorn, C. (2008). “A woman’s world”: The University of California, Berkeley, during the Second World War. History of Education Quarterly, 48(4), 534–564. Duffy, J. O. (2008). Working-class students at Radcliffe College, 1940–1970: The intersection of gender, social class, and historical context. Edwin Mellen Press. Dyhouse, C. (2006). Students: A gendered history. Routledge. Dzuback, M. A. (2003). Gender and the politics of knowledge. History of Education Quarterly, 43(2), 171–195. Dzuback, M. A. (2005). Creative financing in social science: Women scholars and early research. In A. Walton (Ed.), Women and philanthropy in education (pp. 105–126). Indiana University Press. Dzuback, M. A. (2008). Gender, professional knowledge, and institutional power: Women social scientists and the research university. In A. M. May (Ed.), The “Woman Question” and higher education: Perspectives on gender and knowledge production in America (pp. 52–73). Edward Elgar. Dzuback, M. A. (2018). Research at women’s colleges, 1890–1940. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives (pp. 139–159). Palgrave Macmillan. Eisenmann, L. (2001). Creating a framework for interpreting U.S. women’s educational history: Lessons from historical lexicography. History of Education [U.K.], 30(5), 453–470. Eisenmann, L. (2006). Higher education for women in postwar America, 1945–1965. Johns Hopkins. Eisenmann, L. (2016). “Honorary men” and incidental students: Women in post-World War II American higher education, 1945–1970. In E. L. Panayotidis & P. Stortz (Eds.), Women in higher education, 1850–1970: International perspectives (pp. 251–274). Routledge. Eisenmann, L. (2018). Building the new scholarship of women’s higher educational history, 1965–1985. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives (pp. 255–275). Palgrave Macmillan.

90

L. Eisenmann

Elias, M. J. (2008). Stir it up: Home economics in American culture. University of Pennsylvania Press. Ellis, S., & Mitchell, H. (2010). “Enhancing the quality of the educational experience”: Female activists and U.S. university and college women’s centers. In J. Spence, S. J. Aiston, & M. M. Meikle (Eds.), Women, education, and agency, 1600–2000 (pp. 241–262). Routledge. Evans, S. Y. (2007). Black women in the ivory tower, 1850–1954: An intellectual history. University Press of Florida. Faehmel, B. (2012). College women in the nuclear age: Cultural literacy and female identity, 1940–1960. Rutgers. Freeman, M. L. (2018). Instruction in living beautifully: Social education and heterosocializing in white college sororities. In C. A. Ogren & M. A. VanOverbeke (Eds.), Rethinking campus life: New perspectives on the history of college students in the United States (pp. 115–140). Palgrave Macmillan. Gasman, M. (2007). Swept under the rug?: A historiography of gender and Black colleges. American Educational Research Journal, 44(40), 760–805. Gelber, S. (2007). Pathways in the past: Historical perspectives on access to higher education. Teachers College Record, 109(10), 2252–2286. Gerda, J. J. (2004). A history of the conferences of deans of women, 1902–1922. Ph.D. dissertation, Bowling Green State University. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/he_diss/1/ Gerda, J. J. (forthcoming). Most, but not all: Characteristics of early deans of women and learning from the exceptions. Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 15(3). Gordon, L. (1990). Gender and higher education in the Progressive Era. Yale University Press. Graves, K. (2009). And they were wonderful teachers: Florida’s purge of gay and lesbian teachers. University of Illinois Press. Graves, K. (2018). The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer issues in higher education. In L. W. Perna (Ed.), Higher education handbook of theory and research (pp. 127–174). Springer. Hevel, M. S. (2017). A historiography of college students 30 years after Helen Horowitz’s Campus Life. In L. W. Perna (Ed.), Higher education handbook of theory and research (pp. 419–484). Springer. Hevel, M. S., & Cain, T. R. (forthcoming). The queer student affairs career of Stephen Lenton, 1970–1980. Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 15(3). Hobson, J. H. (2021). Football culture at New South universities: Lost cause and Old South memory, modernity, and martial manhood. In C. K. Anderson & A. C. Fallucca (Eds.), The history of American college football: Institutional policy, culture, and reform (pp. 37–63). Routledge. Holden, C. (2018). Manliness and the culture of self-improvement: The University of North Carolina in the 1890s–1900s. History of Education Quarterly, 58(1), 122–151. Horowitz, H. L. (1987). Campus life: Undergraduate cultures from the end of the eighteenth century to the present. Alfred A. Knopf. Hoskin, R. A., & Blair, K. L. (2021). Critical femininities: A ‘new’ approach to gender theory. Psychology & Sexuality, 13(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2021.1905052 Johnson, J. M. (2008). Southern women at the Seven Sister colleges: Feminist values and social activism, 1875–1915. University of Georgia Press. Kimmel, M., Hearn, J., & Connell, R. W. (2005). Handbook on studies on men and masculinities. Sage. Klapper, M. (2002). “A long and broad education:” Jewish girls and the problem of education in America, 1860–1920. Journal of American Ethnic History, 22(1), 3–31. Klink, A. (2014). The deans’ Bible: Five Purdue women and their quests for equality. Purdue University Press. Levin, M. R. (2005). Defining women’s scientific enterprise: Mount Holyoke faculty and the rise of American science. University Press of New England. Lowe, M. A. (2005). Looking good: College women and body image, 1875–1930. John Hopkins.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

91

Macaulay, A. (2009). Marching in step: Masculinity, citizenship, and The Citadel in post-World War II America. University of Georgia Press. MacDonald, V. M., & Cook, A. (2018). Before Chicana civil rights: Three generations of Mexican American women in the Southwest, 1920–1964. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives (pp. 233–254). Palgrave Macmillan. Mahoney, K. (2002). American Catholic colleges for women: Historical origins. In T. Schier & C. Russett (Eds.), Catholic women’s colleges in America (pp. 25–54). Johns Hopkins. Malkiel, N. W. (2016). “Keep the damned women out”: The struggle for education. Princeton University Press. Manekin, S. (2010). Gender, markets, and the expansion of women’s education at the University of Pennsylvania, 1913–1940. History of Education Quarterly, 50(3), 298–323. Marthers, P. P. (2011). “Eighth sister no more”: The origins and evolution of Connecticut College. Peter Lang. McCandless, A. T. (1999). The past in the present: Women’s higher education in the twentiethcentury American South. University of Alabama Press. Miller-Bernal, L., & Poulson, S. L. (Eds.). (2004). Going coed: Women’s experiences in formerly men’s colleges and universities, 1950–2000. Vanderbilt University Press. Miller-Bernal, L., & Poulson, S. L. (Eds.). (2006). Challenged by coeducation: Women’s colleges since the 1960s. Vanderbilt University Press. Mullaney, M. M., & Hilbert, R. C. (2018). Educating women for self-reliance and economic opportunity: The strategic entrepreneurialism of the Katharine Gibbs Schools, 1911–1968. History of Education Quarterly, 58(1), 65–93. Nash, M. A. (2005). Women’s education in the United States, 1780–1840. Palgrave Macmillan. Nash, M. A. (2018a). Thoughts on the history of women’s education, theories of power, and this volume: An introduction. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives (pp. 1–21). Palgrave Macmillan. Nash, M. A. (2018b). Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan. Nash, M. A. (forthcoming). Whiskerinos, orange queens, and bedlam at the dorms: Demarcating lines of gender, class, and race at Riverside Junior College in the 1930s. Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 15(3). Nash, M. A., & Silverman, J. A. R. (2015). “An indelible mark”: Gay purges in higher education in the 1940s. History of Education Quarterly, 55(4), 441–459. Nidiffer, J. (2000). Pioneering deans of women: More than wise and pious matrons. Teachers College Press. Nidiffer, J., & Bashaw, C. T. (2001). Women administrators in higher education: Historical and contemporary perspectives. SUNY Press. Oates, M. J. (2021). Pursuing truth: How gender shaped Catholic education at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.1353/book.83169 Ogren, C. A. (2003). Rethinking the “nontraditional” student from a historical perspective: State normal schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Journal of Higher Education, 74(6), 640–664. Ogren, C. A. (2005). The American state normal school: “An instrument of great good”. Palgrave Macmillan. Ogren, C. A., & VanOverbeke, M. A. (2018). Rethinking campus life: New perspectives on the history of college students in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan. Palmieri, P. (1995). In Adamless Eden: The community of women faculty at Wellesley. Yale University Press. Patton, L. D., Renn, K. A., Guido, F. M., Quaye, S. J., Evans, N. J., & Forney, D. S. (Eds.). (2016). Student development in college: Theory, research and practice (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass. Peril, L. (2006). College girls: Bluestockings, sex kittens, and coeds, then and now. W.W. Norton. Perkins, A. G. (2018a). Unescorted guests: Yale’s first women undergraduates and the quest for equity, 1969–1973. Dissertation. University of Massachusetts, Boston.

92

L. Eisenmann

Perkins, A. G. (2019). Yale needs women: How the first group of girls rewrote the rules of an Ivy League giant. Sourcebooks. Perkins, A. G. (forthcoming-a). Women college students and the fight against sexual harassment: The first ten years, 1971–1981. Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 15(3). Perkins, L. M. (1997). For the good of the race: Married African American academics – A historical perspective. In M. A. Ferber & J. Loeb (Eds.), Academic couples: Problems and promise (pp. 80–115). University of Illinois Press. Perkins, L. M. (2014). Merze Tate and the quest for gender equity at Howard University, 1942–1977. History of Education Quarterly, 54(4), 516–551. Perkins, L. M. (2018b). The Black female professoriate at Howard University: 1926–1977. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives (pp. 117–137). Palgrave Macmillan. Perkins, L. M. (2021). African American women, femininity and their history in physical education and sports in American higher education: From World War I through the mid-century. In T. Allender & S. Spencer (Eds.), “Femininity” and the history of women’s education: Shifting the frame (pp. 37–62). Palgrave Macmillan. Perkins, L. M. (forthcoming-b). Developing their talents to the highest extent: The history of Black women’s higher education from the antebellum era to the mid-1960s. University of Illinois Press. Platt, R. E. (2017). Educating the sons of sugar: Jefferson College and the Creole planter class of South Louisiana. University of Alabama Press. Preston, J. A. (2004). Negotiating work and family: Aspirations of early Radcliffe graduates. In L. T. Ulrich (Ed.), Yards and gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe history (pp. 173–184). Palgrave Macmillan. Puaca, L. M. (2014). Searching for scientific womanpower: Technocratic feminism and the politics of national security, 1940–1980. University of North Carolina Press. Radke-Moss, A. G. (2008). Bright epoch: Women and coeducation in the American West. University of Nebraska Press. Redmond, J. (2016). Journeys toward a gentleman’s education: International fellowships and Bryn Mawr College students, 1900–1930. In E. L. Panayotidis & P. Stortz (Eds.), Women in higher education, 1850–1970: International perspectives (pp. 145–163). Routledge. Rose, D. (2018). Citizens by degree: Higher education policy and the changing gender dynamics of American citizenship. Oxford University Press. Sartorius, K. C. (2014). Deans of women and the feminist movement: Emily Taylor’s activism. Palgrave Macmillan. Sartorius, K. C. (2018). A coeducational pathway to political and economic citizenship: Women’s student government and a philosophy and practice of women’s U.S. higher coeducation between 1890 and 1945. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives (pp. 161–184). Palgrave Macmillan. Schier, T., & Russett, C. (Eds.). (2002). Catholic women’s colleges in America. Johns Hopkins. Schippers, M. (2007). Recovering the feminine other: Masculinity, Femininity, and gender hegemony. Theory and Society, 36(1), 85–102. Schwartz, R. A. (1997a). How deans of women became men. Review of Higher Education, 20, 419–436. Schwartz, R. A. (1997b). Reconceptualizing the leadership roles of women in higher education: A brief history on the importance of deans of women. Journal of Higher Education, 68, 502–522. Schwartz, R. A. (2002). The rise and demise of deans of men. Review of Higher Education, 26, 217–239. Schwartz, R. (2010). Deans of men and the shaping of modern college culture. Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, J. A. (2019). Transforming women’s education: Liberal arts and music in female seminaries. University of Illinois Press. Solomon, B. M. (1985). In the company of educated women: A history of women and higher education in America. Yale University Press.

2

Historical Considerations of Women and Gender in Higher Education

93

Summers, M. (2004). Manliness and its discontents: The black middle class and the transformation of masculinity, 1900–1930. University of North Carolina Press. Synnott, M. G. (2008). African American woman pioneers in desegregating higher education. In P. Wallenstein (Ed.), Higher Education and the Civil Rights movement: White supremacy, Black Southerners, and college campuses (pp. 199–228). University Press of Florida. Syrett, N. L. (2009). The company he keeps: A history of white college fraternities. University of North Carolina Press. Tamura, E. H. (forthcoming). We too! Gender equity in education and the road to Title IX. Palgrave Macmillan. Tolley, K. (2003). The science education of American girls. Routledge Falmer. Tolley, K. (2018). The Hallmarks of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in the West: Women religious and education in the United States. In M. A. Nash (Ed.), Women’s Higher education in the United States: New historical perspectives (pp. 211–232). Palgrave Macmillan. Turpin, A. L. (2016). A new moral vision: Gender, religion, and the changing purposes of American higher education, 1837–1917. Cornell University Press. Ulrich, L. T. (Ed.). (2004). Yards and gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe history. Palgrave Macmillan. Vandenberg-Daves, J. (2002). “There’s got to be more out there”: White working-class women, college, and the “better life,” 1950–1985. International Labor and Working-Class History, 62, 99–120. Verbrugge, M. H. (2012). Active bodies: A history of women’s physical education in twentiethcentury America. Oxford University Press. Walton, A. (Ed.). (2005). Women and philanthropy in education. Indiana University Press. Wilkie, L. A. (2010). The lost boys of Zeta Psi: A historical archaeology of masculinity at a university fraternity. University of California Press. Williams, T. J. (2015). Intellectual manhood: University, self, and society in the Antebellum South. University of North Carolina Press. Wright, C. E. (2004). Creating a fellowship of educated men: Forming gentlemen at pre-Revolutionary Harvard. In L. T. Ulrich (Ed.), Yards and gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe history (pp. 17–37). Palgrave Macmillan. Wright, W. (2005). Harvard’s secret court: The savage 1920 purge of campus homosexuals. St. Martin’s Press.

Linda Eisenmann is Professor of Education and Professor of History at Wheaton College, Massachusetts. She is former President of both the History of Education Society and the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections Among Dimensions of Whiteness in Higher Education Tenisha L. Tevis, Melvin Whitehead, Zak Foste, and Antonio Duran

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptualizing Whiteness and Critical Whiteness Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why Study Whiteness in Higher Education? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical Whiteness Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Approaches to Conducting the Literature Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reflexivity Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tenisha Tevis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Melvin Whitehead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zak Foste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Antonio Duran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review of the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ideological Dimension of Whiteness and Its Historical Legacies in US Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ideological Constructs Used to Analyze Whiteness in US Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Dimension of Whiteness in US Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

96 98 100 101 102 103 103 105 106 107 108 108 109 114

Nicholas A. Bowman was the Associate Editor for this chapter. T. L. Tevis (*) Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Whitehead Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] Z. Foste University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Duran Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_12

95

96

T. L. Tevis et al.

Interpersonal Dimension of Whiteness in US Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Internalized Dimension of Whiteness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trends in the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Thoughts About the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charting the Future of Critical Analysis of Whiteness in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical Dimensions of Whiteness Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Possibilities and Responsibilities of Studying Whiteness Using CWDM . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications for Practice and Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications for Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary/Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

117 120 125 129 131 131 133 135 135 137 140 141

Abstract

Over the last two decades, whiteness studies, within the context of higher education, have seen a significant uptick. We argue that this growing body of work has often not been consistent in applying an understanding of whiteness as an ideology that operates across multiple dimensions in interconnected ways and, at times, overlooks the material consequences of whiteness to People of Color. To redress this, we offer a multilevel framework: the critical dimensions of whiteness model (CDWM). To build this model, we drew on the four I’s of oppression, and we synthesized critical analyses of whiteness in the higher education and student affairs literature along ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized dimensions. We contend these dimensions do not and cannot exist independently, and they must be engaged in relation to one another to be critical and to understand the consequences of whiteness in the lives of People of Color, thus going beyond just white people. The authors then explicitly describe the CDWM, articulate how the model informs scholarship and theorizes whiteness, express the possibilities as well as the responsibilities afforded by studying whiteness as interconnected, and discuss implications of this work. Keywords

College students · Critical race studies · Critical race theory · Critical whiteness studies · Higher education · Ideological oppression · Institutional oppression · Internalized oppression · Interpersonal oppression · Race · Racial identity · Racialized space · Racism · White · White supremacy · Whiteness

Introduction We have come to learn about the conception of whiteness through the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. Du Bois’ (2007) understanding of whiteness was organized around capitalism and anti-Black racism. It hinged on what it means to be not Black, and as a result, what is gained politically, and most assuredly economically, by exploitative acts against Black people. Baldwin (1998) surmised that whiteness is “the big lie,” one that encapsulates the devaluation of Black humanity and Black people’s very existence. And Morrison (2021) categorically named and rejected what she referred to as the “white gaze” – this seemingly

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

97

normalized perspective of white people, one that needs to be centered in the understanding of Black people and how they move through the world. Such conceptions reveal that whiteness is not unidimensional, but multifaceted in its interdependence on ideas, social interactions, and systems. What is also unveiled in these authors’ conception of whiteness are the material consequences of such – essentially the consequential effects of whiteness on Communities of Color. Hence, whiteness has become a useful tool to analyze and critique, for example, the ideologies, cultures, and practices deeply ingrained in higher education. Prior research, even that of the authors of this chapter, have illuminated how whiteness has manifested on college campuses, and yet there is a need to go further in whiteness studies. Therefore, the intention of this handbook chapter is twofold. First, we show how a study of whiteness in higher education requires scholars (and practitioners for that matter) to adopt and apply a critical approach, one that acknowledges the multidimensionality of whiteness. Second, we demonstrate that this level of criticality is important to further illuminate the material consequences of whiteness in the lives of People of Color. Hence, our central argument is that prior research and discussions on whiteness, particularly in higher education, has been inconsistent in its application of the interconnectedness of its dimensions (i.e., ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized). And at times, this work has also overlooked the material consequences of whiteness to People of Color. In the same way, as Bell (2018) conceptualized the four I’s of oppression as ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized, we too attempt to show how a critical analysis of whiteness in higher education has to be more interconnected and demonstrate the relationships between those forms in which whiteness functions, to truly understand its effects. To redress these limitations, we offer a multilevel framework for studying and engaging in discussions about whiteness going forward: the critical dimensions of whiteness model (CDWM; see Fig. 1). This model begins with whiteness as an

Ideological forms of whiteness Considers how whiteness functions in society as an ideology, as well as how other systems of oppression intersect and compound with whiteness

Institutional Articulates how whiteness has been embedded historically and contemporarily in practices, policies, and structures in higher education

Interpersonal Acknowledges how whiteness is (re)produced in interactions between individuals within the context of postsecondary education

Internalized Names how people come to adopt values, beliefs, and standards of whiteness

Fig. 1 Critical dimensions of whiteness model (CDWM)

White Supremacy: domination and exploitation Describes a political system that maintains whiteness and white people in power

98

T. L. Tevis et al.

ideology and the ways hegemonic ideas are taken up with fervor culturally and socially by individuals nested within institutions, and acted upon for its appreciative value. To situate our model, we define whiteness and its various conceptions, as well as synthesize and critique analyses of whiteness in the higher education literature. We unpack these dimensions of whiteness in more detail throughout the chapter; however, it is important to state upfront that we view these forms of whiteness as related in such a way that each one makes the other possible. Therefore, ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized dimensions of whiteness do not and cannot exist independently. As the CDWM will suggest, there is a sequence to these dimensions, which makes the process of taking up and enacting whiteness scaffolded and multidimensional. Though many studies advance multidimensional, interconnected analyses of whiteness, this analytical approach has not been consistent in the literature. Therefore, throughout this chapter, we demonstrate the utility of this multidimensional approach to studying whiteness. We also put forward both the possibilities and responsibilities of this work to address the material consequences of whiteness on People of Color to go beyond just white people as units of analysis, and beyond centering white people in the implications of this work. This chapter is guided by the following questions: What is whiteness as a framework, and what does studying whiteness offer the field of higher education? Why an analysis of whiteness through a critical, and thus, multidimensional lens? What is lost by taking up discrete dimensions rather than the interconnectedness of these dimensions of whiteness? How do we begin to use a critical analysis of whiteness studies to understand whiteness beyond just white people? What is the responsibility of this work? What can and/or will be disrupted through this developed understanding? To ground our argument and provide answers to the above guiding questions, we offer a review of the most salient and related research on whiteness within higher education. In detail, we unpack the rise in whiteness studies, its varied definitions and meanings, and what it has yielded, including critical whiteness studies (CWS), as a specific cannon. Next, we take a much deeper dive into how prior research has taken up CWS to lay the groundwork for the possibilities of our model and thus this body of work going forward. Based on our argument, future critical analyses of whiteness should go in a direction that is more inclined to study whiteness in this multidimensional and multi-connected way; therefore, we encourage the utilization of CDWM. We will also describe in detail each of the aforementioned dimensions and why they are so salient in moving from whiteness studies as a general body of work to a level of criticality that is more suitable for understanding and upending the material consequences of whiteness, and thus understanding whiteness beyond just white people.

Conceptualizing Whiteness and Critical Whiteness Studies Scholarship on whiteness within higher education has seen a significant uptick over the last two decades (Cabrera, 2012; Foste & Irwin, 2020; Mitchell et al., 2012; Reason & Evans, 2007; Tevis, 2020; Whitehead, 2021; Whitehead et al., 2022).

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

99

Yet, as scholars who study race and whiteness, we continually ask ourselves how we might define whiteness in our work. Indeed, definitions of whiteness abound in scholarly literature (Applebaum, 2010). As Applebaum (2010) noted, the very “definition of whiteness is difficult to pin down” (p. 9). More often than not, scholars define whiteness as an individual, or at times, collective, sense of identity. Understood as an identity, whiteness refers to the racial attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives of individual white people. Such an approach also considers the meanings white people assign to their racial identities. Although we believe there is significant value in considering whiteness as a racial identity, such an exclusive focus on the individual often fails to account for the ways in which whiteness works beyond just individual white bodies. That is, reducing whiteness to individual white people alone risks potentially limiting one’s understanding of the enormity of whiteness within and beyond higher education contexts. For the purpose of this chapter, we understand whiteness as an ideology that structures both individual thoughts, perceptions, and behaviors as well as the structures and arrangements of institutions, organizations, and spaces. Leonardo (2013), writing about the advent of CWS in education, noted, “one of the improvements introduced by this new field of study has to do with the reframing of whiteness as an ideology rather than simply an identity” (p. 94). What does it mean, then, to conceive of whiteness as an ideology? As an ideology, whiteness represents an ahistorical understanding of the racial world that minimizes and delegitimizes the terror of white supremacy, locates white people as the unmarked, raceless standard of humankind, and signals a commitment to notions of individualism and meritocracy. Increasingly, whiteness also represents a sense of victimhood and grievance politics in the face of a diversifying nation (Embrick et al., 2020). It is important to note that, as an ideology, whiteness is inherently relational and is largely understood against the backdrop of Blackness (Baldwin, 1998). In this sense, whiteness has derived its meaning via what it is not. Thus, to consider whiteness as an ideology is to consider “the systematic reproduction of conceptions of whiteness as domination. Whiteness as domination has been the most powerful, sustaining myth of American culture since its inceptions” (Chennault, 1991, p. 300). Eddie Glaude (2020), writing about the life and works of James Baldwin, described two component parts of a lie that have long persisted in the United States: the inherent goodness of the United States and the inferiority of Black people and communities. Glaude (2020) explained that “one set of lies debases Black people. . .Black people are essentially inferior, less human than white people, and therefore deserving of their particular station in life” and “another constituent part of the lie involves lies about American history and about the trauma that America has visited throughout that history on People of Color both at home and abroad” (pp. 7–8). Indeed, Black scholars have long theorized about their own lived experiences in a world that loves whiteness at the expense of Black bodies and other Bodies of Color. Each of these individuals wrote about the effects of whiteness long before an established field of CWS emerged. Notable among these is celebrated writer bell hooks (1992), who described whiteness as a form of terror in the Black imagination. Thus, though we find it necessary to ground our definition of whiteness in this chapter, what is most

100

T. L. Tevis et al.

important is to understand that “whiteness in the United States can be understood largely through the social consequences it provides for those who are considered to be non-white” (McLaren, 1998, p. 66). Put otherwise, whiteness is most evident in its material effects and consequences on the lives and opportunities of People of Color (Applebaum, 2010; Whitehead et al., 2022). As an ideology that produces and reproduces white racial domination, however, whiteness functions in such a way that these effects are mystified and, if made visible, delegitimized.

Why Study Whiteness in Higher Education? We find it important to acknowledge that readers should rightfully be skeptical of a scholarly focus on whiteness (Leonardo, 2013; Matias & Boucher, 2021; Whitehead et al., 2021). There is great concern that the study of whiteness itself becomes a vehicle for white researchers and theorists to colonize race-based scholarship (Leonardo, 2013). Although Scholars of Color do name and challenge whiteness in their scholarship, there is concern that “in whiteness studies, a sense of topical takeover reminds People of Color of whites’ ability to appropriate and take credit for practices around which minorities have built traditions” (Leonardo, 2013, p. 99). In effect, these concerns are twofold and caution against how white scholars may (a) take up too much space in the scholarly discourse on race and racism and (b) divert attention away from the work of Authors of Color addressing the pressing and everyday experiences with racism and white supremacy. Thus, though critical whiteness work can be a useful means of interrogating white students, faculty, and staff’s racial attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, such approaches fall short of challenging and reimagining the racial order without an explicit critique of how whiteness functions in the lives of People of Color. As we noted previously, individuals can understand whiteness via the material consequences it inflicts in the lives of People of Color. As such, a critical orientation to the study of whiteness must always attend to how structural arrangements impact People and Communities of Color. It is valuable to study whiteness in higher education because historically white colleges and universities (HWCUs) are white spaces (Anderson, 2015) that privilege white ideas, desires, contributions, and ways of knowing at the expense of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s perspectives. White bodies are the expected occupants of classrooms, student organizations, residence halls, faculty offices, and central administration whereas – perhaps with the exception of athletic teams and ethnic studies programs – Bodies of Color are unexpected deviations from the normative sensibilities of such spaces. In the white space of HWCUs, Faculty, Staff, and Students of Color are often placed under surveillance (Jenkins, 2021; Jenkins et al., 2021), because whiteness positions them as outsiders or trespassers – departures from normative understandings of raceless white faculty, staff, and students. In the white spaces of HWCUs, it is the knowledge of Scholars of Color that is explicitly understood to be racialized, subjective, or “too focused on race.” Their white counterparts are rarely subject to such accusations; instead, they are

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

101

understood to carry out objective, impartial forms of teaching and research. In the white space of HWCUs, places made to buffer racist climates – cultural centers and affinity housing options – are met with resistance and hostility (Patton et al., 2017). In order to fully capture these racist dynamics, attention to the underlying ideology of whiteness that permeates HWCUs is necessary. Grounded in a critical approach that is anchored in a commitment to racial justice and liberation, one could examine the role of whiteness in structuring any number of contemporary events dominating university life in the United States. We are reminded of David Gillborn’s (2005) point that “critical race theory and critical work on the nature of whiteness offer a potentially important new way of viewing familiar issues with a fresh eye” (p. 497).

Critical Whiteness Studies Consistent with Gillborn’s (2005) point, it is important to note that scholars use a variety of approaches to take up the critical study of whiteness (Matias & Boucher, 2021). Here we offer a brief discussion of critical whiteness studies given the role it have played in the study of whiteness in educational contexts (Leonardo, 2013). CWS offers one potential framework to problematize and make strange the taken for granted, normative nature of whiteness in education (Applebaum, 2010; Cabrera et al., 2017; Leonardo, 2009, 2013; Matias et al., 2014; Matias & Boucher, 2021). Unlike critical race theory (CRT; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), CWS does not have a clearly articulated list of tenets or principles. There are, however, commonalities in how the approach has been conceptualized across scholarship. Here, we briefly review how people have conceptualized and operationalized critical whiteness in educational research. In his review of CWS, Leonardo (2013) explained that such an approach locates racism as a white problem and further that “...if whiteness studies centers whiteness, it places it in an atypical, even uncomfortable position. It puts whiteness on trial without indicting white people as individual embodiments of an ideology called whiteness” (p. 89). Further, by locating whiteness as an ideology, Leonardo underscored how People of Color may also be subject to internalizing the messages, ideas, and cues about beauty, intelligence, and self-worth; he explained that “because whiteness is an ideology and not simply the property of white bodies, it lives through the choices and performances of People of Color” due to the fact that “whiteness threatens minority self-perception through stereotype threat, internalized racism, or colonized mentality” (p. 111). David Gillborn (2005) made a distinction similar to Leonardo, noting the difference between critiques of white people and whiteness, stating “critical scholarship on whiteness is not an assault on people per se: it is an assault on the socially constructed and constantly reinforced power of white identifications and interests” (p. 488). And Applebaum (2010) noted that “critical whiteness studies begins with the acknowledgement that whiteness and its concomitant privileges tend to remain invisible to most white people. . .From this perspective, racism is essentially a white problem” (p. 9). Put otherwise, such an approach unapologetically underscores how whiteness is central to the development and maintenance of a racist system, and

102

T. L. Tevis et al.

without such acknowledgment, the enormity of the problem cannot be fully confronted. Similarly, Matias et al. (2014) observed that CWS describes whiteness as “the underlying mechanism that maintains a racist system, and not acknowledging whiteness contributes to the permanence of race and racism” (p. 291). More recently, Matias and Boucher (2021) urged scholars to reconsider their use of CWS, which they assert has morphed from an approach concerned with racial harm to one that primarily takes up white racial awakenings and epiphanies. Their argument joins a collection of scholars who question the utility of a critical framework that primarily functions to uncritically recenter white people (Leonardo, 2013; Whitehead et al., 2021). As authors of this chapter, we engaged the tensions of framing such work under the umbrella of CWS or a critical analysis of whiteness. It is imperative to note that the study of whiteness is not restricted to the umbrella of CWS. For example, many Scholars of Color have applied tenets of CRT – specifically Harris’s (1993) concept of whiteness as property and Bell’s (1980) concept of interest convergence – in their analyses of whiteness (Harris, 2019; Stewart, 2019). Further, these Scholars of Color frequently situate their work within the body of CRT scholarship rather than CWS. So although CWS is a common framework in the study of whiteness, we acknowledge the work of Matias and Boucher (2021) who pointed to the tensions and limitations of such a framing. For the purposes of this chapter, we do not operate from one particular position or the other, but believe it is an important distinction and emerging debate to consider. It is notable that none of the definitions shared here begin with an understanding of whiteness at the level of the individual. To the broader arguments offered in this chapter, each emphasizes how whiteness functions well beyond white attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. For instance, Leonardo’s (2013) definition made clear that when we understand whiteness beyond just individual white bodies, it is possible to understand how whiteness may be internalized by People of Color in harmful ways (i.e., internalizing beliefs about the association of whiteness and traditional standards of beauty or intelligence, for instance). Similarly, a critical approach to interrogating whiteness as an ideological construct makes possible deeper understandings of how spaces become marked as white, and as a result, Students of Color are subject to hyper-surveillance (Jenkins, 2021).

Approaches to Conducting the Literature Search To undertake the challenge of examining how higher education scholars have interrogated the presence of whiteness thus far in postsecondary education settings, we developed a two-pronged approach. Namely, we first created a system in which we strove to obtain a comprehensive view of the extant literature on whiteness situated within the study of colleges and universities. Second, recognizing the limitations that may exist within the higher education scholarship, we also collected literature on whiteness from other education subdisciplines and fields broadly. We describe both processes in detail below.

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

103

We began the task of reviewing the literature in postsecondary education by engaging the four-person team in a collective search process. Specifically, we created a shared Excel spreadsheet in which our charge was to use our respective library databases available through our institutions (e.g., ProQuest Central, IngentaConnect) to find scholarship that addressed the topic of whiteness within the study of higher education environments. From the onset, we made the decision that we would be open to the inclusion of peer-reviewed journal articles, books, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries given that we wanted to present as expansive a view as possible. However, we did make the collective choice to exclude dissertations and theses for the purposes of this project as a way to bind the scope of our work, believing that many quality studies would have made their way into an alternative form of publication. We individually contributed to the spreadsheet, deleting any repetitive entries as we went along. Moreover, if there were any pieces of literature that we wondered about in terms of fitting within the scope of whiteness work in the study of postsecondary education, we had conversations about them as a larger team. The final step included completing backward searches, checking the reference lists of the included manuscripts to see if we had missed any along the way. This process of backward searching also assisted us in locating literature from other education subdisciplines and fields broadly, the second part of our process. Recognizing that the study of whiteness and critical whiteness has had its origins outside of the discipline of postsecondary education challenged us to broaden our scope. Notably, as discussed above, we scoured the reference lists of higher education research to see which interdisciplinary texts they were drawing upon in their work. Additionally, as the four authors of this manuscript are deeply ingrained in whiteness and CWS, we added in literature that has been particularly instrumental to our thinking. This step inevitably included us incorporating the contributions of K-12 scholars who have been similarly writing about whiteness and CWS. In working across the four authors, we developed a list of roughly 70 publications both in and out of postsecondary education to review for the purpose of this chapter, which we describe in detail in subsequent sections.

Reflexivity Statements Engaging in critical whiteness necessitates that we as scholars be critically reflexive of how our own identities, backgrounds, and experiences shape our work. In the statements below, we offer insight into what were some formative moments that led us to do whiteness research and how they informed how we approach this scholarship.

Tenisha Tevis A positionality statement differs from that of a reflexivity statement. Here, I will try to attempt both, as I grapple with my own identity, beliefs, experiences, and observations, and how all of this has informed what I study. I came to studying

104

T. L. Tevis et al.

whiteness as a cisgender Black woman. Raised by two able-bodied Black parents – one a war veteran and in sales and the other a career peace officer, both of whom broke down barriers in their respective careers – I learned quickly much about racism, its systemic reach, and its devastating effects. In a world that has questioned my existence, that of my parents’ existence, and the generations that came before me (deeply southern rooted), I started to make observations that could not be encapsulated solely by racism. Growing up, I was often complimented on my ability to do – what I refer to as – put on whiteness. Having grown up playing grammar games and having my speech corrected by matriarchs, I was revered (and teased) for talking white, dressing white, and in some instances because of my commitment to schooling, acting white. This brought to my attention that coming close to being white was not only to be praised, but it was the standard to be achieved. It also began to illuminate for me all that whiteness owns (e.g., speech, behaviors, hair, certain sports, intelligence; see Harris, 1993). The implication then is the further away from being or behaving white, the more troublesome and/or stereotyped I became. Hence, it was apparent that there was an additional force I was traversing, one that affords privilege or advantage most associated with being white: whiteness. However, it also became very apparent that I would not be the beneficiary of this association. Upon transitioning into higher education professionally, as a former scholarpractitioner, these aforementioned ideals were front of mind – the need to stay within proximity to acting white and thus, to keep putting on whiteness. Part of putting on whiteness was to make sure I dressed beyond business casual, communicated at the rank of my title (director), and produced at a level that would bestow me respect. Additionally, it was equally important to show allegiance to the institution by working long hours and saying yes to projects outside of my eight- to ten-page position description more often than I said no (which was rare). Moreover, to put on whiteness was to also observe what had been deemed acceptable behavior and practice of white people, particularly in areas that were considered the standard to which I had been held (e.g., dress, presence, communication, productivity). Therefore, as a naturally inquisitive person, I took stock of the myriad ways my white colleagues behaved and engaged with each other, as well as the ways they interacted with those who do not identify as white. My observations were that there are many exceptions to what I refer to as white rules. These are the unspoken but often expressed (in not-so-subtle ways) regulations that, if followed, conceivably would validate my belonging and within that, confer privilege (after all, privilege is multifaceted). Although white rules circumscribe dress, conduct, and productivity, and encompass surveillance, these were mostly reserved for those peripheral to, but who shared space with, white people. Being told I had not adhered to the rules opened the door to ridicule, and incongruent and unsubstantiated consequences including, but not limited to, displacement and misframing me as incompetent as well as that of my work. By default, this enabled some white people across ranks to then see themselves as competent, comparatively speaking, even when they were clearly the exception to their own rules; as a result, these individuals capitalized on my demise (i.e., expanded portfolios, promotions, and raises). Hence, these and

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

105

other observations and experiences became the basis for my research agenda – to explore the obscure relationship between identity and leadership roles; how the educational context is seemingly beholden to racism, whiteness, and white supremacy; and how, as a result, inequality and disparate outcomes are then produced. By paying a considerable amount of attention to the ways in which minoritized populations continue to be disenfranchised by inequitable structures and how postsecondary leadership practices contribute to the patterns of inequality and societal injustices, I have come to learn two things. First, institutions of higher education remain strongholds of the status quo and bastions for (white) privilege. Second, individuals and groups can be and act in complicit ways within the context they are nested, even when they assume innocence. Together, my work has led me to contribute to the argument and purpose put forward within this chapter, more specifically the need to shed light on the interconnectedness and material consequences of whiteness. By doing so, my work continues to not only disrupt dominant ideologies and biased institutional practices, but guide future research to move beyond just centering white people, to deeply explore the effects of whiteness in the lives of People of Color.

Melvin Whitehead I am a Black/African American transgender man from a middle-class background. I am also the child of two African American parents who grew up in the US South during Jim Crow and were a part of the Great Migration of millions of Black Americans from the US South to the US North during the middle decades of the twentieth century. My parents’ experiences with racial violence under Jim Crow segregation and the cultured wisdom they would often try to impart to me about whiteness and white people contrasted sharply with my racially diverse upbringing in the US North during the 1980s – an era that emphasized color-evasion and multiculturalism. Throughout my childhood, I remained largely unaware of racism and whiteness and their influence on my life. In elementary school, I was placed into a talented and gifted program, which was disproportionately composed of white students. Many of my peers had internalized whiteness in ways that associated whiteness with smartness – an association that was reinforced through the structure of the talented and gifted program, as well as access to this particular magnet school. Kids teased me in grade school for “sounding white” or “acting white” for behaviors that were praised and encouraged by some adults in my life. Enough people in my life repeated it so much that I came to equate whiteness with “good” and “blackness” with bad. When I was 12, I was diagnosed with clinical depression, and though I hesitate to place all of the blame here on racialized oppression, I do know that my internalized whiteness and anti-Blackness significantly and negatively shaped my sense of worth and belonging. I grew to despise my Black physical features (e.g., hair texture, nose, lips), and I disassociated from anything related to Blackness. The words from many of my peers were rooted in whiteness and fueled my own anti-Blackness. These

106

T. L. Tevis et al.

ideologies came to life through our interactions and impacted me for years. On an internal level, anti-Blackness and whiteness profoundly damaged me. It took decades to heal and that healing only came about through being in community with other Black folks centered on a radical and unapologetic Black love. Connected to my ongoing healing, my scholarship on whiteness has evolved to intentionally explore its connections with anti-Blackness and how it relies on antiBlackness for coherence. My scholarship largely explores this nexus of whiteness and anti-Blackness within the internalized dimension. My own journey has taught me that although structural analyses of whiteness are important and necessary, the ideologies people internalize are enacted through our everyday behaviors and interactions and can have harmful effects on ourselves and others. A premise underlying my work is that if we examine the internalized processes that reproduce and sustain these ideologies, we might begin to understand how folks can engage the ongoing processes of questioning and disrupting them to heal and build cross-racial coalitions.

Zak Foste I have written numerous reflexive statements on my positionality in the study of whiteness, including an entire paper on the matter (Foste, 2020b). But none have been more difficult to articulate than this one, in part because my words and reflections sit alongside three Scholars of Color who know, well beyond any academic theorization, the visceral and lived effects of whiteness. What do I have to share in such a space that is worthy of inclusion that does not recenter whiteness in narcissistic and self-serving ways? For me, a significant point of necessary reflection is how my own journey to unlearning whiteness shaped how I thought about the need to study whiteness early in my career and the potential pitfalls of such a whitecentric approach to whiteness work. My own thinking about whiteness cannot be divorced from my immersion in it throughout my lifetime. I identify as a white, cisgender man from a middle-class family in central Illinois. I grew up in a small, almost exclusively white town of about 6000 people. Growing up, I often heard comments and ideas that I knew were inherently racist (e.g., one of the few Black students in our town “didn’t sound Black”) – but I never had a language to name exactly what it was. Instead, I was silent. I lacked any vocabulary to name the ways in which racism and whiteness were functioning to locate this individual as a departure from whiteness – as deviant or different. The same process played out in the ways in which members of our community talked about Peoria, a nearby city that was home to a considerably larger Black population. I was frequently subject to messages about which areas were desirable, safe, and which were dominated by criminality, Blackness, and danger. I share these points not to set up some larger reveal of a racial epiphany or sense of enlightenment, but to underscore how they influenced my initial thinking on such topics (and perhaps offer a cautionary tale to other white scholars who seek to do whiteness work). These early experiences led me to an academic interest in the study

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

107

of race and whiteness, beginning late in my college career and throughout my masters and doctoral work. I was interested in how white students might develop a more critical understanding of race. Such a scholarly interest grounded in my own experiences, however, often led me to think about whiteness largely in terms of white people without any corresponding attention to the painful effects of whiteness, and white people, in the lives of People and Communities of Color. Though I still think this type of work is important and necessary, missing in this equation were the harmful consequences of whiteness in the lives of People of Color. Via the work of scholars such as James Baldwin, bell hooks, Carol Anderson, and George Yancy, and coupled with the opportunity to be in community with my co-authors, I am increasingly drawn to two larger questions about the nature of whiteness that move beyond an exclusive focus on what we might think of as white identity development. The first is how whiteness permeates the spaces and places that People of Color navigate on a daily basis in higher education – classrooms, residence halls, cocurricular programming, and so forth. The second is how we, as white people, are complicit in the maintenance and perpetuation of white supremacy regardless of our intentions. Together, these ideas shape how I have come to this chapter and the work necessary to take up under the critical study of whiteness (Matias & Boucher, 2021) in higher education.

Antonio Duran I entered into this project as the son of two Mexican immigrants who migrated to the United States when they were in their early 20s. They arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, with the intention of creating a better life for their daughter and the children they had after they arrived. Growing up, I lived in a neighborhood largely home to Black and Brown people. I never questioned my race or what it meant to be Latino until I received a scholarship to a private high school. I was going to leave behind the school district that I had come to know and venture into a new setting that would impact me greatly moving forward. My high school years caused dissonance as it relates to a number of my identities including, but not limited to, race, class, and sexuality. The private high school I attended led to feelings of anger and confusion. What I saw around me was a setting that thrived and rewarded whiteness. Interestingly enough, when I reflect upon what has caused my interest in understanding whiteness in educational environments, I often refer back to my high school. Now, I seek to understand how whiteness and white supremacy structures educational institutions in the form of policies, culture, and individual interactions. My work seeks to do this in two main ways. First, I enter into this conversation with a predominant focus on how whiteness and white supremacy is constituted within queer and trans communities on college campuses. Second, I also do this work with a focus on students’ development. This creates difficult questions of how we, as scholars, make important connections between students experiencing/perpetuating whiteness and white supremacy and thinking about their developmental journeys.

108

T. L. Tevis et al.

As I reflect back on my intentions in doing this work, I find it important to call attention to the fact that I have been marinating deeply on how my own research up to this point has itself perpetuated anti-Blackness and settler colonialism, which has led me to want to interrogate this further moving forward.

Review of the Literature In the following paragraphs, we review the US higher education scholarship on whiteness. We posit that whiteness, as an ideology, operates vis-à-vis several interlocking and mutually reinforcing dimensions: ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized. Accordingly, the first half of this section explores the literature with respect to these dimensions. Next, we turn our attention to scholars’ approaches to studying whiteness, including their methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and reflexivities. Finally, we explore themes among the implications in this body of scholarship.

Ideological Dimension of Whiteness and Its Historical Legacies in US Higher Education A review of the literature concerning the histories of US higher education and its roots in white supremacy and settler colonialism (including chattel slavery and Indigenous genocide) is beyond the scope of this chapter. Still, these histories – some notably documented in detail by Wilder (2013) and Harris et al. (2019) – serve as vital context for making sense of how and why whiteness as an ideology is deeply embedded within these institutions. Analyses that historicize whiteness and invite people to draw connections between its historical record and contemporary manifestations are necessary for naming the enormity of white violence on Communities of Color in higher education (Whitehead et al., 2021). These authors have detailed how whiteness has manifested throughout the history of US higher education. These include colleges and universities profiting from colonial settlers’ forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their homelands and their exploitation of enslaved African labor. Further, historically white colleges and universities were instrumental in the growth and popularity of racial “science,” which both exploited the remains of Black and Indigenous peoples and further entrenched racist ideas and stereotypes (Wilder, 2013). An historical account of whiteness also names how this ideology has been used by lawmakers and university administrators to bar access to higher education for Communities of Color. Land Grant Acts and the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), which have been popularly characterized as monumental shifts in expanding access to higher education, have been critiqued by scholars for how they have restricted access to education to those embodying characteristics associated with whiteness (e.g., skin color and facial structure). For example, although historically Black colleges and universities received increased funding under Land Grant Acts, white lawmakers used Jim Crow policies and funding structures to limit

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

109

their scope to “practical” forms of education (i.e., skilled trades; Corces-Zimmerman et al., 2021b). Additionally, the realities of legal segregation in many institutions meant that Veterans of Color could not fully pursue the educational benefits offered under the GI Bill. Legislators’ efforts to restrict access to higher education for Communities of Color have sought to ban or restrict affirmative action in the decades following the Civil Rights movement through the present day. These efforts draw upon notions of meritocracy and color-evasiveness to position affirmative action as an unnecessary form of “reverse racism” that targets white people. Corces-Zimmerman et al. (2021a) argued that although affirmative action has survived multiple legal challenges, it has done so in “narrowly tailored” ways through the courts that primarily recenter the educational benefits of white students. Stewart’s (2019) analysis of college student publications from US midwestern liberal arts colleges between 1945 and 1965 connects these legacies of exclusion to reveal how whiteness permeates collective memory. More specifically, Stewart’s analysis draws upon Harris’ (1993) concept of whiteness as property to reveal how the limited presence of Black students in student publications, the evasion of race-related issues of the day, their masking of racist college/university policies, and the overrepresentation of student organizations that practiced segregation served to sanitize images of student life and preserve an image of whiteness as an unquestioned norm. Taken together, the racist ideas undergirding and propagated by institutions’ investment in racial sciences and the various policies that restricted access to higher education for Students of Color have served to associate whiteness with intelligence and work ethic (Corces-Zimmerman et al., 2021a). Historically, these linkages have evoked and drawn upon racist characterizations of Black and Indigenous people as unintelligent, primitive, savage, and subhuman for coherence (Wilder, 2013). Following the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, color-evasive rhetoric and policies within and beyond higher education have continued to shape and reproduce whiteness under the guise of equal opportunity. Still, throughout these histories, policies concerning access to higher education have positioned whiteness as a valuable asset that white people seek to protect (Harris, 1993). Through focusing attention on these legacies of oppression, these works challenge neoliberal narratives about racial progress and the democratization of higher education. Moreover, these histories reveal how apparent shifts in access have actually served to preserve (not disrupt) white supremacy under a guise of white benevolence. From these histories, we can understand the shapeshifting of whiteness over time as an ideology that has served to sustain white supremacy in US higher education via institutional policies and practices; interpersonal dynamics and behaviors; and internalized thoughts and feelings.

Ideological Constructs Used to Analyze Whiteness in US Higher Education Critical analyses of whiteness have used a wide range of conceptual frameworks and constructs, all of which illustrate how whiteness functions as an ideology. In the

110

T. L. Tevis et al.

paragraphs below, we describe some of these frameworks and constructs, as well as briefly describe how they have been used in the US higher education literature. In the following sections outlining institutional, interpersonal, and internalized dimensions, we explicate more fully how these frameworks and constructs have been applied in research. In this section, we highlight conceptual frameworks that scholars have applied in postsecondary racial analyses. Specifically, these are frameworks that are multifaceted and contain multiple conceptual components. Though not an exhaustive list, we highlight three that have been used in higher education: colorblind racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2003, 2018), the white racial frame (Feagin, 2010), and white institutional presence (Gusa, 2010). Color-evasiveness Scholarship on white people’s contemporary racial ideologies can be traced back to Bonilla-Silva and Foreman’s (2000) mixed methods study of white college students. Their analysis revealed how white college students frequently expressed more racially prejudiced views during interviews than in surveys. Up to that point, surveys were the primary instrument used to access racial attitudes, and their work was groundbreaking in illustrating how surveys did not capture the rhetorical strategies white people used to advance racist ideas while avoiding appearing racist. Building upon the findings from this study, Bonilla-Silva (2003, 2018) later articulated a whole framework for describing what he termed “colorblindness” – an ideology that “explains contemporary racial inequality as the outcome of nonracial dynamics” (p. 2). Bonilla-Silva argued colorblindness (which we will refer to as color-evasiveness; Annamma et al., 2016; Linder, 2015) shapes how most white people in the United States think, talk, and feel about race. Describing race relations since the end of de jure segregation in the United States, several authors have asserted that racism now operates more covertly and under the pretense that all forms of racial oppression have been eliminated through the availability of equal opportunity for all (e.g., Anderson, 2016; Bonilla-Silva, 2003, 2018). Put another way, hegemonic racial narratives position contemporary racism as exceptional, rather than endemic. Bonilla-Silva’s (2003, 2018) framework, therefore, describes how a dominant white racial order is maintained through how many white people think about and discuss racial matters, despite this race-evasive pretense. Bonilla-Silva (2003, 2018) identified four frames of color-evasiveness: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and the minimization of racism. Abstract liberalism – which constitutes the ideology’s foundation – supports the idea that “legal force should not be used to achieve social policy” (Bonilla-Silva, 2018, p. 56) and emphasizes individualism and choice in explaining racial matters. Through naturalization, white people explain racial phenomena (e.g., their preferences for white friends and partners) as natural occurrences, thereby absolving themselves of any responsibility for maintaining the dominant racial order. Cultural racism draws upon racial stereotypes to explain racial inequalities. The minimization of racism frame presumes racial discrimination as a minor (or nonexistent) factor shaping People of Color’s lives (Bonilla-Silva, 2003, 2018). Within higher education,

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

111

researchers have used Bonilla-Silva’s (2003, 2018) framework to explore how scholars downplay or evade the significance of racism in higher education research (Harper, 2012), and white college students’ racialized ideologies, attitudes, and behaviors (Cabrera, 2011, 2014b, 2014c; Chesler et al., 2003; Garibay et al., 2020). White Racial Frame Situating the white racial frame within a US context, Feagin (2010) defined it as an overarching worldview used by white Americans (and other groups seeking to conform to white norms) that “encompasses important racial ideas, terms, images, emotions, and interpretations” that “rationalize and structure racial interactions, inequalities, and other racial patterns” (p. 3) across social settings. In short, Feagin’s (2010) premise is that many white individuals have used the white racial frame over centuries to make sense of a racialized society. Feagin’s (2010) white racial frame is comprised of the following interwoven dimensions: “(a) racial stereotypes (a beliefs aspect); (b) racial narratives and interpretations (integrating cognitive aspects); (c) racial images (a visual aspect) and language accents (an auditory aspect); (d) racialized emotions (a ‘feelings’ aspect); and (e) an inclinations to action (to discriminate)” (pp. 10–11). Within higher education literature, scholars have used this framework to explore white college students’ racial meaningmaking, use of racist jokes, and racialized behaviors (Cabrera, 2014a, 2014b; Picca & Feagin, 2007; Whitehead, 2021). Although Bonilla-Silva’s (2003, 2018) and Feagin’s (2010) frameworks both articulate dominant racial framing, they differ significantly in their premise. Bonilla-Silva’s (2003, 2018) colorblind racism advances a framework that is purely ideological (albeit with specific discursive aspects) in that it privileges hegemonic ideas about race and racism. On the other hand, Feagin’s (2010) white racial frame emphasizes the interconnectedness of ideological, cognitive, auditory, visual, emotional, and behavioral aspects of dominant racial framing. White Institutional Presence Articulating a framework that goes beyond how individual people reproduce whiteness, Gusa’s (2010) white institutional presence sought to explain how whiteness is embedded within the quotidian, unnamed messaging and practices of historically white institutions (e.g., through curricular content that centers white hegemonic perspectives and pedagogical practices that reflect white European worldviews and ways of knowing). Gusa’s (2010) framework consists of five attributes: (a) white ascendancy, (b) monoculturalism, (c) white estrangement, and (d) white blindness. White ascendancy describes the entitled and dominating thinking and behavior tied to white hegemonic power and advantage. Monoculturalism describes the expectation that all scholars subscribe to the same worldview, rooted in white cultural norms, thereby marginalizing the perspectives of People of Color. White estrangement refers to how institutions distance white people from People of Color. Gusa’s use of white blindness is rooted in Bonilla-Silva’s (2003) work, as described above. Within higher education, white institutional presence has been used in analyses of campus ecologies and their roles in stymying white students’ racial development (Cabrera et al., 2016), institutional responses to racial violence on campus (Arellano & Vue, 2019; Jones, 2019), and

112

T. L. Tevis et al.

white student leaders’ self-perceptions of authority in racial dialogues (Foste, 2020a). Epistemologies of Ignorance Another ideological construct scholars use in critical analyses of whiteness is Mills’ (1997) concept of epistemologies of ignorance. Going beyond a description of how individual white people maintain an ignorance about the realities of racism experienced by People of Color, this concept describes a willful aversion to such realities and explains why many white people both maintain this ignorance and their active complicity in maintaining it. Within higher education, researchers have used this construct to explore white students’ discursive strategies in avoiding conversations about race and racism and institutions’ roles in maintaining white students’ ignorance around race. For example, Cabrera and Corces-Zimmerman’s (2017) study of white college men at the University of Arizona revealed that participants’ expressed epistemologies of ignorance through emphasizing self-concepts as racially tolerant, and – further – that such views were facilitated by their insulation within predominantly white friend groups and social environments and a lack of coursework engaging racial issues. Not only do white students’ epistemologies of ignorance put them in states of racial arrested development (Cabrera et al., 2016) through limiting an understanding of themselves as racialized people (Foste & Irwin, 2020), but they also have harmful consequences for Students of Color. For example, Cabrera and Corces-Zimmerman (2017) connected their analyses of white participants’ epistemologies of ignorance to the documented evidence of Students’ of Color marginalizing experiences with the racist actions of their white peers (e.g., Kanter et al., 2017). Foste and Irvin (2020) pointed to how epistemologies of ignorance serve to obscure People of Color’s contributions and encourage an erasure of the historical legacies of racism. Further, this collective forgetting facilitates epistemic violence on Communities of Color within higher education, whereby HWCUs devalue their knowledge systems and cultural practices (Foste & Irwin, 2020; Gusa, 2010). Ontological Expansiveness In her work discussing the concept of white institutional presence, Gusa (2010) wrote: “[predominantly white institutions] do not have to be explicitly racist to create a hostile environment. Instead, unexamined historically situated white cultural ideology, embedded in the language, cultural practices, traditions, and perceptions of knowledge, allow these institutions to remain racialized” (p. 465). Gusa’s point suggests space is not just a physical construct but also cultural. This expansive understanding of space mirrors Sullivan’s (2006) definition of ontological expansiveness as white people’s “tendency to act and think as if all spaces— whether geographical, psychical, linguistic, economic, or otherwise—are or should be available to them to move in and out as they wish” (p. 10). Accordingly, this construct is useful for analyzing how whiteness racializes various spaces on campus. In terms of physical space, ontological expansiveness can explore white people’s entitlement to physical spaces on campus and their reactions when their perceptions

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

113

of ownership are challenged, voluntourism, and notions of citizenship (CorcesZimmerman et al., 2021a). Within the context of higher education, scholars have used this concept to explore white students’ constructions of physical campus spaces as those that should be open to them (e.g., identity-based groups) and their notions of safety. Cabrera et al. (2016) argued that ontological expansiveness allows students to conflate perceptions of exclusion with actual exclusion and conflate an erosion of racial privileges with racism. Other applications of ontological expansiveness – under-explored in the empirical literature – could take up white college students’ appropriation of cultures that are not their own. Whiteness as Property Arguing the confluence of race and property played a larger role in oppressing Black and Indigenous people than the concept of race alone, Harris (1993) detailed how whiteness has, over time, served as a valuable form of property that white people seek to protect. Drawing upon legal frameworks about property rights, Harris (1993) articulated four ways in which whiteness functions as property: (a) the right to exclude (i.e., a capacity for determining who is white and who can be excluded from the privileges associated with whiteness); (b) inalienability (i.e., an inability to transfer whiteness or its privileges to another person); (c) a right to use and enjoy the privileges associated with whiteness; and (d) reputation and status (i.e., “an interest in being regarded as white as a thing of significant value”; p. 1734). In higher education, scholars have used Harris’s (1993) framework for exploring how whiteness structures collegiate multiracial women’s social interactions (Harris, 2019); how curricula in student affairs preparation programs protect whiteness (Bondi, 2012); how student publications preserve whiteness as an unquestioned norm (Stewart, 2019); and how white men faculty protect and traffic in whiteness under the guise of racial allyship (Patton & Bondi, 2015). Worth noting here is that while Harris’s (1993) concept of whiteness as property has been used as an analytical frame for CWS in higher education (see Cabrera et al., 2017), her work is rooted within the CRT tradition (see Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; McCoy & Rodricks, 2015). Assumed Racial Comfort Whiteness as racial comfort refers to another form of entitlement expressed by many white people: the entitlement of avoiding any discomfort when discussing or facing racial matters. This entitlement to racial comfort often obscures two points: (1) white people’s linguistic violence often harms People of Color (while white people either ignore or minimize that harm) and (2) what white people conceptualize as racial safety is actually freedom from the discomfort associated with being challenged in their racial comments and behaviors (Leonardo & Porter, 2010). Indeed, such challenges are often interpreted to be attacks (e.g., Accapadi, 2007). As it relates to higher education, the literature indicates that white college students use many practices to secure racial comfort, including avoiding conversations about race and even avoiding interactions with People of Color altogether. Just as with maintaining epistemologies of ignorance, these forms of avoidance in the pursuit of racial comfort serve to protect white individuals’ positive self-images and perceptions of themselves as being innocent of perpetuating racism.

114

T. L. Tevis et al.

Institutional Dimension of Whiteness in US Higher Education Scholars have applied these and other ideological constructs to explore how whiteness is reproduced at the institutional level. In this section, we synthesize the empirical literature concerning how whiteness is reproduced via (a) institutional responses to racist acts and speech; (b) diversity regimes and discourses; (c) racialized institutional spaces; (d) cocurricular experiences; and (e) classroom experiences.

Institutional Responses to Racist Acts and Speech An emerging strand of the literature explores how institutional statements and responses to racist acts and speech on campus reproduces whiteness. Woven throughout these works is an emphasis on how whiteness subverts efforts to disrupt white supremacy on campus. For example, by minimizing Students’ of Color concerns about racism on campus, policing their displays of pain through expectations of politeness and temperance, and shutting them out of dialogue, institutional leaders reinscribe white cultural practices and race-evasive norms (Jones, 2019; Tevis, 2020). Other discursive strategies that institutional leaders in these studies use to protect white supremacy on their campuses include applying abstract liberalist frames to minimize racist acts and speech, position them as individual acts that are incongruent with the values of the institution, and divorce these acts from historical legacies and structural manifestations of racism (Arellano & Vue, 2019). Effectively, these applications of abstract liberalism serve to protect institutions from accountability in addressing racism in meaningful ways and leave structural racism intact and unquestioned. Expanding beyond individual institutions, Moore and Bell (2019) explored how institutional leaders broadly preserve whiteness through their responses to racist speech on campus vis-a-vis dominant white racial framing. Though Moore and Bell (2019) did not explicitly apply a critical whiteness framework in their analysis, they did apply Bonilla-Silva’s (2003, 2018) concept of color-blindness to illustrate how university administrators frequently decontextualize racist speech on campus in their stock responses. More specifically, they found that – in their focus on protecting students’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech – administrators frequently named counterspeech as the only appropriate and effective response. Applying a color-evasive frame, Moore and Bell (2019) named how this response further marginalizes campus Communities of Color by evading the implications of this response, as well as the right for Students of Color to engage in learning environments free from dehumanization. Diversity Regimes and Discourse Institutional rhetoric surrounding diversity illustrates an additional example of how administrators reproduce whiteness to effectively undermine efforts towards racial justice reforms on college campuses. In their study of students attending elite law schools, Moore and Bell (2011) found that discourse around affirmative action programs – which have sought to eliminate discrimination and redistribute resources

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

115

tied to education and employment – positions such programs in ways that divorce them from the context of white supremacy, emphasize the celebration of racial differences, and rely on racist assumptions of incompetence. Moore and Bell’s (2019) analysis drew upon Bonilla-Silva’s (2003, 2018) color-evasive racism, Feagin’s (2010) white racial frame, and Pierce’s (2012) white racial innocence to illustrate how such positioning of affirmative action is ideologically rooted in whiteness and serves to preserve white interests to the detriment of law school Students of Color. Relatedly, Petts and Garza (2021) explored how racial diversity regimes (or how institutional leaders define and position “diversity”) are also frequently rooted in whiteness, protect white interests, and further marginalize Students of Color. They applied interest convergence (Bell, 1980) to analyze two dominant diversity regimes: (a) racial diversity as a benefit for all and (b) racial diversity as a status marker. Echoing Corces-Zimmerman et al.’s (2021a) point that affirmative action programs have survived challenges through recentering white interests, Petts and Garza (2021) argued regimes that position racial diversity as a benefit for all students can lead to institutions prioritizing the white dominant interests and further strengthen property interest in whiteness. More specifically, this framing suggests that when racial diversity no longer benefits white students (e.g., through the educational benefits of cross-racial interactions and learning about different cultures), institutions can alter or discard their commitments to racial diversity. This positioning also obscures the reality that white students’ accrual of such educational benefits is often at the expense of Students of Color, who do not benefit from crossracial ties as much as they do (Bowman, 2012; Harper, 2013; Seider et al., 2013). Petts and Garza (2021) contended that positioning racial diversity as a status marker serves to prioritize institutions’ prestige and reputation over the experiences and needs of individual students. As racial diversity takes on increasing importance as a barometer of quality for college experience, institutional leaders use this form of racial signaling to compete with other institutions for students (Okechukwu, 2019; Stevens, 2009). As a result, Petts and Garza (2021) argued that many institutions develop initiatives, offices, and positions related to diversity, as well as manipulate racial representation on their marketing materials and online presence to illustrate their commitment. In this sense, Students of Color are reduced to objects whose purpose is to leverage prestige for institutions. Thus, interest convergence is a useful analytic for understanding the extent of institutions’ commitments to racial diversity and whom those commitments ultimately serve.

Racialization of Institutional Spaces Another emergent body of work has explored how whiteness serves to racialize campus spaces (Duran et al., forthcoming), particularly within the area of residential life. Foste’s (2021) multi-case study explored the racialized constructions that students and staff ascribed to residence halls on campus (and the consequences/ implications of these constructions), and Foste and Johnson (2021) explored the experiences of resident assistants (RAs) of Color at HWCUs. Findings across both studies revealed the salience of white racialized spaces within residence life and how

116

T. L. Tevis et al.

these spaces marginalized Students of Color through marking them as racial outsiders. For example, RAs of Color in Foste and Johnson’s (2021) study spoke to enduring racialized assumptions about their character by white student residents and minimization of their racialized experiences. Students of Color in Foste’s (2021) study similarly revealed how spaces ostensibly open to all students were constructed as “white spaces” that were off-limits to them. This latter example illustrates how white racialized spaces promote a policing of racial boundaries imbued with implicit associations between whiteness and value, worth, and belonging.

Cocurricular Experiences Analyses of whiteness in the context of cocurricular experiences have primarily focused on service-learning programs (Bocci, 2015; Cann & McCloskey, 2017; Irwin & Foste, 2021; Mitchell et al., 2012), though Stewart and Nicolazzo’s (2019) critique extended beyond these programs to indict high-impact practices (HIPs) as a whole. As conceptualized by Kuh et al. (2005), high-impact practices are educational experiences and practices that facilitate student success and include internships, study abroad opportunities, and service-learning. However, Stewart and Nicolazzo (2019) critiqued how whiteness has been tethered to high-impact practices since their creation. For example, they argued Kuh et al.’ (2005) research did not account for “differential access to HIPs, the effects of oppression on student outcomes from such practices, and institutional capacities informing the structure and delivery of HIPs” (Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2019, p. 136). As a result, HIPs effectively reinforce idealized notions of the “traditional” student – one who is white, a man, cisgender, middle- to upper-class, and able-bodied, among other dominant social identities (Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2019). That educators and administrators frequently embrace HIPs uncritically allows institutions to evade inequities within student populations and reproduce marginalization for students in oppressed groups vis-avis their experiences with HIPs. Worth noting here is that Stewart and Nicolazzo’s (2019) critique was premised upon their conceptualization of whiteness as an epistemological container of interlocking forms of oppression (e.g., racism, patriarchy, ableism, misogynoir) that sustain white supremacy. Within the context of one HIP – service-learning programs – researchers have critiqued the various ways through which such programs are rooted in and reproduce whiteness. For example, service-learning programs can (and frequently do) reinforce: (a) stereotypes and deficit narratives about Communities of Color, (b) inequitable power dynamics that remove communities from processes of problem-solving, (c) understandings of social problems that emphasize individual circumstances rather than structural power, and (d) white heroism (Bocci, 2015; Irwin & Foste, 2021; Mitchell et al., 2012; Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2019). Further, these analyses revealed that service-learning programs frequently serve to disproportionately benefit white people and white-serving institutions, and they position Communities of Color as commodities (Cann & McCloskey, 2017; Irwin & Foste, 2021). Expounding on this point and drawing upon Leong’s (2013) concept of racial capitalism, Irwin and Foste (2021) offered that uncritical structures for service learning reduce Communities of Color to props for white students to learn about

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

117

diversity and as a means through which institutions can signal their moral goodness. Speaking to additional forms of capital, Cann and McCloskey’s (2017) analysis suggested historically white institutions also profit vis-a-vis grants tied to servicelearning programs, and white students benefit through receiving college credits and fodder for their resumes. Beyond service-learning, scholars have also examined how whiteness shapes cocurricular leadership development programming. Pointing to the increasing popularity of StrengthsQuest in these leadership programs, Tapia-Fuselier and Irwin (2019) critiqued how this tool obscures contextual considerations concerning the role of power and social stratification in how students’ strengths operate. Their analysis used race-evasiveness and solipsism (operationalized as a form of epistemology of ignorance) to name how StrengthsQuest is rooted in and privileges a hegemonic white worldview, presents talents as universal, and evades considerations of why or how People of Color do not engage in the world in the same ways as white people (Tapia-Fuselier & Irwin, 2019).

Classroom Experiences Scholars have also explored the various ways through which whiteness is reproduced in the classroom. Though these studies evoke the interpersonal dimension of whiteness (discussed in the following section), we include them here because they explicitly name how such interpersonal reproductions of whiteness are embedded institutionally. For example, Bondi (2012) and Harris (2019) used Harris’s (1993) conceptualization of whiteness as property to explore how white students are frequently encouraged to use and enjoy privileges associated with their whiteness. Within HWCUs, the relative dearth of Faculty of Color, coupled with institutions’ frequent positioning of learning as an objective, passive, power-neutral process; monoculturalism; and historical exclusion of Indigenous and People of Color all serve to shape the learning environment. In particular, these realities shape learning environments in ways that embolden white students’ entitlement to (a) learn about race in ways that centered their perspectives (without regard for its impact on their Peers of Color), (b) be silent within such discussions, and (c) exist in the classroom without feeling a need to prove their worth (Bondi, 2012; Harris, 2019). Nishi’s (2021) study similarly used the concept of whiteness as property to examine how whiteness in a college algebra classroom connected to issues around resource access for Students of Color. Though Nishi’s (2021) study points to multiple ways through which whiteness-at-work (Yoon, 2012) operated through an interpersonal dimension (discussed more fully below), her analysis also revealed how insufficient institutional support for necessary equipment (e.g., laptops, software, and graphing calculators) can disproportionately inhibit Students’ of Color success in STEM programs.

Interpersonal Dimension of Whiteness in US Higher Education Relative to institutional and internalized dimensions, postsecondary analyses exploring how whiteness is reproduced through the interpersonal dimension is scant in the

118

T. L. Tevis et al.

literature. The few works in this vein of scholarship have explored how whiteness shapes (and is sustained through) white college students’ racialized behaviors and social interactions. These behaviors include racialized aggressions directly targeting Students of Color, as well as the racialized behaviors with which white college students engage one another. Research exploring this dimension highlights the dynamic, co-constructed nature of whiteness and emphasizes processes and social contexts. Before discussing the empirical literature within this strand of the research, we wish to describe two conceptual frameworks that are essential for understanding this dimension: Yoon’s (2012) whiteness-at-work and Picca and Feagin’s (2007) racial performances. Though researchers have not widely used these concepts in postsecondary racial analyses, we mention them here to illustrate their potential for informing future higher education scholarship exploring this dimension.

Whiteness-at-Work Positioning whiteness as an iterative process that is socially, historically, and culturally constructed in social structure, ideology, and individual actions, Yoon (2012) described whiteness-at-work as “a socially constructed, dynamic set of strategies” (p. 596) that serve to protect white racial privilege through contradictory and paradoxical speech and actions. Whiteness-at-work has been used heavily within critical analyses of whiteness in teacher education and K-12 literature, and it has been used in at least two studies of college students and classrooms at the time of this writing. Nishi’s (2021) study revealed how whiteness-at-work shaped white college students’ interactions with Students of Color in ways that reproduced white entitlement and white hoarding of resources in a college algebra classroom. More specifically, in this study, whiteness-at-work revealed how these interactions reinforced linkages between whiteness and smartness for white students in the study, which resulted in them frequently ignoring their Peers of Color and presuming them not to be smart (Nishi, 2021). Whiteness-at-work also figured prominently in the experiences of participants in Mohajeri’s (2022) study of “contested whites” (i.e., students who are “differentially located along the borders of whiteness and share common experiences of racial ambiguity and contestation,” p. 396). In this study, whiteness-at-work was enacted through multiracial participants’ interactions with white peers who presumed them to be monoracially white. Among these participants, these interactions elicited feelings of dislocation, disembodiment, paralysis, and being ensnared in liminal spaces (Mohajeri, 2022). Such feelings were connected to ways through which whiteness-at-work imposed decisions of either disclosing their racial identities (which would render their bodies the objects of scrutiny) or protecting themselves by leaving assumptions about their racial identities intact (Mohajeri, 2022). Ultimately, these examples of whiteness-at-work illustrate the paradoxical nature of hegemonic whiteness and how – through surveillance and contestation – it exerts enormous pressure to reestablish its own norms and illogics when they are temporarily dislodged (Mohajeri, 2022).

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

119

Racial Performances Another body of work advances empirical analyses of white college students’ racial performances. Picca and Feagin (2007) defined racial performances as socially situated events that “involve the activity of a white person at a particular place and time, and attempt to communicate racial views and images to others” (p. 4). These racialized performances are dynamic processes through which white people “use, refurbish, play with, amend, and pass along” (Picca & Feagin, 2007, p. 12) racial stereotypes about People of Color within and throughout their kinship networks over time. This dramaturgical framing highlights the various dimensions of white college students’ quotidian racist behaviors and their embeddedness within a broader system of white supremacy (Picca & Feagin, 2007). For example, Whitehead’s (2021) study of white undergraduates illustrated how whiteness and anti-Blackness were intertwined and reworked through their everyday interactions and how the nexus of the two shaped their racial meaning-making. In the counterstory illustrating the study’s findings, a white character intentionally focused on her mother’s intentions and concerns about her safety in response to her mother’s anti-Black comments and actions after seeing a Black man walk past their car – comments and actions that stemmed from social constructions of Black bodies as criminal. This attention on the mother’s supposed innocence – an innocence that whiteness projects onto white bodies – allowed this character to evade considering the implications of her mom’s anti-Black rhetoric and behavior and to evade considering how that rhetoric and behavior simultaneously were premised upon anti-Blackness and reproduced it. Other works in this sub-thread of the literature detail two faces to white racial views, commentaries, and actions: in the presence of People of Color (the frontstage), white participants in these studies largely presented themselves as race-evasive and innocent of racism; in the presence of only those who are presumed to be white (the backstage), they revealed racist ideologies through racist jokes and comments (Cabrera, 2014b; Picca & Feagin, 2007). In the frontstage – which was generally uncomfortable for the white participants in Picca and Feagin’s (2007) study – white people’s racial performances tended to signal tolerance, appropriate People of Color’s characteristics, avoid mentioning racial characteristics and/or People of Color altogether, defend white people against perceived racial wrongdoing, defend white privilege, and engage in direct racial confrontations. Within the backstage, white participants’ racist jokes, commentaries, and actions were enabled through the perceived safety, comfort, and normality of all-white spaces (Cabrera, 2014b; Picca & Feagin, 2007) – a product of hegemonic whiteness. Consistent with Bonilla-Silva’s (2018) minimization of racism frame, the white college men in Cabrera’s (2014b) study rationalized their racist jokes by claiming that People of Color were too racially sensitive and would misconstrue their jokes as racist. In Picca and Feagin’s (2007) study, white students’ racist jokes serve the purposes of relieving stress and tension, cultivating white solidarity, testing the waters on a topic, decreasing individual accountability for racism, and generally allowing them

120

T. L. Tevis et al.

to experience pleasure through expressing views and emotions that break social taboos and are normally repressed (Picca & Feagin, 2007).

Internalized Dimension of Whiteness This final vein of scholarship explores the internalized dimension of whiteness on college campuses. White undergraduate college students are the units of analysis in the vast majority of these works. Such works have explored: (a) white college students’ processes of development in relation to racial identity, racial awareness, and racial meaning-making; (b) white college students’ racial ideologies and attitudes; and (c) white college students’ connections to (and constructions of) whiteness. Woven throughout the works in the body of the literature is the influential role of white habitus – an uninterrupted process of racial socialization within white segregated environments that shapes white people’s racial tastes, perceptions, and feelings, and views on racial matters (Bonilla-Silva, 2018). In other words, studies exploring white college students’ racialized developmental processes, attitudes, and ideologies generally emphasize how racialized contexts shape white students’ understandings about race in ways that frequently reproduce whiteness.

Developmental Perspectives on Whiteness and White College Students Rita Hardiman and Janet Helms developed the first models of white racial identity development during the 1980s. In these models, a white person moves from a state of racial unawareness towards interrogating their racial socialization and the personal meaning they ascribe to their racial identity, and ultimately adopts a non-racist (or positive) white racial identity (Hardiman, 2001; Helms, 1995). How race is largely studied and conceptualized in the literature has undergone significant changes since Hardiman (2001) and Helms (1995) initially developed their white racial identity models. Though earlier models focused on how white students viewed People of Color as a proxy for identity development, the recent evolution of CWS into a formal field of study – particularly within higher education – has brought about the use of critical frameworks to focus on hegemonic whiteness and how it shapes white college students’ racial ideological conditioning. In their work describing the potential contributions of CWS to the study of college student development, Foste and Irwin (2020) highlighted three ideological constructs of whiteness that would be useful towards this end: white complicity, epistemologies of ignorance, and white normativity. Applebaum (2010) described white complicity as the premise that all white people – irrespective of intent – are implicated in maintaining white supremacy. This framing disrupts dominant framings of racism as the only behavior practiced by bigoted individuals and prompts considerations of how one’s individual behaviors are situated (historically and contemporarily) within broader institutional systems (Foste & Irwin, 2020). White normativity prompts considerations of how campus spaces – which shape development – legitimate whiteness through unmarked, unnamed, race-less structures that are oriented towards white bodies (Foste & Irwin, 2020). Researchers have used

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

121

these three constructs, in addition to others, in their analyses of white college students’ processes of racial meaning-making and working through whiteness. White Students’ Racial Meaning-Making A few empirical studies have explored how whiteness figures into white college students’ processes of racial meaning-making (i.e., constructing meaning about racial matters). These studies also foreground the influential role of white college students’ racialized contexts – particularly the white habitus – and illustrate how epistemologies of ignorance are reproduced in these contexts. In these studies, the racial frameworks participants developed before entering college were frequently shaped by white segregated environments and were marked by color-evasiveness, white innocence, and epistemologies of ignorance (i.e., a willful aversion to the realities of racism for People of Color; Chesler et al., 2003; Whitehead, 2021). Even white students from racially diverse neighborhoods in Chesler and colleagues’ study reported little meaningful interactions with People of Color or race-related curricular content. Speaking to the significance of these patterns for white college students’ development, Chesler and colleagues (2003) observed: Growing up with everyday processes of segregation, lacking contact with racially (or socioeconomically) different peers, being exposed to various forms of racism and racial tokenism, and not being educated meaningfully about race and racism deeply affect white students’ social identity—their sense of themselves as well as their relations with others. In their homes, schools, and communities these students acquired habitual attitudes, expectations, and ways of making meaning about their world. White students were socialized to not see themselves as having a race and did not understand their own (and their communities’) exclusionary attitudes and behaviors. This message was reinforced unconsciously and uncritically within dominant cultural narratives about People of Color that were primarily negative (p. 223).

These pervasive processes of racial socialization formulate “grid[s] of attitudes and expectations about race and whiteness” (Chesler et al., 2003, p. 223) that serve as “deeply embedded backdrops and points of comparison” (Whitehead, 2021, p. 319) white college students bring with them into their college environments at historically white institutions. In turn, college contexts frequently reinforce the color-evasiveness, willful ignorance, and white racial innocence ingrained in white college students’ precollege racial frames and enable their entitlement to white racial comfort (Chesler et al., 2003; Weaver et al., 2021; Whitehead, 2021). For example, the preparation that white peer socialization agents (PSAs) in Weaver et al.’ (2021) study received for their roles communicated implicit messages that essentialized People of Color’s racialized knowledge and positioned such knowledge as something white college students lacked. In turn, white PSAs frequently diverted questions about race and racialized campus experiences to PSAs of Color, whom they believed were better qualified to provide support and programming related to diversity. Through these rhetorical moves, participants reproduced the positivist, essentialized, and authoritative renderings of race-based knowledge communicated through their environment. As a result,

122

T. L. Tevis et al.

white PSAs in the study made meaning of race in ways that removed themselves from the experiences of their Peers of Color, released themselves from the responsibility of expanding their racial knowledge, and protected their own white racial comfort (Weaver et al., 2021). White Students’ Engagements with Whiteness Another body of work does not foreground the role of racialized environments nor how they shape processes of racial meaning-making, but similarly takes developmental perspectives to explore white college students’ engagements with whiteness. More specifically, these studies focus on white college students’ processes of learning about racism and white racial privilege, wrestling through their own white complicity, and their concomitant racialized feelings and behaviors. Although some of these studies offer a conceptual model illustrating these processes (e.g., Linder, 2015; Whitehead et al., 2022), these works generally avoid describing linear, stage-based processes with a fixed end point (characteristic of earlier works on white racial identity development). Rather, they emphasize concepts and constructions useful for understanding white college students’ engagements with whiteness at a given point in time and point to the fluidity (and sometimes cyclical nature) of these processes. White Students Working Through Whiteness For example, white undergraduate women in Linder’s (2015) study described co-occurring processes of learning about racism and white privilege in classroom settings and working through resistance and anger towards developing an anti-racist white feminist praxis. Linder’s (2015) conceptualization of antiracist white feminist development articulated how – as part of this process – individuals can cycle through the cogs of guilt and shame, fear of appearing racist, and distancing themselves from whiteness. Cabrera’s (2012) study explored white undergraduate men working through whiteness vis-a-vis similar processes of learning about racism and white racial privilege on their development towards antiracist praxis. Although Linder’s (2015) study illuminated emotional aspects of such processes, Cabrera’s (2012) study emphasized the types of racial learning participants found useful in raising their racial awareness and the work participants still needed to take up regarding their racial selves and their own complicity within white supremacy. Taken together, both of these studies suggest that – for some white undergraduate students – learning about racial issues is significant for increasing their racial awareness and can result in cyclical processes of working through what that awareness means for their understandings of their racial selves and their antiracist praxis. Further, these studies reveal such processes have cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components and underscore the difficulty white undergraduates experience in remaining engaged with antiracist praxis. Given the extent to which learning white racial privilege frequently serves as an entry point to racial engagement for white students, Tharp’s (2021) case study explored the various conceptual understandings white undergraduates have about white racial privilege. Tharp’s (2021) analysis revealed the divergent discourses with which participants engaged about white racial privilege: a whiteness discourse and a

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

123

social justice discourse. Students participating in the former emphasized individualistic and isolated understandings of white racial privilege, and students participating in the latter articulated its pervasive, systemic nature (Tharp, 2021). White Students Not Working Through Whiteness A subset of work in the developmental strand of the literature expands beyond white college students actively wrestling with their own white complicity and white racial privilege (who have been a dominant focus in white racial identity development scholarship) and also explores developmental processes among white students who are not engaging in processes of critiquing and disrupting whiteness and who evade racial issues. Cabrera’s (2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2018) research has extensively explored this group – particularly among white college men. We discussed Cabrera’s research on white students not working through whiteness above (with regards to racialized performances within the interpersonal dimension). Here, we limit our discussion to work that foregrounds developmental perspectives about such white undergraduate students. Both Foste and Jones (2020) and Whitehead et al. (2022) focused broadly on the various constructions or engagements with whiteness that white individuals take up. In relation to white individuals working through whiteness, portions of their analyses reflect themes from the aforementioned literature – particularly concerning the salience of racial awareness as an entry point to racial engagement and the difficulty of remaining engaged in antiracist praxis. As their analyses pertain to white individuals not engaging in processes of critiquing and disrupting whiteness, these studies point the salience of white victimhood narratives, perceived racial threats posed by People of Color, a resistance to being gazed upon as racial subjects by People of Color, white rage and fear, and epistemologies of ignorance (Foste & Jones, 2020; Whitehead et al., 2022).

White College Students’ Racial Attitudes and Ideologies Several studies have broadly explored white college students’ racial ideologies and attitudes. One line of research has explored white students’ racial ideologies with respect to gender differences and white college men, in particular. Broadly, these studies suggest white college men: (a) exhibit higher levels of racial resentment and hierarchy-enhancing racial ideologies than Students of Color and white women; (b) held definitions of racism that emphasized individual traits (not systemic realities); (c) minimized issues of race; (d) perpetuated a white victim narrative; and (e) generally do not shift in their racial views – even in light of news coverage of campus racial incidents (Cabrera, 2011, 2014c, 2018; Garibay et al., 2020). These studies point to how institutional structures and practices reinforce, rather than challenge, the hegemonic racial ideologies rooted in whiteness with which white college students frequently enter college. Earlier work in this strand explored these constructs through secondary analyses of quantitative data sets and did not explicitly use a critical framework, yet they suggest white college students come to college with negative views of Black and Latina/o/x people, strong levels of racial resentment, and (particularly among those

124

T. L. Tevis et al.

socialized within segregated white environments before, during, and after college) color-evasive ideologies (Byrd, 2014; Jayakumar, 2015). Further, these same studies also point to the role of historically white institutions (vis-a-vis institutional dimensions of whiteness) that enable and encourage these patterns. For example, Byrd (2014) suggested that the whiteness of HWCU environments (with their symbols and climates that privilege white students, histories of racist exclusion, and contemporary structural inequities that create racially segregated environments) may play a role in the levels of racial prejudice among white students in the study. Jayakumar (2015) similarly suggested that campus diversity experiences (e.g., ethnic studies courses, diversity workshops, and cross-racial interactions) are not necessarily helpful in disrupting color-evasive ideologies, particularly given these experiences do not challenge the ideologies white college students form through their socialization within white segregated environments. Subsequent research adds further nuance to how institutional structures and practices and white college students’ white racial ideologies interact in ways that reproduce whiteness and protect white supremacy. These studies also extend the literature concerning how institutional diversity regimes and discourse reproduce whiteness. For example, in Foste’s (2019) study, white participants consumed and reproduced narratives about the institution that (a) emphasized inflated perceptions of racial harmony on campus and (b) discredited the concerns of student activists who critiqued white supremacy on campus. Concurrent with findings from other works that have illustrated the discursive ways through which whiteness operates (e.g., Arellano & Vue, 2019; Bonilla-Silva, 2003; Cabrera & Corces-Zimmerman, 2017; Jones, 2019), Foste’s (2019) analysis illustrated how these narratives were rooted in (and reproduced) epistemologies of ignorance (Mills, 1997), white racial innocence (Pierce, 2012), and race-evasive discourse (Bonilla-Silva, 2003). In other words, these narratives reflect how participants willfully maintained an ignorance about racism and the experiences of Students of Color, minimized racism, and served to remove both themselves and the institution from any accountability – thus protecting white supremacy. Additionally, Hikido and Murray’s (2016) study suggested white college students also reproduce whiteness through bifurcated discourses that simultaneously reify “diversity” and position it as an abstract entity that minimizes (or erases) racial differences. Hikido and Murray (2016) argued the latter served to obscure whiteness in interpersonal interactions and the former “neutralize[d] it by propagating ‘an ideal imagined community’” (p. 398). Digging deeper into the role of interpersonal contexts in shaping these discourses, their analysis also revealed how participants’ anxieties and fears about racial segregation also permeated their takes on diversity. Just as with findings from other works (e.g., Cabrera, 2018; Foste, 2019), these discourses served to position white participants as innocent and Students of Color as a problem and the source of racial division on campus (Hikido & Murray, 2016). Illustrating another manifestation of white racial innocence, Foste’s (2020a) analysis revealed how white undergraduate student leaders constructed enlightenment narratives that emphasized their own racial goodness. Such narratives positioned these white student leaders as more knowledgeable about race than their less racially aware white peers and emphasized the burden of educating said peers about white

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

125

racial privilege and allyship (Foste, 2020a). In contextualizing these findings, Foste (2020a) offered that participants’ fixations on their own racial goodness reflects “systemically induced white racial ignorance” (p. 40) that precludes considerations for how all white people are implicated in reproducing whiteness and white supremacy. Woven throughout Foste’s (2019, 2020a) and Hikido and Murray’s (2016) analyses were interconnections between ideologies of whiteness in the institutional, interpersonal, and internalized dimensions; they highlighted how the ideologies of whiteness white college students develop are reworked through interpersonal encounters and reinforced by institutional rhetoric, structures, and practices.

White Faculty and Administrators As we stated previously, the vast majority of studies exploring internalized dimensions of whiteness in higher education scholarship have focused on white undergraduate students. That being said, a few studies have focused on white men faculty and administrators and explore the extent to which they respond to racism on campus (Tevis, 2020) and engage in social justice allyship (Patton & Bondi, 2015). Although we discussed Tevis’s work earlier within the institutional dimension of whiteness (insofar as administrators’ statements and actions are extensions of institutions), this study also offered implications for thinking about how whiteness shapes internalized meaning-making for these administrators. For example, Tevis’s analysis revealed the tensions white administrators in the study articulated between acknowledging their racialized positions, their white racial privilege, and the positional power they possessed and minimizing them. Discursively, the latter served to protect their white racial comfort. Patton and Bondi’s (2015) analysis revealed how whiteness functioned as property shaping white men faculty and administrators’ experiences engaging in social justice allyship. Participants in Patton and Bondi’s (2015) study largely engaged their work at the individual level, rather than systemic level, and received benefits from their perceived allyship tied to their status and reputation. In other words, whiteness accrued benefits to these white faculty and administrators for engaging in efforts that had limited impact and did not substantively disrupt structural oppression. Moreover, whiteness bestowed credibility and respect on these white men and allowed their motivations for allyship to go unquestioned. In short, empirical explorations of the internalized dimension of whiteness among white men faculty and administrators reveal how they frequently evade reckoning with their own complicity within whiteness and white supremacy, and how these evasions both protect their white racial comfort and benefit them materially.

Trends in the Literature In the preceding sections, we synthesized critical analyses of whiteness in the higher education and student affairs literature along ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized dimensions. In the following sections, we identify some key trends and threads within this literature within two areas: (a) conceptual and methodological approaches and (b) applications of this work.

126

T. L. Tevis et al.

Approaches to the Work Given the increasing uptake of critical analyses of whiteness in higher education scholarship over the past decade, some scholars have turned their attention to considerations for how scholars should conduct this research. These publications variously focus on methods and methodologies; the ends towards which this work should be oriented; and reflexivities and positionalities. Methods, Methodologies, and Orientation Reflecting on how critical race methodology extended CRT into a methodological framework (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), Corces-Zimmerman and Guida (2019) similarly sought to articulate a methodological framework for CWS. Rooted in five tenets that address systemic- and individual-level dynamics affecting data collection, their articulation of a critical whiteness methodological framework offers considerations for researchers conducting interviews with white participants. For example, one tenet offers that “white researchers have a responsibility to interrupt whiteness at all phases of the research process” (p. 102). Accordingly, the authors suggest white scholars challenge white participants to reflect on how they perpetuate whiteness in their comments and offer specific actions they can take before, during, and after the interview. Corces-Zimmerman and Guida’s (2019) framework mirrors the multidimensional and ideological nature of whiteness we articulate in this chapter and extends these constructions into pressing methodological considerations for white researchers taking up critical analyses of whiteness. In their work offering propositions for the future of critical whiteness scholarship in higher education, Whitehead et al. (2021) critiqued the pervasiveness of frameworks premised upon the “invisibility” of whiteness and colorblindness, ahistorical analyses, and work that did not take up the material consequences of whiteness on Communities of Color. Their critique was informed by more recent scholarship describing the “new racial speech” (Leonardo, 2020, p. 19) of white racial aggrievement that has characterized contemporary dominant racial discourse. That is, many white people now embrace white identity openly and position it as a site of injury in response to perceived progress for People of Color. Therefore, the propositions Whitehead et al. (2021) offered call for CWS in higher education to engage in analyses that foreground the consequences of whiteness on People of Color, make needed connections to the historical record of whiteness and white supremacy, and explore what makes the public embrace of whiteness and white identity possible on US college campuses. Reflexivities and Positionalities Within teacher education and K-12 literature, many scholars have produced personal accounts documenting their own journeys in taking up critical whiteness praxes and how their racial and gender identities shape their teaching and research. Such accounts are less prevalent within the higher education literature and tend to focus on research rather than teaching. Concerning research, Foste (2020b) and Cabrera (2016) offer similar and divergent perspectives considering their positionalities as researchers studying whiteness among white

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

127

students – the former as a white cisgender man, and the latter as a light-skinned Chicano man. Foste (2020b) described methodological tensions in his research on white college students concerning matters of building rapport with participants (and the extent to which such rapport creates racial comfort for participants), intentional uses of researcher silence during interviews (and whether or not they signaled an endorsement of participants’ racist beliefs), and the implications of using member checks. Throughout, Foste (2020b) described tensions in discerning how and the extent to which he could/should challenge the views of participants in his study. Cabrera (2016) similarly wrestled with balancing listening and challenging participants in his study of white undergraduate men. Whereas Foste (2020b) problematized his decision to remain silent as participants offered racist accounts, Cabrera (2016) describes how he would offer information in the “least threatening way [he] knew” (p. 19). Further, given Cabrera’s (2016) racial position as a Person of Color, his account also reveals how white participants’ racist commentaries turned into microaggressions – particularly when such commentaries revealed racist stereotypes about Latinx communities. Taken together, these works highlight the tensions researchers experience in studying whiteness and white students using interview methods – particularly as they relate to challenging participants’ views. Further, within the realm of CWS in higher education scholarship – these works offer some nuance to understanding how researchers’ racial locations shape the research process.

Applications of the Work Here, we synthesize the applications of critical whiteness scholarship in higher education according to their implications for curricular and cocurricular learning, research and theory, policy, and educators and administrators. Implications for Curricular and Cocurricular Learning The majority of papers we synthesized in this literature emphasize implications for curricular and cocurricular teaching and learning and focus on the internalized dimension of whiteness. Within this strand, most focus on white college students’ learning and development. These works share a clear and resounding call for educators to proactively engage white students with racial learning in ways that (a) support ongoing processes of critical reflexivity (Bondi, 2012; Garibay et al., 2020; Whitehead, 2021; Whitehead et al., 2022), (b) contextualize individual experiences within broader structures of white supremacy and institutional histories (Bondi, 2012; Cabrera, 2017; Foste, 2020a; Hikido & Murray, 2016; Tharp, 2021; Whitehead, 2021), (c) leverage the potential of intentional and facilitated dialogues (Cabrera & Corces-Zimmerman, 2017; Cabrera et al., 2016; Mitchell et al., 2012), (d) engage white students’ precollege frameworks and contexts (Tharp, 2021; Whitehead, 2021), and (e) use the rich histories and narratives of People of Color (albeit in ways that do not place the burden on them for educating white students; Foste, 2020a; Whitehead, 2021). Scholars position these recommendations as meaningful ways of disrupting white college students’ epistemologies of ignorance, prompting them to work through their white complicity, and challenging their narratives of white racial innocence.

128

T. L. Tevis et al.

However, reflecting the interconnectedness of multiple dimensions of whiteness, scholars are also clear that pedagogical and cocurricular interventions are not enough for disrupting whiteness and must be situated within similarly disruptive institutional structures and practices (Chesler et al., 2003; Nishi, 2021). A handful of studies offer implications related to learning that foreground the needs and experiences of Communities of Color. In contrast to the clear and pervasive themes among implications tied to white college students’ learning, no clear themes exist in this set of implications beyond a call for educators to center Students/Communities of Color in curricula and cocurricular programming. This work calls for educators to disrupt monoculturalism and monoracism and to reflect on the extent to which they exclude multiracial students and perspectives (Harris, 2019; Mohajeri, 2022); support Students of Color in deconstructing whiteness as a method of resisting internalized oppression (Bondi, 2012); cultivate spaces for Black life-making for Black students within service learning programs (Irwin & Foste, 2021); prioritizing the needs, desires, and experiences of Students of Color in leadership development programming (Tapia-Fuseler & Irwin, 2019); and working with marginalized students in developing unofficial networks and spaces of enriching experiences (Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2019). Implications for Theory and Research In contrast to the overwhelming focus on white college students in implications for teaching and learning, many implications for research and theory center on Communities of Color. These implications specifically call for scholars to engage in research that (a) considers how whiteness shapes and structures the experiences of Students of Color (including multiracial and transracial adoptee students; Foste & Irwin, 2020; Harris, 2019; Mohajeri, 2022); (b) uses intersectional frameworks to appropriately explore these experiences (Linder, 2015; Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2019); (c) foregrounds the experiential knowledge and perspectives of Black people (Whitehead, 2021); and (d) emphasizes the material consequences of whiteness on People of Color (Whitehead et al., 2021). Related to intersectionality, several scholars also call for future research to explore how intersections of white college students’ additional social identities shape their racial meaning-making and engagements with whiteness (e.g., Garibay et al., 2020; Linder, 2015; Whitehead, 2021). Implications for research also urge scholars to explore affective dimensions of whiteness (Weaver et al., 2021) and to take up specific methods, including critical whiteness methodology (Corces-Zimmerman & Guida, 2019), counternarratives (Whitehead, 2021), and historical methods for historicizing whiteness (e.g., oral histories and institutional genealogies; Whitehead et al., 2021). Implications for Policy Policy implications from critical analyses of whiteness largely call attention to the institutional dimension of whiteness. Specifically, these implications point to inequities in resource allocation, campus housing options, and expectations about labor, along with their subsequent impact on Students and Faculty of Color (Foste, 2021; Foste & Johnson, 2021; Harris, 2019; Irwin &

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

129

Foste, 2021; Nishi, 2021). Other implications call for higher education leaders to be vigilant in interrogating their diversity regimes, policies, and initiatives and the extent to which they perpetuate a flattening of racial differences, prioritize the economic and educational interests of white students, and perpetuate the property functions of whiteness (Harris, 2019; Hikido & Murray, 2016; Petts & Garza, 2021). Implications for White Educators and Administrators Finally, a few studies offer implications for higher education educators and administrators but are not tied to matters of pedagogy or policy. Rather, these scholars recognize the salience of the internalized dimension of whiteness for white educators and administrators, who must also consistently work through their own complicity within white supremacy. These applications specifically call for white educators and administrators to interrogate how whiteness shapes their daily experiences, move past their racial emotions, commit to a lifelong journey of (un)learning, engage in meaningful conversations about whiteness with other white people in their lives, engage in critical learning about race and racism, interrogate how racism and whiteness shows up in their classrooms, and understand their own white complicity (Nishi, 2021; Tevis, 2020; Whitehead et al., 2022).

Concluding Thoughts About the Literature Many critical analyses of whiteness in the US higher education literature already articulate connections across multiple dimensions – particularly works that foreground the internalized dimension. For example, Weaver and colleagues (2021) explicitly connected white PSAs’ racial meaning-making (internalized dimension) to their training and the expectations implicitly conveyed by supervisors (institutional); such connections illuminate the dynamic processes that reproduce whiteness both at the level of learning and development and institutional practices. Cabrera et al. (2016) made explicit connections between campus ecology (institutional dimension) and white college students’ racial learning (internalized dimension) to critique how campus spaces are frequently structured in ways that center white students’ racial comfort (or do not sufficiently disrupt or challenge it) and inhibit their racial development. Notwithstanding the contributions of such work in advancing interconnected, multidimensional analyses of whiteness, these analyses are not consistent within the literature. Several additional themes emerge from the body of critical whiteness literature in higher education. First, critical analyses of the internalized dimension of whiteness far outnumber analyses within institutional and interpersonal dimensions. This strong empirical focus on white students’ racial attitudes, ideologies, and development stems from trends in earlier scholarship and pedagogy that foregrounded white racial privilege (at the level of individuals) and omitted considerations about structural power. Consistent with the third wave perspectives on student development (Jones & Stewart, 2016), research about white college students has continued to proliferate, albeit with needed structural critiques that contextualize white college

130

T. L. Tevis et al.

students’ processes of racial meaning-making and development. Emerging scholarship has explored how whiteness is reproduced within the institutional dimension – particularly cocurricular experiences, institutional responses to explicit forms of racism, and diversity regimes. Research exploring the interpersonal dimension of whiteness – how whiteness is reproduced dynamically through interactions – are scant in the higher education literature. That being said, Yoon’s (2012) whiteness-atwork and Picca and Feagin’s (2007) racialized performances offer two examples of conceptual frameworks that may be useful in informing future research in this area. Second, both empirical and conceptual work predominantly focuses on white people (broadly) and white undergraduates (in particular) as units of analysis. Relatedly, although many scholars center Communities of Color in their implications for research and policy, white college students are primarily centered in implications related to curricular and cocurricular learning. This focus makes sense in light of Cabrera et al.’ (2017) argument that racial analyses that do not take up whiteness obscure the sources of Students’ of Color experiences of racial marginalization (i.e., an effect with no cause; Cabrera, 2022). Still, as analyses of whiteness continue to increase within higher education scholarship (and echoing what some researchers have already offered), we argue an overemphasis on white undergraduate students can obscure how whiteness shapes and structures Students’ of Color experiences and developmental processes – particularly in relation to internalized racial oppression, hyper-surveillance, racialized micro- and macro-aggressions, racial battle fatigue, epistemic violence, and self-love (Corbin et al., 2018; Dizon, 2021; Jenkins et al., 2021; Okello, 2020). Further, critical analyses of whiteness largely center historically white 4-year institutions as racialized contexts. Given the empirical evidence illustrating how whiteness is imbued within institutional policies, practices, and spaces within these institutions, and their histories of enslaved and Indigenous exploitation and racial exclusion, a focus on HWCUs in critical whiteness research makes sense and is necessary. Still, scholars can extend their analytical focus beyond historically white 4-year institutions to explore how whiteness is also reproduced within community colleges and minority-serving institutions. Given that these institutions serve large proportions of Students of Color (de Brey et al., 2019), such analyses could be useful and illuminating. Most studies (particularly recent ones) use critical and poststructural paradigms. Though the use of critical paradigms in analyses of whiteness brought a needed intervention to earlier scholarship that emphasized individualized notions of white racial privilege and obscured broader structures of white supremacy, we wonder about the implications of only using critical paradigms or any of the other big four paradigms (positivism, post-positivism, and constructivism) in this work. In reflecting on Scheurich and Young’s (1997) observation that “all epistemologies currently legitimated in education arise exclusively out of the social history of the white race” (p. 8), we point to the possibilities of Scholars of Color using our Indigenous knowledges (Dei, 2011) in our analyses of whiteness. We also wonder about the possibilities of blending paradigms in analyses of whiteness. To this point, Weaver et al. (2021) posited that combining constructivist and critical paradigms would allow researchers to develop more holistic renderings of student development

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

131

that consider both micro- and macro-contexts. Transitioning away from the use of paradigms, we note that although scholars have used various conceptual frameworks in their analyses, they have largely not used intersectional perspectives. Relatedly, scholars have also not largely considered how whiteness intersects with additional forms of racialized marginalization (e.g., nativism, anti-Blackness) or additional oppressive systems (e.g., patriarchy, ableism, heteronormativity). These patterns preclude deeper understandings of how whiteness figures in the lived experiences of People of Color with additional marginalized social identities. In the following section, we pivot away from the existing scholarship about whiteness in US higher education to imagine future directions for this research.

Charting the Future of Critical Analysis of Whiteness in Higher Education As a reminder, the purpose of this handbook chapter is twofold. Though some prior research acknowledges and takes up the interconnected forms of whiteness – ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized – this analytical approach has not been consistent across this vast body of research. Additionally, prior literature has a tendency to dismiss the material consequences of whiteness to People of Color. To redress this necessitates a level of criticality that we offer in our multilevel framework – CDWM (see Fig. 1). This model both advances the possibilities as well as the responsibilities of whiteness work going forward, including its ability to go beyond just white people, and it applies an understanding of the interconnectedness of whiteness as an ideology that permeates across its multiple dimensions. Drawing from Bell’s (2018) four I’s of oppression, per our model, there are four interrelated dimensions of whiteness that we contend must be engaged in relation to one another in order to be critical and to understand the effects of whiteness in the lives of People of Color. To expound on our introduction and account for the previous whiteness literature in higher education, we explain the CDWM, articulate how the model informs scholarship and theorizes whiteness, and express the possibilities as well as the responsibilities afforded by studying whiteness as interconnected.

Critical Dimensions of Whiteness Model The critical dimensions of whiteness model begin with the ideological form of whiteness, to which all other dimensions are tied. Ideological whiteness denotes hegemonic ideas and/or a set of shared beliefs that are the basis for and the content of an individual’s or a group’s way of thinking. Fundamentally, this dimension encompasses the dominant ideology of what it means to be white; namely, to be white signifies ideas of what it means to be human and, in so doing, signals that all others are inhuman and inferior. This then shapes (white) epistemologies and logics (i.e., what is normal, what is right, what is principled). Therefore, privileges are extended to those who are white or are in proximity, and with that denied to those not

132

T. L. Tevis et al.

white. As such, this dimension considers how whiteness functions in society as an ideology, as well as how other systems of oppression intersect with and are compounded by it whiteness. Progressing through the model, hegemonic ideas then become institutionalized through culture, engagement, policies, and practices. Because institutions of higher education were built as white spaces (Moore & Bell, 2017), as were most social institutions in the United States, they are more apt to perpetuate, enact, and maintain whiteness ideologically, culturally, and structurally. Accordingly, institutional whiteness reproduces privilege and reinforces shared ideas and beliefs about what it means to be white and, with that, what it means to be other. It also confers belonging in and determines access to space. Thus, this form of whiteness articulates how it has come to be embedded historically and contemporarily in the policies, practices, and overarching structures of higher education. Because dominant ideas become institutionalized, they then enable the behaviors of members of the dominant group, who are nested within institutional culture, to reproduce, validate, and maintain such ideology. It is important here to be reminded that whiteness as an ideology is relational, particularly through inferiorizing, dominating, and dehumanizing People of Color, with a particular emphasis on Black people, in order to pronounce and exert white superiority; therefore, it is imperative to acknowledge interpersonal whiteness as a key dimension. The interpersonal dimension of whiteness reproduces and enforces ideas of inferiority and superiority within the interactions between individuals within the context of postsecondary institutions. These interactions include but are not limited to faculty-student relationships (inside and outside of the classroom), study groups, student-organization activities, and student-life events. These spaces can communicate and reinforce dominant group ideas about access (who gets it), belonging (who belongs), and thus supremacy, conferring then who benefits and who does not. Interpersonally, whiteness manifests in the ways groups act on hegemonic ideas to communicate dominance and control through quotidian interactions and social engagements. The fourth dimension in this model is the internalized dimension of whiteness. Internalized whiteness refers largely to how white people adopt supremacist ideologies. It is in this dimension the dominant group comes to take up what they have learned and been socialized to believe. This particular form of whiteness requires belief, acceptance, and ultimately buy-in into a false consciousness – supremacism, that then shapes one’s self-concept. We would be remiss in not acknowledging that People of Color can also adopt and internalize whiteness given the normality and pervasiveness of whiteness as an ideology. Again, (white) standards and norms around beauty, intelligence, and value are internalized and thus acted on by Groups of Color. And it is important to note that internalizing whiteness simultaneously requires People of Color’s belief, acceptance, and ultimately buy-in into inferiority. This then concretizes the racial hierarchy. Ultimately, this dimension names how people come to adopt values, beliefs, and standards of whiteness, and thus humanity. In addition to these four interconnected dimensions of whiteness, the model also includes bidirectional paths to and from these dimensions to white supremacy; one a

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

133

solid line and the other a dotted line. Collectively, these forms of whiteness connect to a larger sociopolitical project – white supremacy. White supremacy encompasses and upholds beliefs regarding the relationships between white and superiority and white and others, which are central to the ideology of whiteness; hence, the solid line from the interconnected dimensions to white supremacy. As such, it is a protective system that (a) determines who is and what it means to be white (across time and space) and (b) ensures the racial hierarchy stays intact, thus why it is often attached to extremist groups and right-wing views. Therefore, by its nature, white supremacy is far more than a belief system that promotes racism and/or bigotry; it is a political system. In particular, white supremacy seeks to inform government and/or social policy, based on hegemonic ideas, which then shapes social institutions like higher education. This speaks to the dotted line from white supremacy to the dimensions of whiteness. While hegemonic ideas inform white supremacy beliefs, and thus political actions, the effects and outcomes of such go on to affirm and reinforce ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized whiteness. An example would be current legislative bans that target critical race theory and remove any reference to white supremacy as “morally wrong” (Zou, 2021). Consequently, white supremacy as a sociopolitical project differs from other systems as it desires domination and exploitative power. Therefore, white supremacy describes a political system that maintains whiteness and white people in power.

The Possibilities and Responsibilities of Studying Whiteness Using CWDM So what does it mean to use this model to inform scholarship and practice? As previously mentioned, it is important to understand that these dimensions of whiteness are clearly interrelated in a way that each makes the other possible. For that reason, they do not exist independently, thereby negating discrete analyses. Understanding the relationship between these dimensions makes this multilevel framework conducive for grappling with how whiteness privileges, is relational, has been normalized, is oppressive, and is systemic. And any application of whiteness, even if the focus is on one form, should acknowledge its connection to the other forms. The implications drawn from the use of this model should not solely be limited to white people and those within proximity, but acknowledge to some extent those nondominant individuals or groups harmed by the enactment of whiteness. Moreover, the use of CWDM means any analysis of whiteness should not be absent from its deep connection to white supremacy. This model then illuminates very important linkages and relationships that are often lost in discrete analyses. As such, it is important to note opportunities and potential challenges of studying whiteness as interconnected. There are myriad opportunities for studying whiteness as interconnected. This approach would explicitly connect whiteness to Communities’ of Color collegiate experiences (at the institutional, interpersonal, and internalized levels) and foreground this focus in the purpose of the work as well as in the implications. Examples

134

T. L. Tevis et al.

are Harris (2019) and Mohajeri (2022), whose inquiries explored the ways in which whiteness situates and structures multiracial students in higher education. An interconnected analysis also makes space for naming how whiteness colludes and intersects with additional oppressive ideologies, especially given how whiteness comes to be. A notable example of this is Stewart and Nicolazzo’s (2019) conceptualization of whiteness as an ideological container. With a particular focus on trans* students, the authors explain that it is within this structure where whiteness reproduces interlocking oppressive systems within the context of higher education. Applying the interconnectedness of whiteness would open the door for researchers and educators to examine how the racial hierarchy is structured and propagated, specifically within the educational context, as well as explore the material effects of whiteness on People of Color. There are a few notable examples. Matias and Mackey (2016) posited that white hegemony within the K-12 context affects “the educational equity of Students of Color” (p. 34). And Yoon’s (2012) whiteness-at-work “points to the overarching social conditions, feelings in the air, and social distance that may contribute to outcomes such as the achievement gap” (p. 609). Furthermore, in Feagin’s (2010) white racial framing, hegemonic ideas about white people and what it means to be moral and belong are in concert with deficit framings and negative stereotyping of People of Color, which then shapes engagement. Such framing affirms that whiteness is institutionalized – transmitted through culture and practice, and internalized – reinforced through socialization and everyday encounters. And it is not lost on us as authors that although People of Color can internalize racism because of its normalized nature, they can, again, internalize and enact whiteness. Hence, studying whiteness as interconnected could unveil how People of Color, nested within postsecondary spaces that have been designated to support them, uphold white racialized customs, beliefs, and rules as the standard, thereby instigating intersectional violence. Additionally, taking up the CDWM would open the door to historicizing analyses via critical historiographies and perhaps document analyses. Doing so would unveil patterns of domination and exploitation, and how power-laden structures bend in favor of particular groups (e.g., Stewart, 2019). Further, this model inevitably enables scholars and educators to have a conversation about whiteness and space, to account for the connection between context, race, privilege, and power. By doing so, scholars not only demonstrate how space (campus) becomes racialized, segregated, and power laden, but also how white people become stewards of this space. Moreover, in an effort to name the consequences of whiteness in the lives of People of Color, studying whiteness as interconnected would invite scholars to decolonize paradigms in CWS work. There are real opportunities for blending paradigms and engaging in those rooted in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s ways of knowing, particularly as more Scholars of Color engage in this work, in an effort to not recenter white people. Furthermore, we encourage analyses and conversations that explore the internalized dimension of whiteness, with a particular emphasis on the mental, emotional, affective, and spiritual components (to name a few). As we champion the CDWM, we do offer some caution in taking up the interrelated dimensions of whiteness. First, it is clear there is a necessary relationship

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

135

between white people and People of Color to understand whiteness and supremacism; yet whiteness studies, critical whiteness studies, nor CDWM neither replace nor negate other critical frames that articulate how oppressive systems are also enacted. Second, going beyond just white people in applying whiteness is not to charge those harmed by its transactions to disrupt it. Whiteness is an occurrence largely outside People of Color to bolster superiority, privilege, and ultimately power; therefore, if People of Color do not have the structural power to disenfranchise dominant groups or those othered by whiteness (Desmond & Emirbayer, 2009), then they do not have the power alone to fix a system that was intended to exclude and work against them. Thus white people bear the lion share of responsibility to challenge whiteness. Lastly, taking up this model is not to uncritically recenter whiteness in whiteness studies, but to inform this line of inquiry. Applying an understanding of whiteness as an ideology that operates across multiple dimensions in interconnected ways has the potential to highlight relationships between race and educational outcomes, shed light on white people’s racial development and potentially some of the challenges they face, and bring to the forefront People of Color’s racial development and the harm brought about by whiteness, including how it can be internalized.

Implications In advancing and charting the future of whiteness studies in higher education, we find it necessary to highlight particular implications for researchers and practitioners hoping to mobilize these ideas and concepts. Although we summarize above the recommendations that authors themselves offer in their scholarship, conceptualizing how dimensions of whiteness are inherently interconnected leads us to desire that people take up this concept in their practice and scholarship. The sections that follow encapsulate our recommendations for methods, methodologies, programming initiatives, policies, and more that postsecondary education leaders can employ in their work. Of note, these implications are far from exhaustive, but they serve as starting points for individuals hoping to continue to combat the historical and contemporary legacies of whiteness that manifest on college campuses.

Implications for Practice and Policy To begin, though not the primary focus of this chapter, we view it as imperative to present some comments on what it means to employ the ideas present in our writing within the realm of practice and policy. Locating whiteness as existing beyond individuals suggests the actions that higher education leaders take must be layered and complex – in addition to being hard and difficult to undertake. Here, we briefly touch upon how engaging the interconnected dimensions of whiteness necessitates a challenging of what constitutes individual education as well as a disrupting of programming initiatives and educational policies.

136

T. L. Tevis et al.

The question of how to better educate individuals on how whiteness manifests in actions, beliefs, practices, and ideologies is one that has progressively gained momentum in recent years. As we contend above, the present sociopolitical moment has caused individuals to bring attention to the whitelash, the white backlash against perceived racial progress in the United States, that became increasingly apparent during the Trump presidency (Embrick et al., 2020; Leonardo, 2020). These realities then led to concerns about how individuals can be active in the fight against whiteness and white supremacy. Yet, too often, the steps that people took to do so fell short given their limited scope and aims. For example, after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, one response that individuals enacted was to develop book clubs to reflect on how they have been complicit in perpetuating whiteness and acts of racism. However, these book clubs were rightfully the subject of criticism as people wondered how these conversations were meaningfully intervening into anti-Blackness, racism, and white supremacy (e.g., Cineas, 2021; Johnson, 2020). Much like the scholarship that focused narrowly on the interpersonal and internalized dimensions of whiteness, these book clubs almost always failed to make the connections between ideological and institutional dimensions of whiteness, instead attending largely to emotionality and attitudes. Thus, extending understandings of whiteness beyond just white people leads us to contend with how people within the field of higher education conceive of education and professional development relative to whiteness should be drastically reimagined. The CDWM becomes a valuable tool to employ in teaching people on how whiteness operates in the postsecondary education context. In particular, discussions of whiteness should be always approached from this multilayered perspective in which it is not enough to end at reflecting upon one’s internalization of whiteness or how one replicates it in interactions with students, staff, and faculty. Instead, people should work in coalitions to view whiteness as being historically and contemporarily shaped in ideological discourses and to disrupt how this then informs the practices and policies that appear on college campuses. Professional development must be ongoing and with an eye toward the ideological and institutional rather than concluding at the individual. Related to extending notions of education and professional development, educational leaders should further consider and push against how programming and policies (both within and outside of institutions) contribute to the reinforcement of whiteness in postsecondary education environments. This work is not easy given how whiteness is ingrained in all aspects of an institution. Therefore, in order to truly challenge policies and practices, it would require that stakeholders both internal and external to a college or university work together to generate initiatives that continuously analyze how whiteness functions on that campus. This type of work should be institutionalized and resourced; otherwise, it is likely to lose momentum and only serve to maintain the presence of whiteness and white supremacy in higher education. Such movements must be accountable to the People of Color that occupy these spaces, rather than functioning in a non-performative fashion that argues for a desire to change these realities while at the same time, stifling any substantial effects (Ahmed, 2012).

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

137

Implications for Research As the field of higher education shifts our practices and policies, so too must we adapt our ideas of how to conduct research and produce scholarship. Noted above, more and more scholars are deploying CWS and the various constructs associated with this field in their research. As individuals continue to move forward critical analyses of whiteness in the literature, actualizing a focus on the interconnected dimensions of whiteness will be imperative to capture the dynamic ways in which whiteness operates. In the subsections below, we articulate how researchers can deploy critical analyses of whiteness in quantitative and qualitative studies guided by the intentions and foci of the CDWM. In charting out these potential directions, we find it important to acknowledge that there is also much to be gained from scholars who employ mixed-methods approaches to examine questions pertaining to whiteness in postsecondary education.

Qualitative Research Qualitative methods offer important possibilities for critiquing whiteness and reimagining higher education. The qualitative study of whiteness must not be limited to interview studies that engage white students or even faculty and staff on their racial attitudes and beliefs. Here, we offer four recommendations for those who desire to use qualitative methods in the study and disruption of whiteness in higher education. First, we encourage scholars to conduct site-specific research that can capture the dynamic relationship between ideologies, institutions, and individuals. The premise of this chapter is that whiteness must not be reduced to individual white people because it operates ideologically through our institutions and organizations. Case study approaches, examining particular institutions, offices, functional areas, or programs, can more clearly articulate how whiteness functions at the local level and the consequences for those who move through said spaces. In fact, in another manuscript (see Whitehead et al., 2021), we as authors argued that qualitative methods like institutional ethnographies (Smith, 2006) to better comprehend the layered dynamics in which oppressive ideologies like whiteness are present in higher education through numerous dimensions. The work of Natasha Warikoo (2016) offered a useful illustration of what possibilities emerge with site-specific, case-centric approaches. In her book The Diversity Bargain, Warikoo studied three institutions and artfully captured the differences in how diversity is institutionally constructed and given meaning. Subsequently, she documented the very different ways in which white students and Students of Color interact with competing approaches: a celebratory diversity frame and a power analysis frame. By examining particular institutions, Warikoo was able to both document how specific institutions come to give meaning and support to diversity and how students interact with and engage with these ideas as a result of institutional framing. Nishi’s (2021) work examining resource hoarding within a college algebra classroom provided another example of qualitative scholarship that provides a rich contextual backdrop. In it, she illustrated how whiteness manifests

138

T. L. Tevis et al.

within contexts like the college classroom, showing the impacts it had on Students of Color. Nishi’s (2021) research explicated the connections between the ideologies of whiteness present in mathematics and how whiteness is present in interactions between individuals in this environment, underscoring the interconnected dimensions of this system. These two examples ultimately bring to life how focusing on unique sites and the dynamics present within them can allow qualitative researchers to analyze the various forms that whiteness takes. Second, if whiteness exists beyond individual bodies via broader discourses and ideological scripts, it is necessary to connect the meanings white people ascribe to race and whiteness to contemporary social and political contexts. That is, we as researchers should not simply take interview accounts of white participants at face value or believe that they represent a window into the inner, unmediated truth. Qualitative work is well suited for such efforts. Fine et al. (2003) asked qualitative researchers to consider the following: have I connected the ‘voices’ and ‘stories’ of individuals back to the set of historic, structural, and economic relations in which they are situated?... The work of theory is to articulate these relations, excavating how qualitative narratives. . . are nested within a system of historic and material conditions. (pp. 199–200)

Those who take up the qualitative study of whiteness in postsecondary education must contend with the numerous social and political contexts that bear down on individual meaning-making. At the time of this writing, we as authors are particularly attuned to particular social and political currents that are worthy of critique. For instance, recent theorizing has pointed to the increasing frequency by which white people publicly embrace whiteness calling into question the dominance of colorblindness as a theoretical tool for understanding race in the United States (Leonardo, 2020). Further, Embrick et al. (2020) have noted that the election of Donald Trump and the rise of white nationalist rhetoric point to a specific moment of whitelash. When interviewing white people about race and whiteness, it is necessary to situate their testimonies and accounts within these and other broader social currents. Third, we encourage scholars to consider the variety of ways in which whiteness might be studied beyond individual interviews or focus groups. If whiteness as an ideology functions in such a way to shape institutions and organizations, there are a variety of avenues one might take. For instance, Stewart (2019) engaged in a historical analysis of campus newspapers and yearbooks to examine how whiteness shaped the collective memory of liberal arts institutions between 1945 and 1965. Stewart noted the importance of moving beyond interviews because “neither white students nor racially minoritized students may be critically conscious of how whiteness is working through institutional structures and systems” (p. 5). Similarly, using critical discourse analysis, Foste et al. (2022) examined how institutional diversity statements deployed language that obfuscated any structural analysis and catered to the needs and desires of white students. Given the difficulty of interviewing powerful elites within historically white institutions, Foste et al. contended that diversity statements offered a useful means of exploring how those with significant power construct and give meaning to

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

139

differences in university life. These works represent useful illustrations of how scholars might interrogate institutional statements, documents, and websites, among others, offer potential entry points in the study of whiteness beyond just white individuals. Finally, qualitative scholars need not engage white participants at all to understand how whiteness operates. If we consider bell hooks’ (1992) contention that Black people and other People of Color gaze upon whiteness and know it intimately as a means of survival, then it stands to reason that there is much to learn from Communities of Color about whiteness in postsecondary education. Consequently, qualitative researchers should ask themselves the question: Whose voice do I associate with having the authority to speak on whiteness? To be critical of how whiteness is omnipresent and multifaceted must require that scholars invite people who are positioned differently to discuss how this operates.

Quantitative Studies Much of the extant scholarship in higher education mobilizing critical analyses of whiteness has leveraged qualitative approaches or has been largely conceptual in nature. In fact, in a recent piece, Corces-Zimmerman and Guida (2019) proposed tenets for a qualitative methodology grounded in CWS. This trend in the literature and pieces such as Corces-Zimmerman and Guida’s (2019) lead us to beg the questions: What place do critical analyses of whiteness have in the realm of quantitative research, and how can scholars recognize the interconnected nature of whiteness in their studies? To answer these questions, we turn to the continually emerging scholarship on critical quantitative approaches (e.g., Garcia et al., 2018; Hernández, 2015; RiosAguilar, 2014; Stage & Wells, 2014; Wells & Stage, 2015). This body of literature exposes the need to consider how people can leverage quantitative methods that are typically rooted in a post-positivist epistemology in a manner that is more attentive to structures of power and oppression – both in the phenomenon under investigation and in the methods employed. Although critiques of critical quantitative scholarship certainly exist, such as the belief that quantitative research is diametrically at odds epistemologically with the critical paradigm, individuals have professed the importance of using these approaches to advance equity within social institutions like education (Stage & Wells, 2014). It is within this movement to use quantitative data in more critical and power-conscious ways that we imagine the possibilities of quantitative research that addresses the interconnected dimensions of whiteness in educational settings. Specifically, engaging the expansive field of whiteness studies in quantitative research requires that individuals shift the types of questions that they ask, the methods that they employ, and inevitably how they situate themselves in the context of the research. Mobilizing critical analyses of whiteness in qualitative studies could complement the increasing number of people who are leveraging CRT using larger datasets (e.g., Garcia et al., 2018; Sablan, 2018). As scholars are asking vital questions about how race and racism is present within social institutions (e.g., education), researchers can use quantitative approaches to similarly question how

140

T. L. Tevis et al.

whiteness and its different dimensions emerges. These types of inquiries would pair well with the extant scholarship actualizing the potential of CRT in quantitative studies. Applying whiteness studies in quantitative research not only changes the kinds of questions that educational scholars are forwarding but also necessitates that individuals reenvision the very methods they employ. For example, in questioning whether CRT has a place in quantitative research, Sablan (2018) communicated that the very measures that people develop and implement must be reimagined using tenets of CRT. In this same vein, we as authors believe that measurement scholars could pay the same attention to concepts associated with CWS and the four dimensions that we explicate in this chapter. Existing measures in other fields still place a predominant focus on interpersonal and internalized dimensions of whiteness (see Schooley et al., 2019, for a systematic review on instruments). As a result, there are still numerous opportunities to create and innovate measures that also attend to ideological and institutional dimensions. Similarly, we see other ways that researchers are attempting to isolate and disrupt how whiteness permeates quantitative approaches, which is another positive move that should be continuously evaluated. For example, the rise of effect coding as a decision to no longer compare People of Color to white populations in education research (see Mayhew & Simonoff, 2015) represents the recognition of how whiteness has long been associated with quantitative studies. Such choices should be made as people reflect upon their inclination toward whiteness as they design their studies. In fact, the move toward critical orientations in quantitative research has authors emphasizing the need for scholars to be reflexive as they engage in their work (Rios-Aguilar, 2014). However, this call for action must not stop at simply the inclusion of positionality statements in quantitative manuscripts, but rather the active choices to interrogate whiteness as they conceptualize as well as perform their collection and analyses.

Summary/Conclusion As higher education scholars and practitioners continue to display an interest in mobilizing critical analyses of whiteness in their work, it is imperative that they leverage a complex approach to doing so. In particular, the critical dimensions of whiteness model offers a framework to conceive of whiteness in a way that attends to its interconnected components and that centers the material consequences on People of Color. The CDWM thus builds upon a growing body of literature that scrutinizes the presence of whiteness within postsecondary education contexts. The need to examine and challenge how whiteness operates is both timely and timeless given the recent whitelash brought about by the Trump presidency (Embrick et al., 2020; Leonardo, 2020), together with the reality that whiteness has given rise to white supremacy throughout history. We see our work and that of others in higher education as following in the footsteps of scholars like W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, who brought attention to the harmful ways that whiteness functioned

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

141

as the dominant ideology in the US society, devaluing Black humanity in the process. Our work in postsecondary education must be sharp and multifaceted, especially if higher education leaders hope to displace that which is omnipresent all throughout campus. To interrogate whiteness means to make an explicit commitment to dismantle how it has a hold on our ideologies, institutions, interactions, and us as individuals – a process that is never easy but is always necessary.

References Accapadi, M. M. (2007). When white women cry: How white women’s tears oppress women of color. College Student Affairs Journal, 26(2), 208–215. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ899418.pdf Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press. Anderson, E. (2015). The white space. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1(1), 10–21. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/2332649214561306 Anderson, C. (2016). White rage: The unspoken truth of our racial divide. Bloomsbury. Annamma, S. A., Jackson, D. D., & Morrison, D. (2016). Conceptualizing color-evasiveness: Using dis/ability critical race theory to expand a colorblind ideology in education and society. Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(2), 147–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2016.1248837 Applebaum, B. (2010). Being white, being good: White complicity, white moral responsibility, and social justice pedagogy. Lexington Books. Arellano, L., & Vue, R. (2019). Transforming campus racial climates: Examining discourses around student experiences of racial violence and institutional (in)action. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(4), 351–364. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000122 Baldwin, J. (1998). On being “white” and other lies. In D. R. Roediger (Ed.), Black on white: Black writers on what it means to be white (pp. 177–180). Schocken. Bell, D. A. (1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 93(3), 518–533. https://doi.org/10.2307/1340546 Bell, L. A. (2018). Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfield, D. Chase Catalano, K. DeJong, H. W. Hackman, L. E. Hopkins, B. J. Love, M. Peters, D. Shlasko, & X. Zúñiga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice (4th ed., pp. 34–41). Routledge. Bocci, M. (2015). Service-learning and white normativity: Racial representation in service-learning’s historical narrative. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 22(1), 5–17. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1137412.pdf Bondi, S. (2012). Students and institutions protecting whiteness as property: A critical race theory analysis of student affairs preparation. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 49(4), 397–414. https://doi.org/10.1515/jsarp-2012-6381 Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America (1st ed.). Bonilla-Silva, E. (2018). Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of cial inequality in America (5th ed.). Bonilla-Silva, E., & Forman, T. A. (2000). “I’m not a racist, but. . .”: Mapping white college students’ racial ideology in the USA. Discourse & Society, 11(1), 50–85. https://www.jstor. org/stable/42888295 Bowman, N. A. (2012). Structural diversity and close interracial relationships in college. Educational Researcher, 41(4), 133–135. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12439934 Byrd, W. C. (2014). Cross-racial interactions during college: A longitudinal study of four forms of interracial interactions among elite white college students. Societies, 4(2), 265–295. https:// ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v4y2014i2p265-295d36734.html

142

T. L. Tevis et al.

Cabrera, N. L. (2011). Using a sequential exploratory mixed-method design to examine racial hyper privilege in higher education. In K. A. Griffin & S. D. Museus (Eds.), Using mixed-methods approaches to study intersectionality in higher education (New Directions for Institutional Research) (Vol. 151, pp. 77–91). Jossey-Bass. Cabrera, N. L. (2012). Working through whiteness: White male college students challenging racism. The Review of Higher Education, 35(3), 375–401. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe. 2012.0020 Cabrera, N. L. (2014a). “But I’m oppressed too”: White male college students framing racial emotions as facts and recreating racism. International Journal of Qualitative Studies I n Education, 27(6), 768–784. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2014.901574 Cabrera, N. L. (2014b). But we’re not laughing: White male college students’ racial joking and what this says about “post-racial” discourse. Journal of College Student Development, 55(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2014.0007 Cabrera, N. L. (2014c). Exposing whiteness in higher education: White, male college tudents minimizing racism, claiming victimization, and recreating White supremacy. Race Ethnicity and Education, 17(1), 30–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2012.725040 Cabrera, N. L. (2016). When racism and masculinity collide: Some methodological considerations from a man of color studying whiteness. Whiteness and Education, 1(1), 15–25. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13613324.2015.1122662 Cabrera, N. L. (2017). White immunity: Working through the pedagogical pitfalls of privilege. Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity, 3(1), 74–86. https://doi.org/10. 15763/issn.2642-2387.2017.3.1.77-90 Cabrera, N. L. (2018). White guys on campus: Racism, white immunity, and the myth of ‘postracial’ higher education. Rutgers University Press. Cabrera, N. L. (2022). Cause with effect: Critical whiteness studies and the material consequences of whiteness on communities of color. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Advance online publication, 35, 711. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022. 2061628 Cabrera, N. L., & Corces-Zimmerman, C. (2017). An unexamined life: White male racial ignorance and the agony of education for students of color. Equity & Excellence in Education, 50(3), 300–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2017.1336500 Cabrera, N. L., Watson, J. S., & Franklin, J. D. (2016). Racial arrested development: A critical whiteness analysis of the campus ecology. Journal of College Student Development, 57(2), 119–134. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2016.0014 Cabrera, N. L., Franklin, J. D., & Watson, J. S. (2017). Whiteness in higher education : The invisible missing link in diversity and racial analyses. ASHE Higher Education Report, 42(6), 7–125. https://doi.org/10.1002/aehe.20116 Cann, C. N., & McCloskey, E. (2017). The poverty pimpin’ project: How whiteness profits from Black and Brown bodies in community service programs. Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(1), 72–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2015.1096769 Chennault, R. (1991). Giving whiteness a black eye. An interview with Michael Eric Dyson. In J. Kincheloe, S. Steinberg, N. Rodriguez, & R. Chennault (Eds.), White reign: Deploying whiteness in America (pp. 299–326). St. Martin’s. Chesler, M. A., Peet, M., & Sevig, T. (2003). Blinded by the whiteness: The development of white college students’ racial awareness. In A. W. Doane & E. Bonilla-Silva (Eds.), White out: The continuing significance of racism (pp. 215–230). Routledge. Cineas, F. (2021, November 11). The lofty goals and short life of the antiracist book club. Vox. https://www.vox.com/22734080/antiracist-book-club-robin-diangelo-ibram-kendi. Corbin, N. A., Smith, W. A., & Roberto Garcia, J. (2018). Trapped between justified anger and being the strong Black woman: Black college women coping with racial battle fatigue at historically and predominantly white institutions. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(7), 626–643. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2018.1468045

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

143

Corces-Zimmerman, C., & Guida, T. F. (2019). Toward a critical whiteness methodology: Challenging whiteness through qualitative research. In J. Huisman & M. Tight (Eds.), Theory and method in higher education research (Vol. 5, pp. 91–109). Emerald. Corces-Zimmerman, C., Thomas, D., Collins, E. A., & Cabrera, N. L. (2021a). Ontological expansiveness. In Z. A. Casey (Ed.), Encyclopedia of critical whiteness studies in education (pp. 432–438). Brill. Corces-Zimmerman, C., Thomas, D., & Cabrera, N. L. (2021b). Historic scaffolds of whiteness in higher education. In K. Roth & Z. Ritter (Eds.), A peculiar institution: Whiteness, power and resistance to change in U.S. higher education (pp. 13–38). Palgrave Macmillan. de Brey, C., Musu, L., McFarland, J., Wilkinson-Flicker, S., Diliberti, M., Zhang, A., Branstetter, C., & Wang, X. (2019). Status and trends in the education of racial and ethnic groups 2018 (NCES 2019-038). U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. Dei, G. (2011). Indigenous philosophies and critical education. Peter Lang. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction (3rd ed.). New York University Press. Desmond, M., & Emirbayer, M. (2009). What is racial domination? Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 6(2), 335–355. Dizon, J. P. M. (2021). Protecting the university, policing race: A case study of campus policing. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/ dhe0000350 Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007). Black reconstruction in America (the Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois): An essay toward a history of the part which Black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860–1880. Oxford University Press. Duran, A., Foste, Z., Garcia, C. E., & Snipes, J. T. (forthcoming). How campus space ecomes white place: Advancing a spatial analysis of whiteness in higher education. Journal of College Student Development. Embrick, D. G., Carter, J. S., Lippard, C., & Thakore, B. K. (2020). Capitalism, racism, and Trumpism: Whitelash and the politics of oppression. Fast Capital, 17(1), 203–224. https:// doi.org/10.32855/fcapital.202001.012 Feagin, J. R. (2010). The white racial frame: Centuries of racial framing and counter-framing. Routledge. Fine, M., Weis, L., Wessen, S., & Wong, L. (2003). For whom? Qualitative research, representations, and social responsibilities. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The landscape of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 167–207). Sage. Foste, Z. (2019). Reproducing whiteness: How white students justify the campus racial status quo. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 56(3), 241–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 19496591.2019.1576530 Foste, Z. (2020a). The enlightenment narrative: White student leaders’ preoccupation with racial innocence. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 13(1), 33–43. https://doi.org/10.1037/ dhe0000113 Foste, Z. (2020b). Remaining vigilant: Reflexive considerations for white researchers studying whiteness. Whiteness and Education, 5(2), 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/23793406.2020. 1738264 Foste, Z. (2021). “Oh, that’s the white dorm”: The racialization of university housing and the policing of racial boundaries. Journal of College Student Development, 62(2), 169–185. https:// doi.org/10.1353/csd.2021.0015 Foste, Z., & Irwin, L. (2020). Applying critical whiteness studies in college student development theory and research. Journal of College Student Development, 61(4), 439–455. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/csd.2020.0050 Foste, Z., & Johnson, S. (2021). Diversity cupcakes and white institutional space: The emotional labor of resident assistants of color at historically white universities. Journal of College Student Development, 62(4), 389–404. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2021.0043

144

T. L. Tevis et al.

Foste, Z., & Jones, S. R. (2020). Narrating whiteness: A qualitative exploration of how white college students construct and give meaning to their racial location. Journal of College Student Development, 61(2), 171–188. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2020.0016 Foste, Z., Duran, A., & Hooten, Z. (2022). Articulating diversity on campus: A critical discourse analysis of diversity statements at historically white institutions. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000354 Garcia, N. M., López, N., & Vélez, V. N. (2018). QuantCrit: Rectifying quantitative methods through critical race theory. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 149–157. https://doi.org/10. 1080/13613324.2017.1377675 Garibay, J. C., Herrera, F. A., Johnston-Guerrero, M. P., & Garcia, G. A. (2020). Campus racial incidents, hate crimes, and white male and female students’ racial attitudes. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2019.1596651 Gillborn, D. (2005). Education policy as an act of white supremacy: Whiteness, critical race theory and education reform. Journal of Education Policy, 20(4), 485–505. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 02680930500132346 Glaude, E. (2020). Begin again: James Baldwin’s America and its urgent lessons for our own. Penguin Random House. Gusa, D. L. (2010). White institutional presence: The impact of whiteness on campus climate. Harvard Educational Review, 80(4), 464–490. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.80.4. p5j483825u110002 Hardiman, R. (2001). Reflections on white identity development theory. In C. L. Wijeyesinghe & B. W. Jackson III (Eds.), New perspectives on racial identity development: A theoretical and practical anthology (pp. 108–128). New York University Press. Harper, S. R. (2012). Race without racism: How higher education researchers minimize racist institutional norms. The Review of Higher Education, 36(1), 9–29. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe. 2012.0047 Harper, S. R. (2013). Am I my brother’s teacher? Black undergraduates, racial socialization, and peer pedagogies in predominantly white postsecondary contexts. Review of Research in Education, 37(1), 183–211. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X12471300 Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707–1791. https://doi. org/10.2307/1341787 Harris, J. C. (2019). Whiteness as structuring property: Multiracial women students’ social interactions at a historically white institution. The Review of Higher Education, 42(3), 1023–1050. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0028 Harris, L. M., Campbell, J. T., & Brophy, A. L. (Eds.). (2019). Slavery and the university: Histories and legacies. University of Georgia Press. Helms, J. E. (1995). An update of Helms’ white and people of color racial identity models. In J. G. Ponterotto, J. M. Casas, L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural counseling (pp. 181–198). Sage. Hernández, E. (2015). What is “good” research? Revealing the paradigmatic tensions in quantitative criticalist work. In R. S. Wells & F. K. Stage (Eds.), New scholarship in critical quantitative research—Part 2: New populations, approaches, and challenges (New Directions for Institutional Research) (Vol. no. 163, pp. 93–101). Wiley. Hikido, A., & Murray, S. B. (2016). Whitened rainbows: How white college students protect whiteness through diversity discourses. Race Ethnicity and Education, 19(2), 389–411. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2015.1025736 Hooks, B. (1992). The oppositional gaze: Black female spectators. In B. Hooks, Black looks: Race and representation (pp. 115–131). South End Press. Irwin, L. N., & Foste, Z. (2021). Service-learning and racial capitalism: On the ommodification of people of color for white advancement. The Review of Higher Education, 44(4), 419–446. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2021.0008

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

145

Jayakumar, U. M. (2015). The shaping of postcollege colorblind orientation among whites: Residential segregation and campus diversity experiences. Harvard Educational Review, 85(4), 609–645. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.17763/0017-8055.85.4.609 Jenkins, D. A. (2021). Unspoken grammar of place: Anti-blackness as a spatial imaginary in education. Journal of School Leadership, 31(1–2), 107–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052684621992768 Jenkins, D. A., Tichavakunda, A. A., & Coles, J. A. (2021). The second ID: Critical race counterstories of campus police interactions with Black men at historically white institutions. Race Ethnicity and Education, 24(2), 149–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2020.1753672 Johnson, T. (2020, June 11). When Black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/white-antiracist-allyship-bookclubs/2020/06/11/9edcc766-abf5-11ea-94d2-d7bc43b26bf9_story.html. Jones, V. (2019). Discourse within university presidents’ responses to racism: Revealing patterns of power and privilege. Teachers College Record, 121(6), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 016146811912100402 Jones, S. R., & Stewart, D.-L. (2016). Evolution of student development theory. In E. S. Abes (Ed.), Critical perspectives on student development theory (New Directions for Student Services) (Vol. 154, pp. 17–28). Jossey-Bass. Kanter, J. W., Williams, M. T., Kuczynski, A. M., Manbeck, K. E., Debreaux, M., & Rosen, D. C. (2017). A preliminary report on the relationship between microaggressions against Black people and racism among white college students. Race and Social Problems, 115(3), 291–299. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s12552-017-9214-0 Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., Whitt, E. J., & Associates. (2005). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. Jossey-Bass. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819509700104 Leonardo, Z. (2009). Race, whiteness, and education. Routledge. Leonardo, Z. (2013). Race frameworks: A multidimensional theory of racism and education. Teachers College Press. Leonardo, Z. (2020). The Trump presidency, post-colorblindness, and the reconstruction of public race speech. In O. K. Obasagie (Ed.), Trumpism and its discontents (pp. 18–55). Berkeley Public Policy Press. Leonardo, Z., & Porter, R. K. (2010). Pedagogy of fear: Toward a Fanonian theory of “safety” in race dialogue. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 13(2), 139157. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13613324.2010.482898 Leong, N. (2013). Racial capitalism. Harvard Law Review, 126(8), 2151–2226. https://doi.org/10. 2139/ssrn.2009877 Linder, C. (2015). Navigating guilt, shame, and fear of appearing racist: A conceptual model of antiracist white feminist identity development. Journal of College Student Development, 56(6), 535–550. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2015.0057 Matias, C. E., & Boucher, C. (2021). From critical whiteness studies to a critical study of whiteness: Restoring criticality in critical whiteness studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/23793406.2021.1993751 Matias, C. E., & Mackey, J. (2016). Breakin’down whiteness in antiracist teaching: Introducing critical whiteness pedagogy. The Urban Review, 48(1), 32–50. Matias, C. E., Viesca, K. M., Garrison-Wade, D. F., Tandon, M., & Galindo, R. (2014). “What is critical whiteness doing in OUR nice field like critical race theory?” Applying CRT and CWS to understand the white imaginations of white teacher candidates. Equity & Excellence in Education, 47(3), 289–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2014.933692 Mayhew, M. J., & Simonoff, J. S. (2015). Non-white, no more: Effect coding as an alternative to dummy coding with implications for higher education researchers. Journal of College Student Development, 56(2), 170–175. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2015.0019

146

T. L. Tevis et al.

McCoy, D. L., & Rodricks, D. L. (2015). Critical race theory in higher education: 20 years of theoretical and research innovations. ASHE Higher Education Report, 41(3), 1–117. https://doi. org/10.1002/ashe.20021 McLaren, P. (1998). Whiteness is. . . The struggle for postcolonial hybridity. In J. L. Kincheloe, S. R. Steinberg, N. M. Rodriguez, & R. E. Chennault (Eds.), White reign: Deploying whiteness in America (pp. 63–76). St. Martin’s Press. Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Cornell University Press. Mitchell, T. D., Donahue, D. M., & Young-Law, C. (2012). Service learning as a pedagogy of whiteness. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(4), 612–629. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10665684.2012.715534 Mohajeri, O. (2022). “Fly on the wall” moments reveal whiteness-at-work for contested white graduate students. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(4), 393–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2021.2003897 Moore, L. W., & Bell, J. M. (2011). Maneuvers of whiteness: ‘Diversity’ as a mechanism of retrenchment in the affirmative action discourse. Critical Sociology, 37(5), 597–613. https://doi. org/10.1177/0896920510380066 Moore, L. W., & Bell, J. M. (2017). The right to be racist in college: Racist speech, white institutional space, and the first amendment. Law & Policy, 39(2), 99–120. https://doi.org/10. 1111/lapo.12076 Moore, L. W., & Bell, J. M. (2019). The limits of community: Deconstructing the white framing of racist speech in universities. American Behavioral Scientist, 63(13), 1760–1775. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0002764219842615 Morrison, T. (2021, December 3). Toni Morrison on writing without the “white gaze” [Video]. American Masters. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/toni-morrison-on-writing-with out-the-white-gaze/14874/. Nishi, N. (2021). White hoarders: A portrait of whiteness and resource allocation in college algebra. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(7), 1164–1185. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021. 1914495 Okechukwu, A. (2019). To fulfill these rights: Political struggle over affirmative action and open admissions. Columbia University Press. Okello, W. K. (2020). “Loving flesh”: Self-love, student development theory, and the coloniality of being. Journal of College Student Development, 61(6), 717–732. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd. 2020.0071 Patton, L. D., & Bondi, S. (2015). Nice white men or social justice allies?: Using critical race heory to examine how white male faculty and administrators engage in ally work. Race Ethnicity and Education, 18(4), 488–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2014.1000289 Patton, L. D., Sánchez, B., & Sharp, S. (2017). Racism, power, and place: A critical discourse analysis of online commentary associated with the establishment of culturally-themed housing for Black men. The Journal of College and University Student Housing, 43(3), 20–40. https:// www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/acuho/journal_vol43no3/index.php#/p/6 Petts, A. L., & Garza, A. N. (2021). Manipulating diversity: How diversity regimes at US universities can reinforce whiteness. Sociology Compass, 15(10), e12925. https://doi.org/10. 1111/soc4.12925 Picca, L. H., & Feagin, J. R. (2007). Two-faced racism: Whites in the backstage and frontstage. Routledge. Pierce, J. L. (2012). Racing for innocence: Whiteness, gender, and the backlash against affirmativeaction. Stanford University Press. Reason, R. D., & Evans, N. J. (2007). The complicated realities of whiteness: From color blind to racially cognizant. In S. R. Harper & L. D. Patton (Eds.), Responding to the realities of race on campus (New Directions for Student Services) (Vol. 120, pp. 67–75). Wiley.

3

Whiteness Beyond (Just) White People: Exploring the Interconnections. . .

147

Rios-Aguilar, C. (2014). The changing context of critical quantitative inquiry. In F. K. Stage & R. S. Wells (Eds.), New scholarship in critical quantitative research—Part 1: Studying institutions and people in context (New Directions for Institutional Research) (Vol. no. 158, pp. 95–107). Wiley. Sablan, J. R. (2018). Can you really measure that? Combining critical race theory and quantitative methods. American Educational Research Journal, 56(1), 178–203. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 2F0002831218798325 Scheurich, J., & Young, M. (1997). Coloring epistemologies: Are our research epistemologies racially based? Educational Researcher, 26(4), 4–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/1176879 Schooley, R. C., Lee, D. L., & Spanierman, L. B. (2019). Measuring whiteness: A systematic review of instruments and call to action. The Counseling Psychologist, 47(4), 530–565. https:// doi.org/10.1177/2F0011000019883261 Seider, S., Huguley, J. P., & Novick, S. (2013). College students, diversity, and community service learning. Teachers College Record, 115(3), 1–44. http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp? ContentId¼16880 Smith, D. E. (Ed.). (2006). Institutional ethnography as practice. Rowman & Littlefield. Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/107780040200800103 Stage, F. K., & Wells, R. S. (2014). Critical quantitative inquiry in context. In F. K. Stage & R. S. Wells (Eds.), New scholarship in critical quantitative research–part 1: Studying institutions and people in context (New Directions for Institutional Research) (Vol. 158, pp. 1–7). Wiley. Stevens, M. L. (2009). Creating a class. Harvard University Press. Stewart, D.-L. (2019). Whiteness as collective memory in student publications at midwestern liberal arts colleges, 1945-1965. American Educational Research Journal, 56(1), 3–38. https://doi.org/ 10.3102/2F0002831218788326 Stewart, D.-L., & Nicolazzo, Z. (2019). High impact of [whiteness] on trans* students in postsecondary education. Equity & Excellence in Education, 51(2), 132–145. https://doi.org/10. 1080/10665684.2018.1496046 Sullivan, S. (2006). Revealing whiteness: The unconscious habits of racial privilege. Indiana University Press. Tapia-Fuselier, N., & Irwin, L. (2019). Strengths so white: Interrogating StrengthsQuest education through a critical whiteness lens. Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs, 5(1), 30–44. https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article¼1113& context¼jcshesa Tevis, T. (2020). Exploring whether white male postsecondary presidents respond to racism. Whiteness and Education, 5(1), 91–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/23793406.2019.1711150 Tharp, D. S. (2021). Core conceptual ideas about privilege among white first-year university students. Whiteness and Education, 6(2), 163–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/23793406.2021.1929426 Warikoo, N. (2016). The diversity bargain: And other dilemmas of race, admissions, and meritocracy at elite universities. The University of Chicago Press. Weaver, K. E., Lange, A. C., & Linley, J. L. (2021). White student leaders’ deflections of diversity conversations. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2021.1900619 Wells, R. S., & Stage, F. K. (2015). Past, present, and future of critical quantitative research in higher education. In R. S. Wells & F. K. Stage (Eds.), New scholarship in critical quantitative research—Part 2: New populations, approaches, and challenges (New Directions for Institutional Research) (Vol. no. 163, pp. 103–112). Wiley. Whitehead, M. A. (2021). Whiteness, anti-blackness, and trauma: A grounded theory of white racial meaning-making. Journal of College Student Development, 62(3), 310–326. https://doi.org/10. 1353/csd.2021.0027

148

T. L. Tevis et al.

Whitehead, M. A., Foste, Z., Duran, A., Tevis, T., & Cabrera, N. L. (2021). Disrupting the big lie: Higher education and whitelash in a post/colorblind era. Education Sciences, 11(9), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11090486 Whitehead, M. A., Weston, E., & Evans, M. E. (2022). The white racial engagement model: Unlearning the oppressive conditioning of whiteness. In Z. Foste & T. Tevis (Eds.), Critical whiteness praxis in higher education: Considerations for the pursuit of racial justice on campus (pp. 224–244). Stylus. Wilder, C. S. (2013). Ebony & ivy: Race, slavery, and the troubled history of America’s universities. Bloomsbury. Yoon, I. H. (2012). The paradoxical nature of whiteness-at-work in the daily life of schools and teacher communities. Race Ethnicity and Education, 15(5), 587–613. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13613324.2011.624506 Zou, I. (2021, July 11). Texas lawmakers file new “critical race theory” bills for special session. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/09/texas-critical-race-theoryschools-legislation/

Tenisha L. Tevis’s research focuses on the systemic tensions students have to overcome when transitioning to college and the confluence of leadership and identity. Melvin A. Whitehead’s current research focuses on whiteness and anti-Blackness in US higher education to address racism on college campuses. Zak Foste’s research examines issues of diversity and equity in higher education, with particular attention to the ways in which whiteness structures college and university campuses. Antonio Duran researches how historical and contemporary legacies of oppression influence college student development, experiences, and success.

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right Contemporary Challenges and Directions for Research Neal H. Hutchens and Frank Fernandez

Contents The AAUP and the Drive to Establish Academic Freedom and Tenure in US Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Pre-Academic Freedom Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The AAUP’s Role in Establishing Academic Freedom and Tenure as Professional Standards in US Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AAUP Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure . . . . . . . . . . . AAUP’s Formative Years, 1925 and 1940 Statements, and the “Academic Revolution” . . . . . Tenure as a Special Contractual Arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Contemporary Status of and Future Challenges to Tenure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Academic Freedom as a Constitutional Concern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Promising Start to Academic Freedom and First Amendment Gives Way to Disagreement, Ambiguity, and Confusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Garcetti v. Ceballos and New Questions over First Amendment Academic Freedom for Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Considering Race-Conscious Admissions Cases and Their Implications for Institutional Academic Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparative Lens on Academic Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Academic Freedom as a Human Right in International Declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Threats to Academic Freedom Around the Globe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

153 153 157 157 159 161 164 166 169 171 175 178 180 181 184

N. H. Hutchens (*) Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, University of Kentucky College of Education, Lexington, KY, USA e-mail: [email protected] F. Fernandez School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education, University of Florida College of Education, Gainesville, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected]fl.edu © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_2

149

150

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

Opportunities for Future Research About the Importance of Academic Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Abstract

Academic freedom persists as a commonly invoked foundational principle in US higher education. In practice, ambiguity, debate, and uncertainty encompass academic freedom, both as a professional standard and as a constitutional First Amendment concept. Debates over constitutional academic freedom extend to whether it exists as a legitimate legal doctrine at all, either as an individual right faculty can claim or one shared with or exclusive to higher education institutions. Likewise, academic freedom as a professional norm faces increasing strain. Tenure, devised as the principal employment arrangement to uphold academic freedom by providing financial security to faculty, is increasingly only available to a declining percentage of professors. This chapter examines definitions and conceptions of academic freedom as a professional norm in higher education and as a constitutional concept. The chapter also addresses related issues, such as connections between tenure or collective bargaining and academic freedom. The authors consider as well interpretations of academic freedom in other countries and from an international perspective. Suggestions for future research on academic freedom are also offered in the chapter. Keywords

1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure · 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure · Academic Freedom · Academic Freedom as a Human Right · Academic Revolution · American Association of University Professors (AAUP) · Collective Bargaining · Contingent Faculty · Contracts · Faculty · First Amendment · Free Speech · Nontenure-track Faculty · International Academic Freedom · Tenure · Unionization

Academic freedom persists as a commonly invoked foundational principle in US higher education. But in practice, ambiguity, debate, and uncertainty affect academic freedom, both as a professional standard and as a constitutional First Amendment concept. For example, one legal scholar characterized constitutional academic freedom as a legal doctrine “[l]acking definition or guiding principle” that “floats in law, picking up decisions as a hull does barnacles” (Byrne, 1989, p. 253). Debates over constitutional academic freedom extend to whether it exists as a legitimate legal doctrine at all and, if so, if it subsists as an individual right or is shared with or exclusive to higher education institutions. Likewise, academic freedom as a professional norm faces increasing strain. Tenure, devised as the principal employment arrangement to uphold academic freedom by providing financial security to faculty, is increasingly only available to a declining percentage of faculty members. Challenges also abound in efforts to maintain the faculty role in shared institutional governance, an important companion to academic freedom.

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

151

This chapter examines definitions and conceptions of academic freedom as a professional norm in higher education and as a constitutional concept. The chapter also addresses related issues, such as connections between tenure or collective bargaining and academic freedom. In terms of competing views of academic freedom, one position holds that academic freedom only extends to teaching and research that draws from a faculty member’s area of scholarly expertise (Fish, 2014). The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), in contrast, conceptualizes a broader view of academic freedom as a professional standard, one that extends to extramural forms of faculty speech, including when faculty members speak as private citizens on subjects beyond the scope of their academic expertise (Tiede, 2021). We address key issues in this chapter commonly raised around academic freedom. If citizens or employees generally possess free speech rights that are protected by the First Amendment, then why is academic freedom a distinct concept needed for higher education? Do academic freedom principles include extramural (i.e., off-campus) speech by faculty members? How is academic freedom safeguarded without tenure (an especially relevant topic considering many faculty members now serve in non– tenure track positions)? How do constitutional First Amendment speech protections apply (or not) to academic freedom? Does academic freedom apply only to individuals, or is there such a concept as institutional academic freedom? As higher education becomes increasingly globalized, including US university campuses and faculty operating overseas, what are interpretations of academic freedom in other countries and from an international perspective? Scholars have studied academic freedom for decades – see, for example, the influential work of Hofstadter and Metzger (1955) – but it continues as a compelling subject for academic inquiry. For instance, by May 2022 more than 30 states had proposed or enacted legislation to limit instructors from teaching about anti-racist subjects or theories, notably critical race theory (CRT), in schools, with some bans applying to higher education (Miller et al., in press). Or, in Florida, Georgia, and Texas – home to leading public research universities – policymakers are weakening or eliminating tenure standards and working to curtail activities by faculty members, such as trying to ban them from giving expert witness testimony viewed as contrary to a university’s political interests (Alfonseca, 2022; Kumar, 2021; Wines, 2021). Additionally, conservative interest groups have targeted researchers studying global climate change (e.g., Jackman, 2014) and English language education (Zehr, 2010). Republican-appointed university regents and trustees increasingly challenge academic appointments endorsed by faculty colleagues and provosts (see, e.g., Guizerix, 2019). For example, governing board members made efforts to deny a tenured appointment to Nikole Hannah-Jones at the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill largely because of her work on the 1619 Project (Robertson, 2021; Wamsley, 2021). While these recent challenges to academic freedom come from the political right, some commentators contend that serious challenges to academic freedom (and faculty speech rights more generally) come as well from the political and social left (see, e.g., Gersen, 2022). Besides definitional questions over what exactly academic freedom encompasses and to whom it applies (individual faculty or institutions), this chapter considers

152

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

what mechanisms, such as tenure and First Amendment protections, promote and ensure academic freedom. Additionally, the chapter, by looking at existing research, considers the fundamental question of why and how academic freedom matters (or not) in the lived experiences of faculty members carrying out their teaching, research, and service duties. For example, what does academic freedom mean for an individual employed in an adjunct faculty position in comparison to someone in a tenured role? And, along with promoting academic freedom, can the tenure system also inhibit academic freedom by imposing uniformity at the expense of innovation and creativity? To examine these topics and questions, the chapter is divided into the following major sections that consider academic freedom (1) as a professional standard in US higher education; (2) as a constitutional right; (3) from an international and comparative perspective, including as a human right; and (4) in relation to suggestions for future research. In the next section, we review the emergence of academic freedom as a professional concept in US higher education and the accompanying role of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in advocating for and helping to define academic freedom standards. As covered in this section, tenure was advocated by the AAUP as a primary method to protect academic freedom. Thus, while academic freedom as a professional norm and tenure as an employment arrangement are not the same, the AAUP championed tenure as a key means to uphold faculty academic freedom. Understandings of academic freedom as a first principle in the development of the American university model must take into account a complex history marked by faculty mobilization and faculty negotiating professional norms and working conditions with institutional employers. After discussing the roots of academic freedom as a professional standard, we consider in the section that follows the emergence of academic freedom as a First Amendment concept. In a common law system, such as that in the United States, judicial precedent develops over time as courts apply legal standards to multiple, varied legal cases. In other words, we explain how academic freedom has evolved as a constitutional doctrine and how the nature of interpretation in the US legal system makes it difficult to provide a definitive or simple answer regarding constitutional protection for academic freedom. As examined in this part, an elusive answer over the First Amendment and academic freedom is, at least in part, a consequence of the varied settings of faculty work, such as teaching, research, institutional service, service to the discipline or field, and engagement as a public scholar. We then move in the next section to an international and comparative perspective to reflect on academic freedom – as a necessary condition for fostering universal access to education and open inquiry – as a fundamental human right. Contemporary challenges to academic freedom in the USA are mirrored around the globe. When Francis Fukuyama declared “the end of history” after the fall of the Soviet Union, many assumed a new era of increasing liberalization as the rest of the world caught up to the economic and political freedoms of the West. Yet, the past decade has witnessed a surge of illiberalism throughout the world – including the West – and the retrenchment of autocratic governance. Following broader political trends, threats to

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

153

academic freedom are not isolated attacks on universities or professors, they are emblematic of broader attacks on fundamental human rights. Finally, building on the discussion in the previous sections, we offer avenues for potential future research to sharpen understandings of how academic freedom is interpreted and valued by multiple actors – e.g., faculty members, staff, students, senior administrators, and governing boards – and what conditions, such as tenure and First Amendment protections, are most conducive to support and maintain scholarly independence in higher education. Much of the literature on academic freedom revisits legal arguments in anticipation of a future US Supreme Court case that will clarify legal ambiguity around whether academic freedom exists as an individual or institutional right – or whether it exists at all as a constitutional doctrine. We argue in the future research section that, just as scholars sought to build an evidentiary basis to justify the use of race-conscious admissions in higher education (e.g., Hurtado, 2007), we need to empirically measure the benefits of academic freedom. In addition, we must also seek to gauge the “chilling effects” that result from infringements on academic freedom and institutional actions to reprimand faculty for their speech. As highlighted in anti-CRT efforts in state legislatures, a significant strand in more recent academic freedom challenges deals with concerted efforts to silence newer voices and viewpoints that have traditionally been excluded from the academy, such as ones around critical race theory, feminism, intersectionality, and other critical approaches to scholarship. Thus, in addition to building pragmatic, empirical arguments for academic freedom, we must also remember to reframe justifications for academic freedom as essential to advancing racial and social equity in – and through – higher education. At the same time, we recognize that principles of academic freedom also mean that faculty, staff, administrators, students, and the broader public may have to endure some ideas and viewpoints which they oppose and view as harmful or negative. Future research can aid in ongoing efforts to reconcile protections for academic freedom and faculty speech with the compelling need for institutions to ensure that individuals and groups, especially those subject to past and ongoing marginalization, are welcomed as full participants in campus life.

The AAUP and the Drive to Establish Academic Freedom and Tenure in US Higher Education The Pre-Academic Freedom Period In the early development of American colleges, first in the colonial period and then in the nascent United States, higher education was not centered as a place for knowledge production or original research or an environment for members of the academic community to question social, political, or economic norms. Instead, colleges and universities served as places to preserve and promote accepted truths (Thelin, 2019). Harvard, for example, which was founded in 1636, was started to “uphold orthodox Puritanism” (Geiger, 2015, p. 1), to enroll American Indian

154

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

children, and to serve as sites for conversion and evangelism to American Indian populations (Wright, 1991). The purpose of a collegiate education in Puritan society was to prepare White men “to play a prominent role in community or church affairs” (Geiger, 2015, p. 7). Similar religious and civil impulses motivated the founders of Yale College and William and Mary (Geiger, 2015). To give another example, Dartmouth College’s charter contained a special emphasis on the religious inculcation of Native Americans alongside the education of “English youth and any others” (Dartmouth College, n.d.). Debates about acceptable curricula and ideas, student body composition, and the overall purposes of collegiate education evolved during the colonial era, but these first American higher education institutions were not places for original research or scholarship or for challenging the status quo. Geiger noted, for example, that the libraries of early colonial colleges (those that had one) were “off limits to undergraduates and used chiefly by master’s or divinity students” (Geiger, 2015, p. 22). Religious developments, notably the Great Awakening, caused turmoil, but the emphasis was not on scholarly inquiry. The higher education institutions that developed in the colonial period, while having distinct characteristics, also stayed focused on passing along religious truths to students and skills such as oratory in preparation for careers in the ministry or other leadership positions in society (Geiger, 2015). Even as new ideas, such as those from the Enlightenment, were incorporated into learning, they were grafted onto an existing structure not predisposed to function as a source of original thinking and research (Geiger, 2015). In the early American republic, colleges were called on to support visions, at times competing, of republicanism; efforts were made, as in North Carolina and Virginia, to establish state universities (Geiger, 2015). While displaying characteristics of what has been termed the “Moderate Enlightenment,” these institutions were not at the forefront of research or intellectual discovery (Geiger, 2015; see also Thelin, 2019). Even if they had wanted to engage in such pursuits, most institutions were constrained from doing so by limited resources and faculty, both in terms of numbers and skill level, and by the need to continue to serve many students at a level more akin to what today would be considered secondary education. During the 1830s, in an episode of what might be called proto-academic freedom, Thomas Cooper, president of South Carolina College, the forerunner of the University of South Carolina, challenged efforts to remove him from office for anti-religious writings (Geiger, 2015). As Geiger highlights, it was ironic that Cooper sought to champion “academic freedom” when he “and his cronies on the faculty dogmatically taught the ideology of states’ rights” and support for slavery (Geiger, 2015, p. 232). Despite such episodic events, higher education institutions in this era, especially those in the South, strived to support and maintain the existing social order of the surrounding elites rather than serve as epicenters for knowledge production or research. In the early and mid-decades of the nineteenth century, flourishes of intellectual discovery did take place, as with the student literary societies and their accompanying libraries that sought to counter the established curriculum, but there was still no dedicated institutional emphasis on research and scholarship (Geiger, 2015).

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

155

The nineteenth century saw new developments such as the emergence of the “multipurpose college,” the inclusion of some White women, the incorporation – to varying degrees – of science and engineering alongside the traditional curriculum, and increased enrollments (Geiger, 2000a, p. 25). But, the midcentury colleges differed in crucial ways from the university model that would take hold in US higher education by the end of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, including, and especially, an emphasis on research and knowledge production (Geiger, 2000b, p. 127). A glimmer of new purposes for higher education began to emerge in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. US higher education began to look to and adapt in uniquely American ways ideas imported from Europe, especially from German institutions, such as Lehrfreiheit (the freedom to teach), Lernfreiheit (the freedom to learn), and Freiheit der Wissenschaft (the freedom to research) (Geiger, 2015; Tiede, 2015). Geiger (2015) has identified several forces during this period that coalesced to center research as one of the key functions of the university in this era; these included the Morrill Act and an emphasis on useful knowledge and a growing recognition and appreciation for European, especially German, scholarly accomplishments. He explains that several institutions, such as the University of Michigan, Cornell, and Harvard, made strides toward the transformation of their schools into universities recognizable to a contemporary audience (Geiger, 2015; see also Turner & Bernard, 2000). Johns Hopkins University, which opened in 1876, attracted a cadre of “promising younger academics eager for the opportunity to advance their fields” and provided important momentum in establishing the university as a place of original scholarship (Geiger, 2015, p. 324). Other institutions would seek to emulate this approach in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Geiger (2015) described it as an “academic revolution” that included an emphasis on scholarship as integral to the university and the accompanying rise of academic disciplines both as spaces for expert, specialized knowledge and for the “validation of knowledge” (Geiger, 2015, p. 326). Most reforms were focused on curricular items, but several schools created opportunities for some level of inquiry, such as the scientific schools established at select places like Yale (Geiger, 2015). Following the creation of its Sheffield Scientific School, Yale became, in 1861, the first American university to confer a PhD Doctoral education then quickly proliferated across the unregulated field of US higher education. Unlike England, where Parliament limited universities’ creation of doctoral programs (until the early twentieth century), American universities were left free to offer doctorates in any number of fields (Fernandez & Baker, 2017). While the emergence of doctoral education created a foundation for faculty to perform original scholarly inquiry, the period was still not one in which research was integral to American higher education. An important change happening alongside the academic developments of the nineteenth century involved college and university leadership. Day-to-operations were left to a “growing cadre of administrators” (Hall, 2000, pp. 214–215) even as the governing boards of US institutions came under the domination of lawyers and members of the business class (Hall, 2000, p. 217; see also Tiede, 2015). As Hall

156

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

(2000) noted, Thorstein Veblen was an early critic of this turn in his book The Higher Learning in America, first published in 1918. Presaging current critiques of higher education, Veblen railed against adopting business-sector values and practices to administer and govern higher education (Veblen, 2015). As to the usefulness of governing boards dominated by individuals from business, Veblen characterized such boards as serving no “function other than a bootless meddling with academic matters which they do not understand” (Veblen, 2015, p. 80). He also argued that these boards sought to select institutional leaders who subscribed to values associated with business enterprises, to select as a campus leader someone who is “one of their own kind, who is somewhat peremptorily expected to live up to the aspirations that animate the board” (Veblen, 2015, pp. 92–93). The developments in administration and governance that Veblen viewed with alarm contrasted with his vision of a university as a “corporation of learning, disinterested and dispassionate” (Veblen, 2015, p. 75). The tensions highlighted more than a century ago by Veblen between professors and university leaders and governing bodies (and other powerful interests) in early research universities created an important obstacle in attempts to professionalize the faculty role. These professionalization efforts also envisioned a role for faculty in applying research knowledge to address important social and political issues of the day. As dedication to the role of research and scholarship began to gain traction in higher education, a new generation of scholars periodically ranked the sensibilities of institutional leaders, donors, and other powerful or influential individuals. Colleges could and did remove individual scholars who upset the status quo (Tiede, 2015). One high-profile example was Edward A. Ross’s dismissal from Stanford. Professor Ross served as a faculty member in the then-nascent field of economics. During the 1896 presidential election, Ross openly campaigned for Democratic party candidates, including William Jennings Bryan. Ross’s political views and activities would bring him into conflict with Jane Stanford. Stanford wielded tremendous influence as cofounder (along with husband Leland Stanford) of the university and its sole trustee for many years and whose estate formed the university endowment. Leland Stanford, a Republican, had served as a governor and US senator for California. Jane Stanford continued to play a leading role in university affairs after her husband’s death in 1893. Shortly after the 1896 election, Jane Stanford declared a new university policy that prohibited faculty from being politically active. Ross’s differences with Jane Stanford did not end with politics, however. Jane Stanford complained to the university president, David Starr Jordan, that Ross had given repeated talks at the Oakland Socialist Club. The Stanfords had made their wealth through private companies that operated railroads and streetcars; but Jane Stanford felt that Ross, as an economist, was insufficiently opposed to public ownership of utility companies, such as streetcar systems. She told Jordan that Ross “literally plays into the hands of the lowest and vilest elements of socialism” and admitted she was “weary of Professor Ross mixing in political affairs” to the point that she felt “he ought not to be retained at Stanford University” (Vesey, 1965, p. 402). After Jordan fired Ross at Jane Stanford’s urging, Professor George E. Howard criticized Jane Stanford for her role in the termination. Jane Stanford – through

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

157

Jordan – insisted that Howard either apologize or resign. He chose the latter. Howard’s resignation created an uproar, and several more faculty resigned in solidarity. As the troubles at Stanford gained national attention, the American Economic Association investigated Ross’s dismissal. Within a few months, the association accused the university of improper firings, and several more Stanford faculty resigned. All told, the fledgling university lost seven faculty members over its approach to faculty speech and expression (Vesey, 1965). Samuels (1991) described the Ross firing as indicative of emerging tensions “between the economic and social elite, on the one hand, and the burgeoning group of professional experts, on the other, over participation in policy debate and policymaking” (p. 187). In other words, as a new class of faculty, trained in the social sciences, were given research appointments at national universities, and sought to apply professional expertise in the realms of social policy, they encountered resistance from entrenched interests. Sometimes, the faculty perspectives were biased and misinformed (for instance, Ross’s opposition to immigration carried anti-Asian animus; e.g., Eule, 2015). But regardless of how accurate or informed were the individual positions taken by members of this new cadre of faculty, the firings and resignations at Stanford and other schools showed an incompatibility between novel research and scholarship and social conformity. During the same period, developments were proving the necessity of pursuing new knowledge and applying expertise to social problems. Levine (1986) argued that events such as the 1901 creation of the National Bureau of Standards and the start of World War I “convinced contemporaries that knowledge and training were essential to the efficient organization of economic, social, and political institutions and to the solution of human problems” (p. 32). What became known as the Progressive movement helped spur the installment of university faculty and university-trained experts to lead and inform state bureaucracies and World War I agencies. In fact, “thirty-five scholars accompanied President Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference” and “just five institutions – Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and the American Geographical Society, contributed” half of all the United States’ staff that prepared for the postwar peace process (Levine, 1986, p. 36). In the short history of the republic, provincial colleges had evolved from sites for transmitting inherited knowledge into universities with scholars whose work revolved around understanding and addressing contemporary social and political challenges.

The AAUP’s Role in Establishing Academic Freedom and Tenure as Professional Standards in US Higher Education AAUP Formation Tiede (2015) places the formation of the AAUP in 1915 in the context of the Progressive era, which was characterized by “movements [that] advocated social and political changes to address societal problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, and mass immigration” (p. 22). Professors who played key roles in

158

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

the founding of the AAUP and were linked with Progressive movements included John Dewey of Columbia University, an advocate of educational reform, and Roscoe Pound, who served as the dean of Harvard Law School and advocated judicial reform (Tiede, 2015, p. 22). Dewey would serve as the first president of the AAUP. Other key architects in the organization’s formation included James McKeen Cattell of Columbia University, who made the first calls for its establishment, Arthur Lovejoy of Johns Hopkins University, and others calling for higher education governance reform (Tiede, 2015). Tiede wrote how some early AAUP proponents viewed the organization as a type of Progressive reform movement, and, in fact, the rhetoric employed in advocating university reform – that of “democratizing the university” – mirrored the rhetoric of other Progressive reform movements, particularly the movements for political reform that included such innovations as the primary, recall, and referendum. (Tiede, 2015, pp. 22–23)

As noted previously, the notions of the American university as a place of research and of individual faculty members as possessing the expertise to contribute to social and political debates periodically put faculty members at odds with powerful interests and governing board members. Cases routinely arose in which professors were ousted from their positions. Besides the high-profile incident involving Ross at Stanford, events at other universities would gain attention. Tiede (2015), for example, recounted the story of Charles Zueblin, a member of the sociology faculty at the University of Chicago who was also involved in the university’s extension program. Zueblin was pushed out of the university for critiques he made in public lectures of wealthy business owners. Another noteworthy academic freedom case would arise in 1913 when John Mecklin resigned from Lafayette College, a Presbyterian institution, after he was pressured to do so over teaching about and assigning textbooks dealing with evolution (Tiede, 2015). The Mecklin incident resulted in investigations and reports by the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Association (Tiede, 2015). In such a climate, numerous faculty members were likely deterred from speaking out based on fears of the economic consequences for them and their families of losing their employment (Tiede, 2015). As to the dismissals or forced resignations that did occur, many of these events failed to generate the kind of publicity that occurred with Edward Ross at Stanford and, instead, often “ended with the quiet resignation of the affected faculty member” (Tiede, 2015, p. 39). In response to academic dismissals and threats of dismissals, US scholars began to push for greater autonomy and employment security. These activities led to the formation of the AAUP and its initial 1915 declaration on academic freedom. Philosopher Arthur O. Lovejoy, a member of the Johns Hopkins faculty from 1910 to 1928, served as the “primary founder” of the AAUP (Tiede, 2015, p. 29). Tiede (2015) described how Lovejoy sought changes in university governance so that faculty would possess shared authority with the trustees, so that “the faculty and the trustees, each with separate areas of responsibility and arrangements for addressing overlapping areas of responsibility” would be “two co-equal bodies” (p. 30). Another formative figure was economist Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman of

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

159

Columbia University, who was “one of the most prominent defenders of academic freedom in the early twentieth century” and the primary author of what is now called the 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure (Tiede, 2015, p. 31; hereinafter 1915 Declaration). The faculty dismissals also prompted three scholarly professional associations, the American Economic Association, the American Sociological Society, and the American Political Science Association, to form separate committees focused on academic freedom concerns, but with each authorized to work with similarly situated committees (Tiede, 2015). The committees held a joint meeting in 1914 and united to form a “Joint Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure,” what would be known as the “joint committee of nine” (Tiede, 2015, p. 61). The Committee of Nine would undertake investigations into academic freedom cases and the committee would eventually “merge” with the AAUP (Tiede, 2015, p. 74). As Tiede (2015) recounted, the convergence of movements and interests that led to the formation of the AAUP “focused on matters of tenure, institutional governance, and more generally on the proper role of professors in academic matters” rather than on incidents involving individual faculty members (pp. 62–63). Thus, while infringements on the academic freedom of faculty members served as one of the driving forces in the AAUP’s formation, the initial goal of leaders was to push for changes in university governance structures. At the organizing meeting for the AAUP in 1915, John Dewey, who served as chair, stated directly that the primary purpose of the group would be to deal with university governance reform (Tiede, 2015). Yet, almost from the start, the AAUP came to focus on issues of academic freedom (Tiede, 2015). In response to events at the University of Utah, which included the nonrenewal of four faculty members who had raised academic freedom concerns and the resignations of seventeen faculty members in response to this and other actions by the university’s president, the AAUP established in 1915 the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Tiede, 2015). The new committee was built on the work of the earlier Committee of Nine, “not only in its active defense [of scholars] but also in the conceptual foundation of academic freedom” (Tiede, 2015, p. 61). Early in the AAUP’s history, the new committee was designated as “Committee A.” Once formed, it received numerous requests from faculty members to investigate incidents. Set up to function as a body to engage in an impartial inquiry, it was commonly referred to as the Committee of Fifteen to distinguish it from the Committee of Nine that represented the joint efforts of several scholarly associations. Amidst the complaints that the AAUP received from its inception, the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure issued the foundational 1915 Declaration.

The 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure The 1915 Declaration endeavored to invest faculty with a central role in institutional governance while also calling for higher education board members to view their roles as upholding a public trust as opposed to a private trust (Tiede, 2015). The most

160

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

important role of the 1915 Declaration, according to Tiede (2015), was to provide a conception of academic hiring appointments and the accompanying idea of academic freedom. The 1915 Declaration envisioned the faculty position as akin to that held by federal judges (representing a stance in contradiction to the emphasis on treating faculty as employees that increasingly predominates in higher education today (see, e.g., Thro, 2020)). The document contended that professors acting in accordance with professional standards should be free “to impart the results of their own and of their fellowspecialists’ investigations and reflection, both to students and to the general public, without fear or favor” (AAUP, 2015, p. 6). According to the 1915 Declaration: The responsibility of the university teacher is primarily to the public itself, and to the judgment of his own profession; and while, with respect to certain external conditions of his vocation, he accepts a responsibility to the authorities of the institution in which he serves, in the essentials of his professional activity his duty is to the wider public to which the institution itself is morally amenable. So far as the university teacher’s independence of thought and utterance is concerned – though not in other regards – the relationship of professor to trustees may be compared to that between judges of the federal courts and the executive who appoints them. University teachers should be understood to be, with respect to the conclusions reached and expressed by them, no more subject to the control of the trustees, than are judges subject to the control of the president, with respect to their decisions; while of course, for the same reason, trustees are no more to be held responsible for, or to be presumed to agree with, the opinions or utterances of professors, than the president can be assumed to approve of all the legal reasonings of the courts. (AAUP, 2015, p. 6)

Academic freedom, it said, served to “promote inquiry and advance the sum of human knowledge,” allowed the teaching of students, and helped prepare experts to serve in public service (AAUP, 2015, p. 7). Along with advocating for the academic freedom rights of professors, the document – sensitive to issues of the day and presaging current considerations over the way in which faculty communicate (i.e., civility concerns) and allegations of indoctrinating students – stated that a scholar’s “conclusion” should be “the fruits of competent and patient and sincere inquiry” and “set forth with dignity, courtesy, and temperateness of language” (AAUP, 2015, p. 9). Additionally, while stating that faculty members were not obligated to “hide” their views on “controversial” matters,” the 1915 Declaration provided that professors should be “of fair and judicial mind,” provide “divergent opinions of other investigators,” and “not provide . . . students with ready-made conclusions, but . . . train them to think for themselves” (AAUP, 2015, p. 9). In a period when higher education institutions were viewed by courts as exercising a legal oversight authority over students akin to that of parents, the document also noted that in the case of “immature” students in their first 2 years of college instructors might need to exercise patience and caution in introducing new ideas. Raising additional topics still relevant more than a century later, the 1915 Declaration also argued that comments by professors in classrooms should represent privileged communications. In addition, the document advocated for the rights of professors to express views and opinions in their extramural speech, including on matters outside of their areas of scholarly expertise.

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

161

The 1915 Declaration also called for the standardization of academic appointments so that “all positions above the grade of instructor after ten years of service, should be permanent (subject to the provisions hereinafter given for removal upon charges)” (AAUP, 2015, p. 12). For public universities in states where employee contracts could be made for only a limited duration, the document called for governing boards to “announce their policy with respect to the presumption of reappointment . . . [and] though not legally enforceable, should be regarded as morally binding” (AAUP, 2015, p. 12). The 1915 Declaration proved an important step in establishing principles of academic freedom and faculty speech rights, including on extramural matters, and of reliance on continuing employment arrangements as a primary mechanism to secure those rights.

AAUP’s Formative Years, 1925 and 1940 Statements, and the “Academic Revolution” Alongside early efforts to reform university governance, the AAUP’s work in its formative years resulted in a clearer, if not fully developed, articulation of academic freedom. Its Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Committee A) worked toward the establishment of “academic due process” to guide the procedures for disciplinary action taken against professors (Tiede, 2015). The committee’s early reports, however, did not derive a “comprehensive theory of academic freedom” but referred only to “related notions, such as freedom of teaching and freedom of thought” (Tiede, 2015, p. 44). An important influence on the newly founded AAUP came with World War I and the entry of the United States into the conflict in 1917. Tiede (2015) wrote about how in the period after the United States entered World War I, the AAUP declined to take a strong defense of academic freedom or to challenge a “climate conducive to continued repression in the universities that lasted well into the 1920s” (p. 147). The period from the beginning of World War I into the 1920s marked a time of retrenchment by the AAUP in relation to academic freedom. Multiple professors were removed from their positions, often on the basis of perceived disloyalty to the United States in relation to the war effort and the nation’s response to the first Red Scare period, which occurred after the Russian Revolution of 1917 (Tiede, 2015). Threats to the professoriate continued into the 1930s, resulting in what Tiede (2018) described as part of a conservative reaction against the Roosevelt administration, an “educational red scare which threatened academic freedom to an extent that caused widespread alarm” (p. 442). Broadly, these years were ones in which US courts sanctioned the widespread repression of free speech, as with the passage of the Espionage Act of 1917. Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who won 6% of the votes in the 1912 presidential election and was an advocate for labor, was sentenced to jail for 10 years under the Sedition Act for criticizing the nation’s involvement in the war (Lepore, 2019). Heins contended that after World War I the United States “embarked on the most politically repressive period thus far in its history” (2013, p. 27). In the initial years after World War I and beyond, repressive laws were passed by the states and the federal government

162

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

(e.g., the Smith Act passed in 1940) to counter perceived communist and socialist forces. Some laws included loyalty oath provisions for teachers. Various iterations of loyalty laws would be passed in the inter-war years and after World War II. Eventually (as covered later in this chapter), judicial pushback against such laws provided the context for the US Supreme Court to address academic freedom. The AAUP’s decision to largely remain silent on academic freedom issues during World War I coupled with the willingness of numerous faculty to provide expertise during the war further aided the organization’s efforts to establish its credibility to serve as an acceptable representative voice of faculty among institutional associations and other organizations related to higher education (Tiede, 2015). The AAUP also sought to align itself with other higher education groups to cement its role as a representative voice for the professoriate and to advance the professional status of faculty, such as through institutional adoption of tenure. In 1925, the AAUP – along with the American Association of Colleges (AAC) (now the Association of American Colleges and Universities), which represented college presidents – endorsed Committee A’s 1925 Conference Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The document borrowed “heavily” from the 1915 Statement but “jettison[ed] the lengthy philosophical justifications of its tenets in favor of a concise series of paragraphs – four regarding academic freedom and four addressing tenure – that fit on less than three pages” (Eastman & Boyles, 2015, p. 25). Tiede (2015) described the 1925 Statement as offering a less robust defense of academic freedom than the 1915 Declaration, with defense of academic freedom based more on procedural grounds. Building on the 1915 and 1925 statements and the growing acceptance of the AAUP as a representative voice for faculty, the issuance of the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure by the AAUP and the AAC marked a foundational moment for academic freedom principles in higher education. The 1940 Statement received endorsements from multiple other higher education-related organizations (Metzger, 1990, p. 3). Along with laying out the scope of faculty academic freedom and autonomy, the document sets out standards for tenure. The 1940 Statement links tenure as fundamental to supporting and upholding “freedom of teaching and research and of extramural activities” by providing a “sufficient degree of economic security” to attract talented individuals to the professoriate. Tenure is discussed more fully in the next part of the chapter. While interpretive comments were added in 1970 to the 1940 Statement to deal with “certain illegible or outmoded passages” (Metzger, 1990, p. 3), the 1940 Statement endures as a touchstone – at least aspirationally – in US higher education. A noteworthy point about the 1940 Statement is that it was drafted and adopted prior to the emergence of a judicial interpretation of a constitutional dimension to academic freedom (Metzger, 1990). It was not written to align with First Amendment standards. The drafters of the 1940 Statement viewed it as articulating standards and accompanying institutional operations that fell “outside the law” due to the deference that courts had typically shown to colleges and universities (Metzger, 1990, p. 7). Courts have come to rely on the 1940 Statement’s expression of academic freedom as well as other AAUP declarations, but the document was not premised on the First Amendment as a source of academic freedom protection or on

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

163

application to only public colleges and universities. The 1940 Statement was intended to apply across both public and private higher education. The 1940 Statement offers the following depiction of academic freedom and faculty rights: 1. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution. 2. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment. 3. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution (AAUP, 2015, p. 14). Interpretive comments added in 1970 provided important elaborations to the 1940 Statement. For instance, one interpretive comment clarifies that the 1940 Statement is not meant to discourage topics that are controversial, as “[c] ontroversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster” (AAUP, 2015, p. 14). Another comment provides that institutions should keep in mind that professors are citizens and possess the corresponding rights possessed by citizens (AAUP, 2015, pp. 14–15). It also states that a faculty member’s extramural statements are rarely grounds to judge the professor as unfit for their position. The post-World War II period resulted in a significant expansion of higher education alongside the US economy (see, e.g., Geiger, 2019). This “massive expansion” of higher education in these years “initiated by the GI Bill and fueled by economic growth and the demands of the Cold War saw increasingly widespread adoption of the principles articulated in the 1940 Statement” (Reichman, 2021, p. 21; see also Tiede, 2018). Geiger (2019) described higher education in the 1950s as becoming an “integral component of the American way of life” and institutions “expanded in enrollments, faculty, and infrastructure” (p. 41). The “American way of life” resulted in overall increased national prosperity but also excluded many individuals, with Geiger (2019) noting the “rigid segregation” of the South and the “[b]latant racial discrimination” of the North was “virtually ignored” (p. 42). As discussed more in the section on constitutional academic freedom, these years were also not stellar when it came to the defense of academic freedom. Both higher

164

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

education institutions and the AAUP failed to offer a strong defense to the excesses that resulted from fears of communism during the McCarthy era. Wealth was distributed inequitably, but the “growing prosperity of American society boosted social demand for higher education” (Geiger, 2019, p. 44). Alongside increasing student enrollments, the federal government continued to fund university research, resulting in an “unprecedented degree of competition among universities for academic talent, especially in federally supported fields” (Geiger, 2019, p. 75). Even outside the areas where federal support was concentrated, research universities “were committed to high standards across all academic fields, including the humanities and social sciences” (Geiger, 2019, p. 77). The emphasis on research in the post-war years meant that “American postwar academic research had evolved the most powerful system for advancing knowledge that the world had ever seen” (Geiger, 2019, p. 87). By the end of the 1950s, there came to exist a widespread “social and political endorsement” of universities and the “academic research system,” which led to what came to be “recognized as the academic revolution” in US higher education (Geiger, 2019, p. 88). An important jolt to this revolution came with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 by the USSR, which resulted in such initiatives as the National Defense Education Act and substantial federal investments in research (Geiger, 2019, p. 93). In their well-known work, “The Academic Revolution” (1968), Jencks and Riesman served as early chroniclers of this period, one in which they argued that faculty had gained primacy in the affairs of colleges and universities. Reflecting on the “Academic Revolution,” Geiger (2019) described an environment in which opportunities for faculty were plentiful. According to Reichman (2021), “[b]y the 1970s, some two-thirds of those teaching in American higher education were either tenured or probationary for tenure, and the 1940 principles were widely endorsed, if far from consistently adhered to in practice” (p. 21). It is important to highlight that faculty advances during the academic revolution were not uniform in terms of institutions or individuals, with White males the primary beneficiaries as women and individuals of color were often shut out of White-male-centric colleges and universities. Additionally, many colleges and universities, such as community colleges and institutions with religious missions, adopted the principles of tenure and academic freedom to a significantly lesser degree than research-intensive universities. Despite a lack of uniformity among institutions in adopting the standards and principles of the 1940 Statement, the academic revolution helped to create the conditions to make tenure a dominant feature of the US higher education landscape, one advocated by the AAUP as key to the protection of academic freedom. The chapter next turns to a discussion of the characteristics of tenure, largely from a legal perspective, as a unique type of employment arrangement.

Tenure as a Special Contractual Arrangement From a legal standpoint, tenure comprises a specific type of contractual relationship, one where, following a probationary, pre-tenure period, a college or university enters into an ongoing employment relationship with a professor (Sun & Hutchens, 2019).

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

165

Tenure has been adopted at both public and private colleges and universities. As Sun (2022) points out, tenure and academic freedom are closely connected but are distinct from one another. Academic freedom protections are ostensibly provided by institutions to professors apart from whether they are employed in a tenured or tenureeligible position. For professors working in public higher education, including those in a non-tenure eligible position, they may also possess academic freedom legal protections provided through the First Amendment (see later in the chapter for more on constitutional protections for academic freedom). Yet, tenure is closely linked to academic freedom as an employment arrangement that “enables faculty to teach, research, and serve (including in extramural activities) with a degree of economic security through the expectation of continued employment” (Sun, 2022, p. 44). In general, tenure means that a professor cannot be discharged absent in special circumstances, such as misconduct, incompetence, or financial exigency on the part of the institution (Kaplin et al., 2019; Sun, 2022). As a contractual relationship, tenure exists as a creature of state law and is generally subject to state legal standards (Kaplin et al., 2019). In interpreting the tenure contract, courts look to documents that include faculty handbooks and tenure and employment policies. For public institutions, in addition to contract language and university documents such as faculty or employee handbooks, state statutes or regulations may further define the terms of tenure (Sun, 2022). A college or university may also reference and incorporate specific AAUP standards into how tenure is defined at the institution. Collective bargaining agreements may also provide important terms for tenure or the tenure process (Kaplin et al., 2019). Courts sometimes look to “academic custom and usage” and the general practices of higher education for purposes of interpreting a faculty contract, especially when terms or items in the contract are ambiguous. For professors at public institutions, the granting of tenure results in a property interest that entitles the faculty member to constitutional due process protections before tenure can be revoked. While AAUP standards have proven important as to general tenure standards in US higher education and have been adopted, to varying degrees by colleges and universities, institutions may deviate from the general AAUP standards in defining the elements of tenure. For instance, some institutions have moved to include financial concerns short of declaring a financial emergency as an appropriate reason to dismiss tenured faculty members. To give another example, religiously affiliated institutions may impose requirements on faculty members, including tenured ones, connected to religious tenets or statements of belief that professors must uphold as a condition of employment. The variability of language and terms used by institutions and states (in the case of public higher education) in faculty contracts means that special attention must be paid to what tenure means, in a legal, contractual sense, at a particular college or university. A case involving a former faculty member at a private law school in Michigan illustrates the importance of the specific language and terms used to define what tenure means at a particular institution (Branham v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2012). Among the issues litigated in the case, a dismissed faculty member claimed that status as a tenured professor at the law school resulted in an expectation of lifetime or “continuous appointment” (Branham v. Thomas M. Cooley Law

166

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

School, 2012, p. 562). In making this argument, the former professor contended that the law school had incorporated standards from the American Bar Association (ABA) stating that law schools “should” have “permanent or continuous” tenure. The federal appeals court hearing the case rejected this position. Instead, the court agreed with the law school that the referenced ABA language only suggested but did not result in an obligation for the law school to adopt permanent or continuous tenure. The court concluded that the former professor’s contract “expressly limit[ed] its term to a single year” (Branham v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2012, p. 563). Quoting from the lower court opinion in the case, the appeals court endorsed the view that tenure, as a term used by the law school, did not mean “anything other than what the [former professor’s] employment contract provides” (Branham v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2012, p. 562). Interpreting the meaning of tenure at the law school in this light, the court stated: While [the former professor] may have had “tenure” in the sense that she had academic freedom, and that she and Cooley generally expected that they would enter a new employment contract in subsequent years, nothing in her employment contract, or the documents incorporated by reference therein, provides for a term of employment greater than 1 year. (Branham v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2012, p. 563)

The case serves as a sharp reminder of the importance of the special attention that must be paid to the specific documents and policies that define tenure and the nature of the faculty contract at a given college or university. Rather than having a universal definition across all colleges and universities in respect to its legal interpretation, what tenure means at a particular institution is subject to how it has been defined in faculty contracts and other relevant documents such as faculty handbooks. Besides issues of definition and interpretation, an important test for tenure relates to its future viability, a topic addressed in the next part of the chapter.

The Contemporary Status of and Future Challenges to Tenure The current status of the US professoriate looks very different from the Academic Revolution described by Jencks and Riesman (1968). In the 1970s, colleges began to encounter a period of “financial stress and double digit inflation from 1971 to 1985” in marked contrast to the heady days of the “Academic Revolution” of the post-war years (Thelin, 2013, p. 109; see also Geiger, 2019). Geiger (2019) described the 1970s as a period of “retrenchment” that marked a “reversal of the trends that had dominated during the Golden Age of the 1960s” (Geiger, 2019, p. 251). The finances of colleges and universities improved by the 1980s, but there would be no return to the faculty hiring practices of the Academic Revolution. A combination of forces can be looked to as suspects driving increased reliance on non-tenure-track faculty by colleges and universities that can be traced to the 1970s and continued in subsequent years: uneven and declining state appropriations for public institutions; adoption of

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

167

managerial and consumer-based practices in the management of colleges and universities that have been criticized as antagonistic to tenure and faculty autonomy; and a concern with faculty labor costs in increasingly tuition-sensitive environments. An in-depth exploration of faculty labor trends is beyond the scope of this chapter and its focus on academic freedom, but there has been a clear shift away from tenurestream positions in higher education. Today, tenure faces an unknown future, as does the ongoing role of academic freedom as a meaningful guiding concept in higher education beyond merely providing window dressing for institutional mission statements. From the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the percentage of faculty members covered by tenure declined. Full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members work on contracts of varying types, with some approaching the kinds of protections found with tenure and others with little in the way of employment protections or continuing job security (AAUP, 2021a). In a 2021 report, the AAUP sought to clarify the ways in which faculty appointment types were determined, noting that some previous figures reported by AAUP were “unclear,” such as whether graduate students were counted (AAUP, 2021a, p. 13). According to the AAUP (2021a), in fall 2019, contingent (non-tenure-track) faculty accounted for 63% of all faculty appointments, with 20% of contingent faculty holding full-time positions and 43% of contingent faculty serving in parttime positions. Tenure-stream faculty accounted for 37% of all faculty appointments. In one trend reversal, however, the AAUP report showed that from fall 2006 to fall 2019, the share of all faculty appointments that were full-time contingent increased from 16% to 20%, with the change greatest at doctoral institutions. During these years, the share of all faculty appointments that were part-time declined from 46% to 43%. In this same period, the percentage of all appointments that were tenure-stream continued to decline, albeit more slowly than some previous periods, going from 39% in 2006 to 37% in 2019. The recent trend toward more full-time contingent faculty appointments indicates that some institutions may have become responsive to calls to improve the employment conditions of non-tenure-track faculty members (see, e.g., Kezar, 2012; Drake et al., 2019; O’Meara et al., 2018). As covered more later in the chapter, an important area for future scholarship relates to the academic freedom and professional autonomy of instructional faculty not working in tenure-stream appointments. As Reichman (2021) points out, “under a system of short-term appointments, institutions may quietly decline to renew a contract without public rationale” (p. 26). The AAUP has called for greater due process protections for non-tenure-track faculty members (Reichman, 2021). The organization has also urged institutions to broadly adopt better treatment of non-tenure-track faculty members, including better job security and fairer compensation, as well as for allowing the conversion of contingent appointments to tenure-stream ones. In relation to academic freedom considerations, calls for how to treat this new faculty majority implicate the effectiveness of arrangements beyond tenure, such as unionization, to protect the academic freedom of non-tenure-track faculty members. In the initial decades of its existence, the AAUP steered away from supporting unionization, with arguments advanced that collective bargaining ran contrary to

168

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

academic freedom principles and impeded the ability of faculty members to remain dispassionate on issues of unionization as a social and economic issue (Tiede, 2015; see also Hutcheson, 2000). Rather than unionization, the AAUP pushed for faculty participation in shared institutional governance and the creation of standardized tenure systems (Tiede, 2015). Unionization opponents questioned, “whether serving as a bargaining agent would affect the AAUP’s work to promote the 1940 ‘Statement of Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure’” (Cain, 2020, p. 58). Eventually, the organization shifted its stance on collective bargaining, so that by the 1970s the AAUP supported unionization as an appropriate role for the organization (Cain, 2020). The organization’s embrace of unionization was responsive to faculty collective bargaining activities that were “launched during the 1968 Era and accelerated through the early 1970s” (Geiger, 2019, p. 2010). One important impetus for faculty unionization came from state laws that permitted public employees, including those in public higher education, to unionize (Geiger, 2019). As faculty unionization increased, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) provided competition to the AAUP to serve as bargaining agents for faculty members seeking to unionize. While collective bargaining has become integral to the work of the AAUP, Cain (2020) noted that additional study is needed in terms of connections between unionization and academic freedom, “including the extent to which it might provide different protections at different institutional types; for members of different employment statuses; and for members of different racial, gender, sexuality, and other demographic groups” (p. 79). Indicative of the growing role of unionization in higher education, the AAUP and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced a planned affiliation in 2022 to work collectively on unionization in higher education and other issues affecting colleges and universities, such as those related to academic freedom (Marcus, 2022). Alongside the decline in the percentage of faculty in tenure-stream positions, tenure has been subject to plentiful and longstanding critiques that it is an unhealthy employment arrangement for higher education and unnecessary to uphold academic freedom. A long-time criticism of tenure is that it protects unproductive faculty members. Tenure has also received criticism for helping to sustain and reproduce inequality and for stifling creativity and innovation. Recent criticisms have come from conservative elected officials and pundits. In one high-profile example in 2022, the lieutenant governor of Texas called for an end to tenure at the state’s public colleges and universities as a way to support anti-CRT efforts (Bauer-Wolf, 2022). One form of this pushback against tenure is the growing number of post-tenure review policies. In 2000, 46% of surveyed institutions had post-tenure review policies; by 2022, that increased to 58%. Among public institutions, 68% had such a policy, and 72% of large institutions – regardless of public or private control – had post-tenure review policies (AAUP, 2022). While post-tenure review policies are not novel, rules enacted in Georgia in late 2021 and Mississippi in 2022 potentially indicate new, substantial limitations on tenure protections that could serve as a harbinger for actions in other states. The revised post-tenure policy in Georgia, for instance, takes away due process protections for tenured faculty subject to the policy’s standards and moves

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

169

well beyond previous iterations of post-tenure review in doing so (Flaherty, 2021). Notably, in contrast to most tenure policies, the new rules in Georgia permit the dismissal of a tenured faculty member without a hearing. An AAUP report on the standards argued that the new policy “effectively abolished tenure in Georgia’s public colleges and universities” (AAUP, 2021b, p. 11). In Mississippi, along with the initial tenure review, post-tenure review now includes a collegiality prong and a requirement for faculty members to show “effectiveness, accuracy and integrity in communications” (Minta, 2022). Both of the new standards in Mississippi have been criticized as introducing criteria into the promotion and tenure process that are overly subjective and ambiguous and leave too much discretion to administrators. Despite the fact that the percentage of tenure-eligible faculty has been declining for decades, approximately 18% of surveyed institutions have sought to make “tenure standards more stringent in the last five years” (AAUP, 2022, p. 4). Tenure has been advocated as the primary instrument to assure faculty academic freedom. However, the prospects for tenure as an ongoing employment arrangement in higher education are uncertain. Moreover, the current reality is that the majority of faculty in colleges and universities are excluded from tenure-stream positions. Some non-tenure-track faculty members serve in full-time positions and are employed on multi-year contracts that operate on a rolling basis. They may also be employed in positions that have reappointment and promotion standards that mirror aspects of the standards used for tenure-stream faculty. In contrast, many non-tenure-track faculty, comprising what has been termed the new faculty majority, face precarious employment circumstances. Even if employed on a full-time basis, full-time non-tenure track faculty often must wait until each spring or summer to learn if they have a position for the upcoming academic year. While contingent faculty carry out much of the work of colleges and universities in fulfilling their teaching missions, faculty in part-time, contingent positions are far removed from the protections of tenure and most have little to no ongoing employment security. Because of the changing nature of faculty appointments, we can no longer rely on the contractual arrangements that come with tenure to protect academic freedom for much of the professoriate. Instead, we must ask: To what extent do faculty members possess meaningful academic freedom apart from the protections of tenure? Academic freedom is difficult to protect in a substantive way if, at the end of the day, institutional goodwill and benevolence on the part of administrators are the only or primary mechanisms upholding it. In the section on future research, we offer ideas for studies dealing with intersections between academic freedom and faculty appointment type. In the next section, we discuss the idea of academic freedom as a right protected by the First Amendment.

Academic Freedom as a Constitutional Concern The AAUP, as covered earlier in the chapter, in its formation and early years looked to tenure and related professional standards as a basis to establish academic freedom protections. Turning to the First Amendment as an important source of legal

170

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

protection for faculty academic would come later, as part of the judicial pushback against McCarthyism during the 1950s, efforts that were not spearheaded by the AAUP. In these years, stated Reichman (2021), the AAUP, at least initially, failed to initiate a widespread defense of faculty members and academic freedom, which also “merged” with hostility by White southerners to academics who sought to challenge segregation (p. 21; see also Williamson-Lott, 2013; Aby, 2009). Even as colleges and universities began to expand tenure systems and adopt the 1940 Statement after World War II, many institutions and the AAUP, due to fears over communism, regularly acquiesced to the dismissal of professors (around 100 by one count) or the refusal to hire or rehire individuals based on real or perceived ties to communist or related organizations (Aby, 2009). In this climate, the judiciary would eventually act, albeit inconsistently, to rein in some of the governmental excesses of the McCarthy Era and fears over communism. One result of these judicial endeavors was the emergence of academic freedom as a “special concern” of the First Amendment (Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 1967, p. 603). Since then, a key issue has become the extent to which the First Amendment serves as a source of legal protection for academic freedom. While the First Amendment has gained prominence in legal debates over academic freedom, Sun (2022) identified “two significant drawbacks to relying on the First Amendment” as a “primary source of law” for academic freedom (p. 42). One drawback is that the First Amendment only applies to public (governmental) actors so that its protections are, absent extraordinary circumstances, applicable only to the actions of public colleges and universities. A private college or university, in an institutional sense, or a professor at a private institution could potentially assert an academic freedom right against state or federal governmental action. But, a professor at a private college or university is not able to challenge the actions of their institutional employer, as they constitute a private rather than a governmental actor, on First Amendment academic freedom grounds. Thus, only professors at public higher education institutions, and not private ones, are able to look to the First Amendment as a source of academic freedom rights that may be asserted against their institutional employer. Another limitation considered by Sun (2022) is that First Amendment standards are not necessarily attuned to institutional academic values and standards such as peer review (see Post (2012) for further consideration of the connections between “expert” or “disciplinary knowledge” and academic freedom) and to institutional inclusivity and equity goals (see the discussion later in the chapter of the Meriwether v. Hartop (2021) case) that comprise the “educational mission” of higher education (Sun, 2022, p. 43). To these potential limitations could be added several other concerns with relying on the First Amendment as a primary source of legal protection for academic freedom. First, it is unclear the extent to which a public higher education institution may successfully assert a First Amendment constitutional claim against another arm of state government, such as the legislature or the executive branch (i.e., the governor). Second, and covered as a central focus for this section, extensive debates and ambiguity have come to infuse the concept of First Amendment academic freedom for professors in public higher education.

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

171

A Promising Start to Academic Freedom and First Amendment Gives Way to Disagreement, Ambiguity, and Confusion Rather than arising solely out of concerns focused on higher education, the First Amendment framework on which a First Amendment role for academic freedom would be based was built on litigation from the 1930s and 1940s involving efforts to repress labor organizers and socialists. Through World War I and the inter-war period, citizen speech often received limited protection from the courts. Individuals could be jailed for up to two decades for speaking out against US foreign policy. Part of the change in legal circumstances came with appointments to the Supreme Court made by President Roosevelt, especially Justices Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson (Heins, 2013). It would take time, and results would be inconsistent, but the building blocks were in place for a more expansive view of First Amendment protections against governmental action, which would eventually come to encompass consideration of academic freedom. Legal controversies over making students salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance illustrate the First Amendment evolutions taking place in these years (Heins, 2013). In Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), a case involving students who were Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools could make students recite the Pledge of Allegiance and salute the US flag. Three years later, however, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the Supreme Court overturned this position in another case again involving students who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. An additional expansion of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of First Amendment speech rights was slow, and it took the appointment of new Court members, notably Earl Warren, to shift the Supreme Court in a decidedly pro–First Amendment position in multiple areas involving speech and expression (Heins, 2013). Within this developing context, academic freedom first entered consideration in Supreme Court opinions in a 1952 case, Adler v. Board of Education. In this case, a majority of the Supreme Court upheld New York’s Feinberg Law. A loyalty law enacted in New York in 1949, the Feinberg Law, as it was known, embodied the fearmongering and excesses of the McCarthy period and intrusions on individual liberties. It was a strident successor to several previous laws intended to help identify and remove public workers, especially teachers, determined by officials to have held membership in subversive organizations (Heins, 2013). In a dissenting opinion in Adler, Justice William O. Douglas provided the first mention of academic freedom in a US Supreme Court case. Douglas warned against intrusions into educational settings and the disruption of academic freedom, stating that the “Constitution guarantees freedom of thought and expression in our society. All are entitled to it; and none needs it more than the teacher” (Adler v. Board of Education, 1952, p. 508). In another case handed down in 1952 (Wieman v. Updegraff), Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote a concurring opinion that objected to a required loyalty oath for state employees (including professors) based on academic freedom principles. The case centered on faculty members in Oklahoma who successfully challenged a statemandated loyalty oath that made no differentiation between “innocent” and

172

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

“knowing” membership in an organization deemed subversive (Wieman v. Updegraff, 1952). Frankfurter and Douglas offered the following sentiments: To regard teachers – in our entire educational system, from the primary grades to the university – as the priests of our democracy is therefore not to indulge in hyperbole. It is the special task of teachers to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens, who, in turn, make possible an enlightened and effective public opinion. . .. They cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions for the practice of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them. (Wieman v. Updegraff, 1952, pp. 196–197)

With the idea of a constitutional dimension to academic freedom introduced into its opinions, the Supreme Court decided a case in 1957 with important academic freedom implications, Sweezy v. New Hampshire. Paul Sweezy, a Marxian economist, refused to answer questions from state officials, including ones related to lectures that he had given at the University of New Hampshire and about his writings. As a result, Sweezy was held in contempt of court. A majority of the Court, in overturning Sweezy’s conviction, relied partially on principles of academic freedom but did not squarely base the ruling on academic freedom grounds. In a well-known concurring opinion, Justice Felix Frankfurter, looking at a statement from a group of South African scholars, argued for the “four essential freedoms” of a university: “to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study” (Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957, p. 263). The Supreme Court’s rhetoric in support of academic freedom perhaps reached its strongest iteration in the 1967 Keyishian v. Board of Regents case. Again considering the New York law at issue in Adler (1952), the Court this time invalidated the provision on academic freedom grounds: Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom. (Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 1967, p. 603)

Following the rousing statements in Keyishian, academic freedom seemed poised to take hold as a clearly established constitutional doctrine. Instead, despite periodic recognition from the Supreme Court, as when it approved the consideration of race as a factor in higher education admissions (see, e.g., Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003), legal uncertainty has come to surround First Amendment protection for academic freedom. For example, in a case involving the dismissal of a student for poor academic performance, the Supreme Court noted the importance of deference to higher education institutions as an exercise of academic freedom, but, in a footnote in the opinion, the Court hinted at ambiguity over whether First Amendment academic freedom rights accrue to individual faculty members or to the institution or to both: Academic freedom thrives not only on the independent and uninhibited exchange of ideas among teachers and students, . . . but also, and somewhat inconsistently, on autonomous decision-making by the academy itself. (University of Michigan v. Ewing, 1985, p. 222, fn. 7)

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

173

Subsequent decisions from the Supreme Court and lower courts have not provided clarity over the First Amendment and academic freedom. Among the legal fault lines, are questions about whether academic freedom should be judicially recognized at all under the First Amendment, and if so, if it accrues to individual faculty members or only to institutions. In Urofsky v. Gilmore (2000), for example, a federal appeals court considered the legality of a Virginia law that prohibited state employees from accessing sexually explicit materials on computers owned or leased by the state. A group of faculty members from Virginia public universities argued that the law infringed on the academic freedom rights of professors to access sexually explicit materials for legitimate, work-related purposes. The court rejected the position that previous US Supreme Court decisions had, in fact, established an individual right of academic freedom for professors in public higher education under the First Amendment. According to the appeals court, “The Supreme Court, to the extent it has constitutionalized a right of academic freedom at all, appears to have recognized only an institutional right of selfgovernance in academic affairs” (Urofsky v. Gilmore, 2000, p. 412). Instead of developing clear legal rules grounded in academic freedom principles and matching the rhetoric found in Keyishian, courts have largely looked to other legal standards in deciding cases that implicate faculty academic freedom (Kaplin et al., 2019; Sun & Hutchens, 2019). One reason for this approach is that, unlike in the McCarthy period, most legal disputes since then involving academic freedom center on faculty claims against their institutions and not on governmental actors outside of higher education (Kaplin et al., 2019). With these cases, courts have often turned to the legal standards dealing with the free speech rights of public employees as a general class (Kaplin et al., 2019; Sun & Hutchens, 2019). While not perfect, this approach has resulted in some level of constitutional protection for faculty speech at public colleges and universities. The public employee speech line of cases originated in Pickering v. Board of Education (1968). In Pickering, the Supreme Court considered a case where a secondary public school teacher was dismissed by their school board employer for writing a letter to a newspaper critical of the board’s handling of the school district’s finances. The Court ruled that the teacher’s firing violated the First Amendment, as the letter addressed an issue of public concern. It rejected the school district’s arguments that the letter interfered with the board’s effective and efficient administration of the school district. Other legal decisions would elaborate on and, in some instances, narrow the potential protections for employee speech. In one case, for instance, the Supreme Court ruled that a public school teacher’s private comments alleging racial discrimination in a school’s hiring practices were protected by the First Amendment (Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 1979). In another decision, the Court decided that speech – in the form of an office memorandum – by an assistant district attorney in New Orleans dealing with office working conditions only dealt with a private (as opposed to public) matter of concern and was not entitled to First Amendment protection (Connick v. Myers, 1983). Under the public employee speech standards developed in these cases, a public university professor’s speech potentially qualified for First Amendment protection

174

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

for speech addressing a matter of public concern. Even with speech on an issue of public concern, a public college or university could assert that legitimate institutional interests trumped those of the faculty member to allow it to censor or otherwise regulate the speech (Sun & Hutchens, 2019). In deciding faculty speech claims in teaching or curricular contexts, alongside the public employee speech standards, courts have also turned to other lines of decision, such as those involving student speech rights. For example, in Bishop v. Aronov (1991), a federal appeals court decided a case in which the University of Alabama ordered a faculty member, Bishop, to stop holding optional, voluntary meetings for an exercise physiology course where the professor talked about the course subject from the perspective of their religious beliefs. While acknowledging the public employee speech standards, the court relied primarily on student free speech cases to uphold the university’s authority to prohibit the faculty member from holding the additional sessions. Specifically, the court looked to a case where the US Supreme Court ruled that a school administrator could censor the articles in a student newspaper produced as part of a journalism class (Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 1988). In the Hazelwood case, the Supreme Court decided that the student speech at issue was school-sponsored in nature and therefore could be subject to heightened regulation compared to student speech not arising in a class or instructional context. Relying on these standards, the Bishop court concluded that the university had raised legitimate concerns over students feeling coerced to attend the additional class meeting held by the professor. Additionally, the court noted the university’s interests in regulating the speech of its professors as public employees, stating: we consider the University’s position as a public employer which may reasonably restrict the speech rights of employees more readily than the those of other persons. As a place of schooling with a teaching mission, we consider the University’s authority to reasonably control the content of its curriculum, particularly that content imparted during class time. Tangential to the authority over its curriculum, there lies some authority over the conduct of teachers in and out of the classroom that significantly bears on the curriculum or that gives the appearance of endorsement by the university. (Bishop v. Aronov, 1991, p. 1074)

As to academic freedom, the court acknowledged its importance but seemingly declined to recognize a stand-alone right under the First Amendment that the professor could claim: Though we are mindful of the invaluable role academic freedom plays in our public schools, particularly at the post-secondary level, we do not find support to conclude that academic freedom is an independent First Amendment right. And, in any event, we cannot supplant our discretion for that of the University. Federal judges should not be ersatz deans or educators. In this regard, we trust that the University will serve its own interests as well as those of its professors in pursuit of academic freedom. University officials are undoubtedly aware that quality faculty members will be hard to attract and retain if they are to be shackled in much of what they do. (Bishop v. Aronov, 1991, p. 1074)

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

175

The Bishop case illustrates how courts have failed to develop a consistent approach to deciding constitutional academic freedom claims by faculty members. Instead of legal standards arising from academic freedom precedent, such as Keyishian, courts have turned to other lines of cases, such as cases dealing with student speech rights or, in particular, ones involving public employee speech rights. Despite drawbacks from often relying on the public employee speech cases, the approach did provide a way for courts to recognize that professors at public higher education institutions possessed First Amendment rights for speech raising academic freedom concerns. However, a 2006 US Supreme Court decision, Garcetti v. Ceballos, threw into doubt the haphazard reliance on public employee speech standards as a source of faculty speech protection for academic freedom.

Garcetti v. Ceballos and New Questions over First Amendment Academic Freedom for Faculty In Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), the Supreme Court ruled that public employees do not possess First Amendment protection for speech made as part of carrying out their official employment duties. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Souter questioned whether the standard applies to faculty in public higher education. In response, the majority responded that he had raised a potentially salient point but one not up for consideration based on the Garcetti facts. Since Garcetti was decided, state and lower federal courts have reached conflicting decisions concerning whether the standard announced in the case applies to faculty members in public higher education when issues of academic freedom are at stake, such as in research and teaching (Kaplin et al., 2019; Sun & Hutchens, 2019). Some courts have applied Garcetti to dismiss faculty lawsuits raising academic freedom concerns. For instance, in two separate cases where faculty members alleged that they had suffered retaliation for raising concerns over grant administration, a federal district court (Huang v. Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia, 2012) and a federal appeals court (Renken v. Gregory, 2008) concluded that the faculty speech at issue dealt with official duties and, based on Garcetti, was ineligible for First Amendment protection. In another case, a faculty member claimed that their nonrenewal to a tenure-track position occurred because of speech made while serving on a hiring committee that was critical of how the committee had considered diversity-related matters (Miller v. University of South Alabama, 2010). The court ruled that the speech did not qualify for First Amendment protection based on Garcetti because part of the professor’s official job duties included such tasks as serving on hiring committees. In yet another representative case, a court applied Garcetti to claims by a clinical veterinarian employed in a faculty research position who claimed that she was retaliated against for speaking out about animal mistreatment (Hrapkiewicz v. Board of Governors of Wayne State University, 2012).

176

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

In contrast to these decisions, other courts, including several federal appeals courts, have identified an academic freedom exception to Garcetti. In one decision, a federal appeals court ruled that a professor had engaged in protected First Amendment speech in relation to a plan that he proposed calling for the reorganization of journalism education at Washington State University (Demers v. Austin, 2014). The court ruled that an exception existed for teaching and scholarship under Garcetti. Instead, when faculty speech involved these domains, courts were to use the balancing approach from the public employee speech standards, such as the Pickering case covered earlier. Importantly, the court stated that the public concern test should be calibrated appropriately for an academic context: The Pickering balancing process in cases involving academic speech is likely to be particularly subtle and “difficult.”. . .The nature and strength of the public interest in academic speech will often be difficult to assess. For example, a long-running debate in university English departments concerns the literary “canon” that should have pride of place in the department’s curriculum. This debate may seem trivial to some. But those who conclude that the composition of the canon is a relatively trivial matter do not take into account the importance to our culture not only of the study of literature, but also of the choice of the literature to be studied. Analogous examples could readily be drawn from philosophy, history, biology, physics, or other disciplines. Recognizing our limitations as judges, we should hesitate before concluding that academic disagreements about what may appear to be esoteric topics are mere squabbles over jobs, turf, or ego. (Demers v. Austin, 2014, p. 413)

Likewise, the court acknowledged the institutional interests present in balancing faculty interests and those of the institution, with the court noting the deference that should be shown to colleges and universities in such matters as promotion and tenure. Meriwether v. Hartop (2021) provides one of the strongest repudiations of applying Garcetti to faculty speech. At the same time, the facts of the case have made many individuals, including those supportive of faculty speech rights, hesitant to look too strongly to the decision as backing for constitutional academic freedom for professors. In the case, a federal appeals court ruled that a professor possessed First Amendment speech rights for refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns. It is important to note that other courts, even if agreeing with the general legal principles laid out by the court in Meriwether, could have concluded that the professor should not have possessed a First Amendment right to refuse to use the student’s preferred pronouns under the balancing approach of the public employee speech standards. As to the general legal standards announced in the case, and distinct from the specific facts of the case, the court ruled that Garcetti did not apply to faculty speech at public colleges and universities, “at least” when professors are “engaged in core academic functions, such as teaching and scholarship” (Meriwether v. Hartop, 2021, p. 505). The court also noted that three other federal appeals courts had taken a similar position regarding faculty speech and Garcetti. The Meriwether (2021) case calls attention to an important point made by Sun, (2022), one noted earlier, about a potential clash between First Amendment standards and the values that comprise the educational mission of higher education. In a

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

177

case like Meriwether, a college or university is faced with reconciling the free speech rights of professors, including those on academic freedom grounds, with other compelling institutional values and goals. Such conflicts can trigger seemingly intractable tensions over rights associated with academic freedom and speech and the rights of individuals and groups to participate in campus life in environments free from marginalizing, demeaning, or hateful speech and expression, including from faculty (see, e.g., Bérubé & Ruth, 2022). Private colleges and universities are not subject to First Amendment requirements, but similar concerns have arisen at these institutions as well. As further elaborated on in the section on future research, a need exists for additional scholarship to help colleges and universities balance the interests of academic freedom and free speech with those of inclusion, equity, and diversity. Another noteworthy tension – one exemplified by events at the University of Florida – deals with faculty academic freedom and/or speech rights under the First Amendment and state government efforts to intrude into faculty academic freedom and autonomy that echo the McCarthy period (Austin v. University of Florida Board of Trustees, 2022). The University of Florida sought to block faculty members from testifying as expert witnesses in litigation that challenged the legality of a voting law in Florida. The university claimed that its interest was enforcing a conflict-of-interest policy, but, in actuality, the institution was seeking to protect its political interests with state officials, especially the governor. Six affected faculty members filed suit, and a federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt the university’s actions. In issuing the injunction, the court, in an opinion harshly critical of the university, compared efforts to stifle faculty speech at the University of Florida as comparable to the repression of faculty academic freedom in Hong Kong in 2021. Looking at the public employee speech standards, the court characterized the professors as seeking to speak in a private citizen capacity that was clearly protected by the First Amendment. The court found it “shocking” that the university argued that it possessed “unlimited discretion” to determine whether it could decide that a faculty member’s testimony as an expert witness could be disallowed based on a determination that such testimony did not serve the university’s interests. While finding the university’s side of the Pickering balancing scale as “empty,” the court stated that important academic freedom considerations supported the faculty members being able to serve as expert witnesses. What is striking about the litigation is that the efforts to prevent the expert testimony by the professors did not deal with the professors carrying out their job duties as professors and, thus, fell outside the Garcetti purview. Instead, the university asserted a right to control the faculty members’ speech as private citizens and not speech related to the carrying out of official job duties. The case highlights the high stakes that have come to surround faculty academic freedom rights in multiple states, such as with legislation aimed at suppressing critical race theory or social justice initiatives in general. Along with the rights of faculty members, the actions at the University of Florida raise questions over the ability of public colleges and universities to assert institutional academic freedom or autonomy rights to blunt infringements on faculty academic freedom

178

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

(below, we look at affirmative action and institutional academic freedom to consider this topic more fully). Post-Garcetti decisions reveal that substantial ambiguity and disagreement characterize constitutional academic freedom for faculty members in public higher education. And as highlighted in Meriwether, important questions exist about how to appropriately balance the interests of faculty in their speech with those of the institution and other stakeholders, such as students. Additionally, cases reveal that courts have followed differential and conflicting legal standards in adjudicating legal cases dealing with faculty academic freedom. Some courts question whether individual faculty members possess any independent constitutional rights for their individual academic freedom and, instead, view academic freedom, if a constitutional right at all, as vesting in institutions. The next section considers how institutional academic freedom considerations have arisen in the context of affirmative action.

Considering Race-Conscious Admissions Cases and Their Implications for Institutional Academic Freedom In considering legal ambiguity around academic freedom, it can be instructive to look at cases involving affirmative action and race-conscious admission policies in higher education (Fernandez & Garces, 2020). Multiple scholars have looked at Supreme Court cases involving race-conscious admissions to analyze whether and how justices acknowledged institutional autonomy in deciding “who may be admitted to study.” Yet, decisions on race-conscious admissions cases also offer insights about how the Court might consider cases involving institutional autonomy along other dimensions of academic freedom. Hiers (2004) argued that the Supreme Court had never acknowledged academic freedom as an institutional right. He noted that when Justice Frankfurter introduced the idea of the “four essential freedoms of a university” he did not refer to them, collectively, as “academic freedom,” nor did Frankfurter relate those freedoms to the First Amendment. Revisiting the original South African text from which the “four essential freedoms” were drawn, Hiers argued that, when read in context, the South African scholars were arguing for institutional autonomy (not “academic freedom”) from the apartheid government so they could admit Black South Africans alongside white South Africans. After establishing the legal ambiguity around academic freedom, Hiers acknowledged that lower courts often operate as though an institutional right to academic freedom exists. He compared the lower court presumption of institutional academic freedom with the Supreme Court’s Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) decision. In Grutter, multiple amicus briefs asserted the University of Michigan’s institutional academic freedom to use race-conscious admissions practices. Though the University of Michigan itself did not assert a right to constitutional academic freedom, the Grutter decision referred to Justice Powell’s Bakke concurrence, claiming that Powell recognized “a constitutional dimension, grounded in the First Amendment, of educational autonomy” (p. 329). Thus, Bakke seemingly perpetuated the notion of an institutional right to academic freedom. In his summary, Hiers (2004) opposed a

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

179

First Amendment basis for institutional academic freedom, yet supported a defense of institutional autonomy and argued courts should give deference to colleges and universities to allow them to fulfill the public good. Reading the same text from Grutter, Byrne (2006) reached a different conclusion from Hiers (2004). Byrne argued that the Grutter decision “represents a high-water mark for the recognition and influence of constitutional academic freedom” (p. 929). Like Hiers (2004), Byrne noted that when Justice O’Connor wrote the majority opinion in Grutter, she drew on Justice Powell’s Bakke analysis that a constitutional right for university autonomy from the state exists under the First Amendment. However, Byrne (2006) also noted that the Grutter Court added its own imprimatur: “universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition” based on “the expansive freedoms of speech and thought associated with the university environment” (Grutter, 2003, p. 312). Byrne understood the Court’s Grutter ruling as indicating that “any state law that bars the use of race in state university admissions violates constitutional academic freedom” (p. 937). He reasoned that Academic freedom is protected by the federal Constitution and includes the authority to use race to some extent. Therefore, any state law—whether passed by initiative or legislature, whether having statutory or constitutional status under state law—that purports to deprive universities of authority to consider race in admissions at all violates the federal constitution. The only point at which opponents could attach this syllogism as a matter of legal reasoning is on the premise that academic freedom is a constitutional right. . . it would introduce a novel notion of what is a constitutional right to hold that one has special, constitutional weight against other constitutionally protected interests while still being vulnerable to state legislation. (Byrne, 2006, pp. 937–938)

Byrne’s remarks indicated that it would be incompatible for the Court to espouse support for academic freedom and a need to defer to institutional autonomy in admission while also allowing a state to limit institutional academic freedom. Yet, that is exactly what happened. In the same year as Byrne reflected on Grutter’s implications for academic freedom, Michigan’s voters adopted Proposal 2 to bar the University of Michigan from using the US Supreme Court’s approved holistic admissions process. Proposal 2 was challenged because it revised the state constitution to ban race-conscious admissions while allowing state universities deference to use admissions policies that favorably consider other, nonacademic factors, such as legacy status and athletic ability. In Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014), the Court’s plurality opinion focused on individual and collective citizen rights, while declining to acknowledge institutional academic freedom for the state’s public universities. Justice Kennedy’s opinion read: Individual liberty has constitutional protection.. . . Yet freedom does not stop with individual rights. Our constitutional system embraces, too, the right of citizens to . . . through the political process, act in concert to try to shape the course of their own times. . .. . . . Were the Court to rule . . . that the policies at issue remain too delicate to be resolved save by university officials or faculties, acting at some remove from immediate public scrutiny and control . . . that holding would be an unprecedented restriction on the exercise of a fundamental right held not just by one person but by all in common. It is the right to speak and debate and learn and then, as a matter of political will, to act through a lawful electoral process. (Schuette, 2014, p. 16)

180

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

The Court’s Schuette rationale illustrated a contradiction Byrne (2006) previously identified but dismissed. According to Byrne (2006), Barbara Grutter’s “constitutional interest . . . to be free from rejection on account of her race would seem as weighty in the constitutional analysis as the political interests of state voters” (p. 938). Byrne held it as a remote possibility that “the Supreme Court might eventually draw such uncouth and gossamer distinctions” (2006, p. 938) that would lead it to reject an individual’s constitutional claim against a university but endorse an electorate’s claim against a university. Yet, the Grutter and Schuette decisions illustrate the Court’s hypocrisy in espousing support for academic freedom, while refusing to protect it. One of the challenges with the Schuette decision was that it signaled, regardless of the Court’s rhetoric about how “universities occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition,” the Court will allow states to restrict public higher education (Grutter, 2003, p. 330, citing Bakke, 1978, p. 312). There is no institutional academic freedom (read, protection from state interference), there is only institutional deference to meet compelling governmental interests in narrowly tailored ways – with state permission. In Keyishian (1967) the Supreme Court invalidated a state statute that infringed on an individual professor’s academic freedom by compelling speech, but the Schuette Court was reluctant to do the same for a state law that limited institutional academic freedom. In the wake of Schuette, social science research suggests that we cannot fully trust public colleges and universities that are responsive to state political pressures to be stewards and guarantors of academic freedom rights for individual faculty. Colleges and universities have repeatedly shown a tendency to not defend faculty, students, programs, or policies in order to avoid political scrutiny (Fernandez & Garces, in press; Garces et al., 2021). Additionally, conservative groups like the Goldwater Institute have circulated model legislation throughout the states to require public colleges and universities to remain silent on issues involving free speech and expression rather than to defend faculty freedoms (Hephner LaBanc et al., 2020). Recent anti-CRT legislative proposals in more than 30 states provide a clarifying context in which to consider potential First Amendment protections for academic freedom, at both the institutional and individual levels. Additionally, legal aspects must be considered alongside political and employment realities. Anti-CRT legislation has highlighted the pragmatic issue of whether public institutions – no matter the stance taken by courts when it comes to the First Amendment and institutional academic freedom – are willing to use assertions of academic freedom to try to stop undue governmental interference. With CRT, few public institutions have seemed willing to do so as of this writing.

Comparative Lens on Academic Freedom Just as Felix Frankfurter did, we can look to international sources of authority to help defend and define academic freedom. Our own legal system has often been limited in its articulations of individual rights, and the US can look to academic freedom mores

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

181

found in other countries and in international agreements. Several international declarations defend academic freedom as essential to fulfilling the fundamental human right to education. Article 26 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) recognizes a right to education and affirms that access to higher education should be “equally accessible to all.” Whatever disagreements may exist in the US about academic freedom as a professional norm or constitutional right, the international community reminds us that academic freedom should be protected as part of our fundamental human rights.

Academic Freedom as a Human Right in International Declarations As the Soviet Union began to dissolve in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many countries experienced turmoil as borders were redefined, economies transitioned, and some leaders jockeyed for power in a disrupted world order. Whether by causation or coincidence, the collapse of the Berlin wall was followed by what has been called “a second independence” movement (Joseph, 1997, p. 363) or a “‘third wave’ of democratization” across Africa (Lynch & Crawford, 2011). Members of the international community have gathered to articulate the rights and responsibilities of academics. For instance, in 1990, at two conventions held in Africa, representatives from academic associations assembled to issue statements on academic freedom. In April 1990, academics gathered in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and stated: We are living in momentous times, ridden with crises but full of hope. . .. Tanzania, like the rest of the African continent, finds itself entangled in a web of socio-economic crises. As budgetary allocations for education become minuscule, education is threatening to become the preserve of a minority of the wealthy and influential in our society. The State has become increasingly authoritarian. . .. Witness the increasingly greater, deeper and more frequent encroachments on academic freedom and freedom to pursue truth and knowledge, particularly at the universities and other institutions of higher education. (“Dar Es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of Academics,” 1990, preamble)

The Dar Es Salaam declaration offered strong language for defining and protecting academic freedom. The spirit of the declaration was later worked into a set of UNESCO recommendations (discussed below). As we have argued in the American context, the Dar Es Salaam declaration suggested that academic freedom could not exist without the employment security offered by tenure. African academics wrote: Teaching and researching members of the academic community once confirmed in employment, shall have security of tenure. No teaching member or researcher shall be dismissed or removed from employment except for reasons of gross misconduct, proven incompetence or negligence incompatible with the academic profession. Disciplinary proceedings for dismissal or removal on grounds stated in this article shall be in accordance with laid down procedures providing for a fair hearing before a democratically elected body of the academic community. (“Dar Es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of Academics,” 1990, ch. 3, section 29)

182

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

The declaration also recognized that, alongside tenure, collective bargaining is a source of protection for academic freedom. The scholars at Dar Es Salaam called for the right of faculty to create or join labor unions as part of broader citizen rights to freely associate. Similar to AAUP statements in the USA, the Dar Es Salaam declaration set out responsibilities for those entrusted with academic freedom. The declaration called for institutions and individual faculty to dedicate themselves to using teaching and research to serve the public good by addressing social problems. The assertion of the twin pillars of rights and responsibilities was seen again later that year when scholars gathered in Kampala, Uganda, to adopt a similar declaration. The 1990 “Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility” sought to create a pan-African movement to strengthen higher education by protecting it from autocratic government leaders. In 1997, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convened in Paris. The UNESCO meeting was tasked with considering how teaching faculty help to fulfill the fundamental right to education asserted in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After the 1997 UNESCO meeting, the body issued its Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel. Prior to listing their recommendations, the UNESCO authors expressed their “concern regarding the vulnerability of the academic community to untoward political pressures which could undermine academic freedom” (p. 46). The report’s opening included the premise: The right to education, teaching and research can only be fully enjoyed in an atmosphere of academic freedom and autonomy for institutions of higher education and . . . the open communication of findings, hypotheses and opinions lies at the very heart of higher education and provides the strongest guarantee of the accuracy and objectivity of scholarship and research. (p. 46)

Having established that the fundamental human right to education can only be fulfilled when academic freedom is secure, UNESCO called for nations to guarantee both institutional and individual academic freedoms. At the institutional level, UNESCO recognized that universities must be free from governmental influence – including from governments using the promise or threat of altering appropriations. Although universities must be accountable to the public, they must have autonomy for self-governance. UNESCO defined autonomy as “the institutional form of academic freedom and a necessary precondition to guarantee the proper fulfillment of the functions entrusted to higher education teaching personnel and institutions” (p. 52). UNESCO then argued that when universities have autonomy, they must extend the same to faculty. Shifting from policymakers to university leaders, UNESCO argued that “autonomy should not be used by higher education institutions as a pretext to limit the rights of higher-education teaching personnel” (p. 52). The recommendations further asserted that institutional policies related to teaching, research, and service should be developed through shared governance processes that include faculty.

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

183

When it comes to individuals, the international community – as represented by UNESCO – clearly posited that academic freedom is inseparable from other human rights. The UNESCO recommendations also addressed the question of whether faculty speech can be regulated or whether faculty should retain all the rights of private citizen speech even when performing work duties. Higher education teaching personnel, like all other groups and individuals, should enjoy those internationally recognized civil, political, social and cultural rights applicable to all citizens. Therefore, all higher education teaching personnel should enjoy freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression, assembly and association as well as the right to liberty and security of the person and liberty of movement. They should not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens, including the right to contribute to social change through freely expressing their opinion of state policies and of policies affecting higher education. They should not suffer any penalties simply because of the exercise of such rights. (p. 55)

Unlike in the USA in which definitions of academic freedom are typically cobbled together as a constitutional doctrine by combing through multiple court decisions, the UNESCO recommendations included a detailed definition of academic freedom: Higher education teaching personnel are entitled to the maintaining of academic freedom, that is to say, the right, without constriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom of teaching and discussion, freedom in carrying out research and disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom to express freely their opinion about the institution or system in which they work, freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in professional or representative academic bodies. (p. 56)

The UNESCO recommendations further linked academic freedom with shared governance by arguing that to achieve the benefits of academic freedom, universities must involve faculty not only in the creation of institutional policies, but also in the creation of the processes by which faculty and administrators will jointly make policies and decisions about university operations. In 2020, as scholars around the globe faced recurring threats to academic freedom (discussed below), the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression issued a report to the seventy-fifth session of the UN General Assembly. The Special Rapporteur, David Kaye, reminded the world that “academic freedom enjoys fundamental protection not only in international human rights instruments but also at the regional level” (Kaye, 2020, p. 10) by pointing to authorities such as The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, The European Court of Human Rights, The European Convention on Human Rights (Article 10), and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa’s (CODESRIA’s) Juba Declaration on Academic Freedom and University Autonomy. Kaye cautioned that any limits on academic freedom that are justified on the basis of preserving traditions, morals, or culture “should be treated with scepticism and extreme caution” (p. 12). Kaye then referred to the UN Human Rights Committee’s (HRC’s) 2011 guidance on the International Covenant on Civil and

184

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

Political Rights. The HRC declared that any “limitations must be understood in the light of universality of human rights and the principle of non-discrimination” (HRC, 2011, p. 8). Clearly, international frameworks suggest that recent US efforts to ban CRT and to erase feminist, gender, and sexuality studies frameworks violate universal principles for eliminating discrimination and protecting fundamental human rights.

Threats to Academic Freedom Around the Globe We are witnessing increasingly common and brazen attacks on faculty and academic freedom around the globe (Hutchens et al., in press). It was reported in 2018 that under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey had dismissed 5,800 university professors without due process (Human Rights Watch, 2018). One survey found that 81% of faculty, instructors, and PhD students agreed “a great deal” with the statement, “The future of academic freedom in Turkey is depressing” (Redlawsk, 2021, p. 916). In June 2020, China imposed a National Security Law on Hong Kong that encourages students to report their faculty for prohibited speech (T. McLaughlin, 2021b). Since 2021, Russia has worked to prevent its scholars from collaborating with the West (Humboldt Foundation, 2021; Schiermeier, 2021). After Russia attacked Ukraine, Russia’s parliament prohibited free speech on the war in Ukraine, and many professors fled Russia (Lem, 2022). How can we understand this rising threat to academic freedom around the globe? Neo-institutional theorists have described the post–World War II era as giving rise to a world society in which shared cultural understandings led to widespread “consensus on the nature and value of such matters as citizen and human rights, the natural world and its scientific investigation, socioeconomic development, and education” (Meyer et al., 1997, p. 148). The rise of education as an institution (Baker, 2014) required governments to protect academic freedom so that schools and universities could help fulfill cultural commitments to respecting the rights of individuals, the scientific and rational pursuit of knowledge, and the promotion of economic development. Neo-institutionalism has explained the processes for the diffusion of models and values, but has never suggested that the values around education, democracy, and human rights are universal (e.g., Fernandez & Baker, 2016; Fernandez & Powell, 2022). In fact, the neo-institutional theory has also been applied to understand autocratic values and models of governance (e.g., Schedler, 2009), and neo-institutionalism is now being used to understand the diffusion of illiberalism around the globe. A neo-nationalist movement is materializing as countries such as Russia (Chirikov & Fedyukin, 2021) and China (Fischer, 2021) are using a top-down approach to silence discourse about individual rights and democratic values. The fact that Russia and China are openly wielding their universities as tools to promote cultural understandings and values that reinforce state authority should be viewed as a cautionary tale to the USA. As illiberal and neo-nationalist values become further entrenched in some parts of the world – and spread beyond those nations’ borders –

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

185

we may find that international declarations on the importance of academic freedom such as the 1997 UNESCO recommendations and the Dar Es Salaam and Kampala declarations were the high point of global recognition of the importance of academic freedom. Science is a global enterprise that demands cross-national collaboration. The Chinese model of science may be in an untenable position. China has sought to increase its share of global research output. Across all fields, China is now the second-largest producer of research publications, and in some physical science fields, it is the single largest producer of new scholarship (Marginson, 2022). China’s rapid advance from the periphery to the core of global science was achieved, in part, through international collaboration – particularly with researchers in the USA. In 2011, around 40% of science, technology, engineering, math, and healthrelated articles published by Chinese researchers had US coauthors. That dwarfed the proportion of American science that included Chinese coauthors: around 16% in 2011 (Zhang et al., 2017). So, although China is managing to repress academic freedom while out producing the world in academic research, it appears to be doing so by collaborating with authors who are freer from state repression. Though academic freedom in the USA is not perfect, the Chinese model of science appears to depend upon being a free rider on academic freedom abroad. Threats to academic freedom in – and from – other countries are alarming US policymakers and academics. A Wilson Center study found that Chinese “diplomats, government-affiliated entities, a small number of students, and other campus actors have attempted in recent years to infringe on the academic freedom and personal safety of university persons on American campuses” (Lloyd-Damnjanovic, 2018, p. 113). Though relatively rare, state-sponsored Chinese actors engage in a range of activities to monitor, influence, and induce the termination of academic activities involving sensitive content on American campuses. Complaints, delegation visits, pressure and inducements, probes for information, and intimidating modes of conversation are all approaches PRC [People’s Republic of China] diplomats may employ against offending academics or American institutions. (Lloyd-Damnjanovic, 2018, p. 114)

Overseas sources of repression are palpable on US campuses. Chinese international students in the U.S. have reported being monitored. Their families back home have been threatened and used as leverage to silence Chinese student activism in the USA (e.g., Rotella, 2021). In 2020, the US Justice Department launched its “China Initiative” to disrupt Chinese espionage, particularly on US campuses. That year, the Justice Department arrested a handful of Chinese researchers who failed to disclose affiliations with the Chinese military or Communist Party. It also tracked nearly 1,000 researchers with links to the Chinese military who returned to China after the Justice Department began to scrutinize Chinese researchers in the USA. The Justice Department’s efforts have been interpreted as seeking to “decouple” collaboration between the two countries (Sharma, 2020). Following the launch of the US Department of Justice’s China Initiative, the Florida legislature adopted two bills that could curb research

186

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

collaboration between the US and Chinese academics (Rohrer, 2021). Additionally, the US House of Representatives adopted legislation to withhold federal research dollars from scholars if they also receive funding from China (Flatley & Lorin, 2021). Higher education and science have always been marked by internationalization. Yet, we must also recognize how academic freedom and repression traverse international boundaries. In addition to China monitoring the activities of Chinese nationals in the USA (e.g., Rotella, 2021), there are concerns about US universities being able to guarantee academic freedom for faculty and students at overseas branch campuses. For instance, Northwestern University faculty were concerned that the university proposed adopting language that indicated it would defer to local laws for international branch campuses that limited speech and expression (S. McLaughlin, 2021a). Similarly, some UK academics left branch campuses in China after observing waning academic freedom (Times Higher Education, 2021). Concerns over Chinese infringements on academic freedom are troubling, but it rings hollow for US elected officials to question the academic freedom and integrity of researchers in China while attempting to limit academic freedom in the US. Advocacy for academic freedom cannot be limited to a single country. Following international conventions, we must advocate and study academic freedom as an essential prerequisite to fulfilling education as a fundamental human right.

Opportunities for Future Research About the Importance of Academic Freedom Throughout this chapter, we have considered multiple challenges to academic freedom. In the United States, academic freedom developed both as a professional standard and, later, as a constitutional concept. Presently, both these approaches as mechanisms to protect academic freedom face a contentious future. The chapter also examined the concept of academic freedom as grounded in human rights, which is how international discourse often frames threats to academic freedom. Given the array of challenges to academic freedom nationally and globally, there exists a need for a greater body of replicable, trustworthy, and generalizable empirical studies to help us understand threats to and the importance of academic freedom – not solely for the benefit of faculty – but to support higher education as a social institution and to promote the public good. At present, there is a lack of generalizable, empirical research on academic freedom. For instance, one study examines the relationship between academic freedom and broader social measures of the quality of democracy on the African continent (Kratou & Laakso, 2020). Other studies have sought to code different sources of legal protection for academic freedom throughout Europe (Council of Europe and Open Society University Network’s Global Observatory on Academic Freedom, 2021; Karran, 2007). A third example of empirical work is a survey of Australian social scientists’ views of academic freedom (Åkerlind & Kayrooz, 2003). Compared to empirical work, it is easier to find scholarly papers that make

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

187

normative legal and historical arguments about academic freedom in higher education (e.g., Altbach, 2001), particularly in Anglophone countries such as the USA (Williams, 2006), Canada (e.g., Hogan & Trotter, 2013), and the United Kingdom (Berdahl, 1990). Just as scholars intentionally developed a research agenda to build an empirical basis to support race-conscious admissions in the courts (e.g., Hurtado, 2007), we believe that the academy needs to develop an empirical basis for protecting academic freedom. One promising area of ongoing and future research relates to the importance of academic freedom as, essentially, an input in research production (in the way that rule of law is required as an essential part of the economic environment for market capitalism). In the twenty-first century knowledge economy, countries see science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields as holding incredible promise for economic development. Many nations have reoriented their policies to support STEM innovation and workforce training (e.g., Drori, 2000). As countries work toward expanding STEM research, higher education as a social institution has outpaced traditional institutions (the state, military, and business firms) in producing basic and applied research around the globe (Powell et al., 2017). Although universities are increasingly important sites of knowledge production, few scholars have examined the extent to which academic freedom influences research output. Fernandez and Baker (2017) examined multiple features of US higher education and their relation to the nation’s research output. While they speculated that academic freedom is one of the conditions of U.S. higher education that has allowed it to produce a plurality of the world’s research since the latter half of the twentieth century, they did not empirically test this hypothesis. Scholars may now use new cross-national, longitudinal, quantitative measures of academic freedom to examine higher education and national outcomes over time. For instance, the V-Dem Institute has developed the Academic Freedom Index (Spannagel et al., 2020), which offers internationally comparable measures of academic freedom over time. The innovative academic freedom data can be merged with STEM publication data (Powell et al., 2017) to examine the relationship between country-level academic freedom and research production over time (see Fig. 1). These figures show that multiple countries (e.g., Hungary, Korea, Poland, Romania, Turkey) substantially improved academic freedom during the quarter century between 1980 and 2005. The figures also show a positive correlation between academic freedom and STEM research production in the two time periods among the selection of countries (although the relationship seemed to be stronger in 1980 when there was more heterogeneity in academic freedom measures among the sample countries). Preliminary analyses of panel data (not presented) indicate that the correlation is statistically significant over time even after controlling for factors such as the size of a country’s higher education system, research and development spending, and the size of a nation’s economy. Additional analysis could examine the relationship between academic freedom and non-STEM research production over time. Analyses with more recent data should consider the implications of the declines in academic freedom that have occurred in many countries. Between 2005 and 2020, Academic Freedom Index scores substantially declined in Brazil (0.95 in 2005 to

188

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

Fig. 1 Scatterplot of academic freedom and STEM research production for 19 countries in 1980 (left panel) and 2005 (right panel). (source: Author’s calculations of data from V-Dem Institute’s Academic Freedom Index and SPHERE’s STEM publication data (see Powell et al., 2017 and Spannagel et al., 2020))

0.40 in 2020), China (0.28 in 2005 to 0.09 in 2020), India (0.67 in 2005 to 0.46 in 2020), and Turkey (0.60 in 2005 to 0.08 in 2020). Figures 2 and 3 are global maps that shade countries based on V-Dem Institute’s Academic Freedom Index values in 2005 and 2020. Darker shading indicates higher academic freedom while lighter shading indicates more repression. With multivariate analysis, scholars could also examine academic freedom as a predictor of a country’s number of highly ranked universities using different international ranking systems (see e.g., Luque-Martínez & Faraoni, 2020). Because academic freedom typically encompasses faculty speech in the classroom, scholars could also examine the relationship between academic freedom and the quality of instruction using the Times Higher Education Teaching Rankings (2022). Alternately, researchers could use national averages from existing international crosssectional datasets to examine relationships between academic freedom and college graduates’ attitudes toward learning. For instance, Liu et al. (2019) used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and the World Bank’s Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) measurement program to examine relationships among educational attainment and constructs like adults’ motivation to learn and self-directedness in learning. PIAAC also contains measures

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

189

Fig. 2 Map of academic freedom in 2005. (Source: V-Dem Institute, https://www.v-dem.net/data_ analysis/MapGraph/)

Fig. 3 Map of academic freedom in 2020. (Source: V-Dem Institute, https://www.v-dem.net/data_ analysis/MapGraph/)

of social trust, which might be influenced by a country’s level of academic freedom. Organizational surveys, such as the Pew Research Center’s 2018 survey of 27 countries, could be used to examine academic freedom as a correlate of attitudes toward diversity, gender equity, and religion (Poushter & Fetterolf, 2019).

190

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

Additionally, scholars may consider creating new cross-national datasets by building longitudinal datasets based on annual monitoring reports of violations against academic freedom. For instance, researchers could work with Scholars at Risk’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, which collects and reports data on attacks against academics, including those that result in violence, imprisonment, prosecution, and dismissal (Scholars at Risk, n.d.). Scholars at Risk uses its monitoring data to produce annual reports as part of its Free to Think series, and the underlying data from the annual reports could be used to develop a cross-national, longitudinal database of academic freedom violations that would serve as an alternative to V-Dem’s Academic Freedom Index. Whereas V-Dem academic freedom indices tend to rely on Bayesian item response theory measurement models of perceptions of academic freedom, the monitoring data could measure incidents (count data) and severity of repression. Within the USA, the National Center for Education Statistics has not funded a faculty survey since the 2003–2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. We need nationally representative data of faculty working conditions, including academic freedom, tenure (or other forms of job security), and unionization. Such data could potentially help scholars measure the “chilling effects” of state legislation, court decisions, and institutional policies that suppress academic freedom as a human right, especially among women and racially minoritized scholars who are disproportionately hired to non-tenure-track faculty positions. Data on academic freedom could be used to examine institutional outcomes, such as grant activity, publications, and faculty retention. In the absence of federal data, scholars could consider using data from the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), which includes survey items that ask faculty whether they agree that “academic freedom” is one of the “best” or “worst aspects about working at [their] institution.” Using COACHE data, researchers could regress faculty member’s intent to leave upon their perceptions of academic freedom. Alternately, scholars could collect original data on faculty members’ understanding and perceptions of academic freedom. In spring 2022 faculty were awarded $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation to pilot the Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments (FACE) survey (University of Southern California, 2022). Although it is not clear the extent to which the FACE survey will examine academic freedom concerns, a survey with a large enough sample size could use multi-level regression and post-stratification (Park et al., 2004; Lax & Phillips, 2009) and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) information to estimate state-level measures of faculty members’ perceptions of academic freedom or potential chilling effects of changes in political and legal contexts, including constitutional or statutory protections for institutional autonomy, post-tenure review provisions, or CRT bans. Multi-state data collection could borrow from V-Dem’s approach for gathering cross-national data. Still, we caution against building a research base solely around supporting the instrumental uses of academic freedom. As US legislators are working to ban Critical Race Theory and other critical ways of teaching and doing research (see, e.g., Miller et al., in press), we need to recognize that, for generations, the

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

191

beneficiaries of academic freedom have disproportionately been White, male faculty; thus, we also suggest a continuing need for new scholarship, broadly construed, that shows the importance of academic freedom for individual faculty and institutions in challenging inequities in higher education and society. Such scholarship needs to take into account how previous interpretations and implementations of academic freedom (and tenure) in the United States have too often reflected norms and standards developed predominantly by White males (see, e.g., Allen, 2021; Guillaume & Apodaca, 2022). If academic freedom is to continue (and to be strengthened) as a viable professional concept and as a constitutional one, then standards associated with academic freedom need to reflect a pluralistic society and the critical imperative to create a more diverse professoriate. If tenure is to persist, then there are questions over how and to what extent tenure and promotion standards enhance or inhibit the academic freedom of scholars, especially for women and People of Color. For instance, studies show that faculty who are women and People of Color face tenure journeys that are often unfair – such as failing to take heightened service contributions into account for tenure and promotion – and dismissive of research by these faculty members that challenge the status quo of fields and disciplines that have been dominated by White males (see, e.g., Domingo et al., 2022; Bérubé & Ruth, 2022; Settles et al., 2021; Kelly & Winkle-Wagner, 2017). In addition to making more tenure lines available, rehabilitation of tenure includes a need for ongoing scholarship to make promotion and tenure standards more equitable and inclusive. Scholarship related to academic freedom must also reckon with changes in faculty appointment type and continue to build on studies that consider linkages between academic freedom and faculty appointment type, with an emphasis especially needed on non-tenure-track faculty (see, e.g., Rhoades, 2021; Smith, 2015; Kezar & Maxey, 2014). As higher education has become more reliant on non-tenuretrack faculty members, there needs to be a serious reckoning for academic freedom at the individual level. If tenure is, perhaps, in a state of permanent decline, then scholars need to seriously consider whether other faculty appointment arrangements can, in fact, sufficiently protect the academic freedom of faculty members. For instance, what structures or mechanisms are required to safeguard the academic freedom of non-tenure-track faculty members in both full-time and part-time positions? Unionization activity has arisen among faculty members, and a need exists for ongoing research to study the effectiveness of collective bargaining agreements in protecting academic freedom. Future studies can help inform what types of employment arrangements and job security are needed to result in discernable individual academic freedom for non-tenure-track faculty. There are also linkages that future studies could help to build between legal (doctrinal) scholarship on academic freedom and that draw from the social sciences and humanities. For example, current legal academic freedom debates are centered largely around issues of First Amendment protection for academic freedom, with substantial ambiguity, disagreement, and confusion over the First Amendment and academic freedom. From a pragmatic standpoint, future studies could deepen our understanding of whether or to what extent a First Amendment right to academic

192

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

freedom is consequential (or not) to individual faculty members serving without the employment protections of tenure. That is, the import of First Amendment protections for individual academic freedom are connected to larger trends in faculty employment and higher education generally. Studies that link legal (doctrinal) research from the social sciences and humanities could help to clarify when faculty members are able to assert constitutional academic freedom protections in actionable ways. Studies could also help develop additional avenues of research to link legal and social science research in connection to academic freedom, such as state laws or constitutional provisions dealing with education (e.g., provisions about the right to receive an education, faculty tenure, or the powers of higher education governing boards to operate independently), state-based civil-service laws for public employees (which may include faculty), or federal and state collective bargaining laws. Tensions have also arisen over individual academic freedom (and free speech) considerations and efforts by colleges and universities to establish campus environments that are inclusive. In campus debates in this area, pressure has come from the political and social left for institutions to quelch speech that is harmful or demeaning to individuals or groups that face ongoing marginalization and discrimination. Continuing scholarship is needed to help institutions balance and navigate their commitments in both these critical areas (for works dealing with this issue, see, for example, Ben-Porath, 2017; Hephner LaBanc et al., 2020; Sun & McClellan, 2019). In producing scholarship that aids all institutions (both public and private) in responding to this complex area of tension, researchers should consider the legal discretion of private colleges and universities – as not bound by the First Amendment – to devise standards that uphold academic freedom and support institutional goals related to inclusiveness and diversity. Current legal debates over First Amendment academic freedom have also extended to the concept of institutional academic freedom for public colleges and universities. As with questions over the First Amendment and individual academic freedom rights, future studies could provide important elaboration on the topic of institutional academic freedom. Holding aside questions over how far courts would go in recognizing a constitutional academic freedom right that accrues at the institutional level, there are important unknowns over the extent to which institutional leaders would be willing to assert such rights, notably against state officials or other governmental entities, to protect academic freedom. As considered in this chapter, for example, higher education administrators in Florida did not assert academic freedom rights in opposition to the state’s anti-CRT law or in efforts to halt the testimony of professors at the University of Florida. One path for future research is to consider what conditions are needed for institutional leaders (or governing boards) to assert institutional autonomy (or institutional academic freedom) principles in protecting academic freedom along both its collective and individual dimensions. Besides the subjects addressed in this chapter, there are ample candidates for other lines of research that implicate academic freedom. For example, there is a place for additional research that studies the connections between academic freedom and accreditation. Or, continuing scholarship is welcome that examines the increasingly

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

193

close intersections between academic freedom and online and hybrid teaching. Disagreement endures over the role of institutional review boards to regulate research and potential conflicts with academic freedom. As institutions seek financial support from external entities, questions routinely arise about providing third parties, such as individuals or corporate donors, with inappropriate influence over academic appointments and research agendas. In these and other areas, there are important research opportunities to study how multiple forces in and affecting higher education have consequences for academic freedom.

Conclusion Academic freedom represents what the eminent sociologist Burton Clark (1956) referred to as a “precarious” value in American higher education (p. 327). Clark explained that “social values tend to be precarious when they are undefined” (1956, p. 328). Conversely, “secure values . . . are those that are clearly defined in behavior and strongly established in the minds of many. Such values literally take care of themselves” (Clark, 1956, p. 329). As we have covered in this chapter, the precariousness of academic freedom is not new. Instead, the concept emerged as a professional norm with the rise of the research university. The Supreme Court appeared for a time to firmly constitutionalize academic freedom – mostly because the interest of academics aligned with the Court’s interest in showing respect for individual rights during the height of the Cold War (Heins, 2013; see also Bell’s 1980 description of a larger pattern of converging interests during the period). However, the Supreme Court failed to build on its early rhetoric and never clearly defined academic freedom as a constitutional right (conversely, think of the ways the Court has articulated corporate speech rights so as to enable the classification of campaign donations as free speech). The ill-defined concept of academic freedom is precarious, whereas gun rights and property rights are secure. Clark argued that precarious values can only be made more secure through the work of “deliberately intentioned agents” who can help make precarious values “normatively defined, or socially established, or both” (Clark, 1956, p. 329). In this chapter, we have offered normative and legal historical context to inform scholars who wish to shore up the precarious value of academic freedom. In the normative sense, scholars should continue to argue that academic freedom is essential to faculty members’ ability to exercise professional autonomy and for institutions to serve the public good. Institutions that espouse support for academic freedom must demonstrate that commitment by linking academic freedom to employment security through greater opportunities for tenure (or comparative employment arrangements) and collective bargaining. The value of academic freedom can never be secure if the nature of faculty work is precarious. Additionally, courts must also offer a consistent, viewpoint-neutral framework for protecting faculty speech. In this chapter, we have also called for new research to help establish academic freedom as socially beneficial. For instance, we offered a brief glimpse of how national-level measures of academic freedom correlate with STEM research

194

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

production – a key fact as countries compete to be centers of scientific and economic innovation. As institutions, states, and countries work to recruit and retain the best talent, we also encourage researchers to examine faculty members’ perceptions of academic freedom as predictors of intent to leave their universities. Above all, we encourage faculty to consider that, for decades, international bodies have affirmed that academic freedom is a human right. International declarations have variously interpreted academic freedom as part of the right to free speech and expression or as a necessary precursor to fulfilling the fundamental right to education. Either way, the global polity, through multiple international declarations, has outpaced the USA in delineating a framework for the rights of faculty to speak and pursue knowledge – and for the rights of students to learn and society to receive uncensored expertise. Even after banning race-conscious admissions and hiring in many states, US policymakers still see universities becoming more diverse. Having failed to stop people of color at the gates, some policymakers are seeking to silence their voices and ban the frameworks that call attention to institutionalized racism and sexism (i.e., CRT, intersectionality). In other words, as the numerical presence of racially minoritized students and faculty is becoming more secure in higher education, academic freedom is becoming more precarious. We argue that academic freedom needs firm normative and social bases in order for higher education to help improve equity in society and serve the public good.

References Aby, S. H. (2009). Discretion over valor: The AAUP during the McCarthy years. American Educational History Journal, 36(1), 121–132. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/ discretion-over-valor-aaup-during-mccarthy-years/docview/230079929/se-2 Alfonseca, K. (2022, March 24). Map: Where anti-critical race theory efforts have reached. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/map-anti-critical-race-theory-efforts-reached/story? id¼83619715 Allen, R. N. (2021). From academic freedom to cancel culture: Silencing Black women in the legal academy. UCLA Law Review, 68, 364–409. http://www.uclalawreview.org/from-academicfreedom-to-cancel-culture-silencing-black-women-in-the-legal-academy/ Altbach, P. G. (2001). Academic freedom: International realities and challenges. Higher Education, 41(1), 205–219. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026791518365 Åkerlind, G. S., & Kayrooz, C. (2003). Understanding academic freedom: The views of social scientists. Higher Education Research & Development, 22(3), 327–344. https://doi.org/10. 1080/0729436032000145176 American Association of University Professors. (2015). Policy documents and reports (11th ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. American Association of University Professors. (2021a). The annual report on the economic status of the profession, 2020–21. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.aaup.org/file/AAUP_ ARES_2020-21.pdf American Association of University Professors. (2021b). Academic freedom and tenure: University System of Georgia. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.aaup.org/file/AcademicFree domTenure_UniversitySystemGeorgia.pdf

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

195

American Association of University Professors. (2022). The 2022 AAUP survey of tenure practices. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.aaup.org/file/2022_AAUP_Survey_of_Tenure_ Practices.pdf Austin v. University of Florida Board of Trustees, No. 1:21CV184-MW/GRJ, 2022 WL 195612 (N.D. Fla. Jan. 21, 2022). Baker, D. P. (2014). The schooled society: The educational transformation of global culture. Stanford University Press. Bauer-Wolf, J. (2022 , Feb 22). Texas lieutenant governor vows to end tenure at public colleges. Higher Ed Dive. https://www.highereddive.com/news/texas-lieutenant-governor-vows-to-endtenure-at-public-colleges/619213/ Bell, D. A., Jr. (1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 93(3), 518–533. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1340546 Ben-Porath, S. R. (2017). Free speech on campus. University of Pennsylvania Press. Berdahl, R. (1990). Academic freedom, autonomy and accountability in British universities. Studies in Higher Education, 15(2), 169–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079012331377491 Bérubé, M., & Ruth, J. (2022). Race, democracy, and the future of academic freedom: It’s not free speech. Johns Hopkins University Press. Bishop v. Aronov, 926 F.2d 1066 (11th Cir. 1991). Branham v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 689 F.3d 558 (6th Cir. 2012). Byrne, J. P. (1989). Academic freedom: A ‘special concern of the First Amendment’. Yale Law Journal, 99, 251–340. https://www.jstor.org/stable/796588 Byrne, J. P. (2006). Constitutional academic freedom after Grutter: Getting real about the four freedoms of a university. University of Colorado Law Review, 77, 929–953. https://heinonline. org/HOL/P?h¼hein.journals/ucollr77&i¼939 Cain, T. R. (2020). Collective bargaining and Committee A: Five decades of unionism and academic freedom. Review of Higher Education, 44(1), 57–85. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2020.0035 Chirikov, I., & Fedyukin, I. (2021). The role of universities in Putin’s Russia: Reinforcing the state. In J. Douglas (Ed.), Neo-nationalism and universities: Populists, autocrats, and the future of higher education (pp. 220–238). Johns Hopkins University Press. Clark, B. R. (1956). Organizational adaptation and precarious values: A case study. American Sociological Review, 21(3), 327–336. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2089288 Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983). Council of Europe and Open Society University Network’s Global Observatory on Academic Freedom. (2021). A study on the relationship between fundamental values of higher education and quality assurance. Central European University. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https:// elkanacenter.ceu.edu/sites/elkanacenter.ceu.edu/files/attachment/basicpage/131/ coestudyfinal.pdf Dar Es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of Academics. (1990). Retrieved June 28, 2022, from http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/africa/DARDOK.htm Dartmouth College. (n.d.). Dartmouth College charter. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www. dartmouth.edu/library/rauner/dartmouth/dartmouth-college-charter.html Demers v. Austin, 746 F.3d 402 (9th Cir. 2014). Domingo, C. R., Gerber, N. C., Harris, D., Mamo, L., Pasion, S. G., Rebanal, R. D., & Rosser, S. V. (2022). More service or more advancement: Institutional barriers to academic success for women and women of color faculty at a large public comprehensive minority-serving state university. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(3), 365–379. https://doi.org/10.1037/ dhe0000292 Drake, A., Struve, L., Meghani, S. A., & Bukoski, B. (2019). Invisible labor, visible change: Nontenure-track faculty in a research university. The Review of Higher Education, 42(4), 1635–1664. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0078 Drori, G. S. (2000). Science education and economic development: Trends, relationships, and research agenda. Studies in Science Education, 35(1), 27–57. https://www.proquest.com/ scholarly-journals/science-education-economic-development-trends/docview/222855009/se-2

196

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

Eastman, N. J., & Boyles, D. (2015). In defense of academic freedom and faculty governance: John Dewey, the 100th anniversary of the AAUP, and the threat of corporatization. Education and Culture, 31(1), 17–43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5703/educationculture.31.1.17 Eule, B. (2015, January/February). Watch your words, professor. Stanford Magazine. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://stanfordmag.org/contents/watch-your-words-professor Fernandez, F., & Baker, D. P. (2016). Educational transformations: Work and government policy in the schooled society. In J. Cote & A. Furlong (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of higher education (pp. 369–379). Routledge. Fernandez, F., & Baker, D. P. (2017). Science production in the United States: An unexpected synergy between mass higher education and the super research university. In J. J. W. Powell, D. P. Baker, & F. Fernandez (Eds.), The century of science: The global triumph of the research university (International perspectives on education and society series) (Vol. 33, pp. 85–111). Emerald Publishing. Fernandez, F., & Garces, L. M. (in press). The influence of repressive legalism on admissions. In O. A. Poon & M. N. Bastedo (Eds.), Gatekeeping in higher education: Research-based practice and policy in college admissions. Harvard Education Press. Fernandez, F., & Garces, L. M. (2020). Equity in higher education: Affirmative action. In M. David & M. Amey (Eds.), The SAGE encyclopedia of higher education. SAGE. Fernandez, F., & Powell, J. J. W. (2022). Neo-institutional approaches to understanding how higher education transforms society and the world of work. In J. Cote & S. Pickard (Eds.), Routledge handbook of the sociology of higher education (2nd ed.). Routledge. Fischer, K. (2021). Nationalism revived: China’s universities under President Xi. In J. Douglas (Ed.), Neo-nationalism and universities: Populists, autocrats, and the future of higher education (pp. 16–201). Johns Hopkins University Press. Fish, S. (2014). Versions of academic freedom: From professionalism to revolution. The University of Chicago Press. Flaherty, C. (2021, Oct. 14). Georgia regents approve controversial tenure policy changes. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/10/14/georgia-regents-approvecontroversial-tenure-policy-changes Flatley, D., & Lorin, G. (2021, July 19). US Congress takes aim at China’s recruitment of scientists. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/7/19/us-congress-takes-aim-at-chinasrecruitment-of-scientists Garces, L. M., Johnson, B. D., Ambriz, E., & Bradley, D. (2021). Repressive legalism: How postsecondary administrators’ responses to on-campus hate speech undermine a focus on inclusion. American Educational Research Journal, 58(5), 1032–1069. https://doi.org/10. 3102/00028312211027586 Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). Geiger, R. L. (2000a). Introduction. In R. Geiger (Ed.), The American college in the nineteenth century (pp. 1–36). Vanderbilt University Press. Geiger, R. L. (2000b). The era of the multipurpose colleges in American higher education, 1850–1890. In R. Geiger (Ed.), The American college in the nineteenth century (pp. 127–152). Vanderbilt University Press. Geiger, R. L. (2015). The history of American higher education. Learning and culture from the founding to World War II. Princeton University Press. Geiger, R. L. (2019). American higher education since World War II: A history. Princeton University Press. Gersen, J. S. (2022). Academic freedom and discrimination in a polarizing time. Houston Law Review, 59, 781–801. https://houstonlawreview.org/article/35599.pdf Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 439 U.S. 410 (1979). Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003). Guillaume, R. O., & Apodaca, E. C. (2022). Early career faculty of color and promotion and tenure: The intersection of advancement in the academy and cultural taxation. Race Ethnicity and Education, 25(4), 546–563. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2020.1718084

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

197

Guizerix, A. (2019, May 21). With dissent: Thomas granted tenure. The Oxford Eagle. https://www. oxfordeagle.com/2019/05/21/with-dissent-thomas-granted-tenure/ Hall, P. D. (2000). Noah Porter writ large? Reflection on the modernization of American education and its critics, 1866–1916. In R. Geiger (Ed.), The American college in the nineteenth century (pp. 196–220). Vanderbilt University Press. Hiers, R. H. (2004). Institutional academic freedom – a constitutional misconception: did Grutter v. Bollinger perpetuate the confusion?. Journal of College and University Law, 30(3), 531–581. Huang v. Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia, 896 F. Supp. 2d 524 (W.D. Va. 2012). Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988). Heins, M. (2013). Priests of our democracy: The Supreme Court, academic freedom, and the anticommunist purge. New York University Press. Hephner LaBanc, B., Fernandez, F., Hutchens, N. H., & Melear, K. B. (2020). The contested campus: Aligning professional values, social justice, and free speech. NASPA. Hofstadter, W. P., & Metzger, R. (1955). The development of academic freedom in the United States. Columbia University Press. Hogan, B. E., & Trotter, L. D. (2013). Academic freedom in Canadian higher education: Universities, colleges, and institutes were not created equal. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 43(2), 68–84. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1013588.pdf Hrapkiewicz v. Board of Governors of Wayne State University, No. 11-13418, 2012 WL 393133 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 6, 2012). Human Rights Committee. (2011). General comment No. 34: Article 19: Freedoms of opinion and expression. United Nations. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www2.ohchr.org/english/ bodies/hrc/docs/gc34.pdf Human Rights Watch. (2018, May 14). Turkey: Government targeting academics. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/14/turkey-government-targeting-academics Humboldt Foundation. (2021). Academic Freedom: Russia tightens state control over education. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/explore/newsroom/ news/wissenschaftsfreiheit-russland-verschaerft-staatliche-kontrolle-von-bildungsaktivitaeten Hurtado, S. (2007). Linking diversity with the educational and civic missions of higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 30(2), 185–196. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2006.0070 Hutchens, N. H., Edmondson, M. L., & Fernandez, F. (in press). Academic freedom protections in national and international law. In R. Tierney, F. Rizviand, & K. Ercikan (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (4th ed.). Elsevier. Hutcheson, P. A. (2000). A professional professoriate: Unionization, bureaucratization, and the AAUP. Vanderbilt University Press. Jackman, T. (2014, April 17). Va. Supreme Court rules for U-Va. In global warming FOIA case. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/04/17/va-supremecourt-rules-for-u-va-in-global-warming-foia-case/ Jencks, C., & Riesman, D. (1968). The academic revolution. Doubleday. Joseph, R. (1997). Democratization in Africa after 1989: Comparative and theoretical perspectives. Comparative Politics, 29(3), 363–382. https://www.jstor.org/stable/422126 Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility. (1990). Retrieved June 28, 2022, from http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/africa/KAMDOK.htm Kaplin, W. A., Lee, B. A., Hutchens, N. H., & Rooksby, J. H. (2019). The law of higher education: A comprehensive guide to legal implications of administrative decision making (6th ed.). Jossey-Bass. Karran, T. (2007). Academic freedom in Europe: A preliminary comparative analysis. Higher Education Policy, 20(3), 289–313. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300159 Kaye, D. (2020). Report of the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression [special report on academic freedom protections presented to U.N. General Assembly]. United Nations. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://documentsdds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N20/197/86/PDF/N2019786.pdf?OpenElement

198

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

Kelly, B. T., & Winkle-Wagner, R. (2017). Finding a voice in predominantly White institutions: A longitudinal study of Black women faculty members’ journeys toward tenure. Teachers College Record, 119(6), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811711900604 Keyishian v. Board of Regents of University of State of New York, 385 U.S. 589 (1967). Kezar, A. (2012). Embracing non-tenure track faculty: Changing campuses for the new faculty majority. Routledge. Kezar, A., & Maxey, D. (2014). Understanding key stakeholder belief systems or institutional logics related to non-tenure track faculty and the changing professoriate. Teachers College Record, 116(10), 1–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811411601007 Kratou, H., & Laakso, L., (2020). Academic freedom and the quality of democracy in Africa (Users Working Paper Series 2020:33). The Varieties of Democracy (V-DEM) Institute, University of Gothenburg. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.v-dem.net/media/publications/uwp_ 33.pdf Kumar, D. (2021 December 1). At UF, someone used ‘critical’ and ‘race’ in a sentence: Trouble ensued. Tampa Bay Times. https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2021/11/30/at-ufsomeone-used-critical-and-race-in-a-sentence-trouble-ensued/ Lax, J., & Phillips, J. (2009). How should we estimate public opinion in the states? American Journal of Political Science, 53(1), 197–121. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00360.x Lem, P. (2022, March 14). ‘No future for us left in Russia,’ say fleeing academics. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/no-future-us-left-russia-say-fleeingacademics Lepore, J. (2019). Eugene V. Debs and the endurance of socialism. The New Yorker. https://www. newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/18/eugene-v-debs-and-the-endurance-of-socialism Levine, D. O. (1986). The American college and the culture of aspiration, 1915–1940. Cornell University Press. Liu, H., Fernandez, F., & Grotlüschen, A. (2019). Examining self-directedness and its relationships with lifelong learning and earnings in Yunnan, Vietnam, Germany, and the United States. International Journal of Educational Development, 70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev. 2019.102088 Lloyd-Damnjanovic, A. (2018). A preliminary study of PRC political influence and interference activities in American Higher Education. Wilson Center. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https:// www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/prc_political_influence_full_report.pdf Luque-Martínez, T., & Faraoni, N. (2020). Meta-ranking to position world universities. Studies in Higher Education, 45(4), 819–833. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1564260 Lynch, G., & Crawford, G. (2011). Democratization in Africa 1990–2010: An assessment. Democratization, 18(2), 275–310. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2011.554175 Marcus, J. (2022, March 25). With tenure under attack, professors join forces with a powerful teachers’ union. The Hechinger Report. https://hechingerreport.org/with-tenure-under-attackprofessors-join-forces-with-a-powerful-teachers-union/ Marginson, S. (2022). ‘All things are in flux’: China in global science. Higher Education, 83(4), 881–910. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00712McLaughlin, S. (2021a, August 25). Northwestern faculty debate academic freedom abroad amid changes to faculty handbook. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.thefire.org/northwestern-faculty-debate-academic-freedom-abroadamid-changes-to-faculty-handbook/ McLaughlin, T. (2021b, June 6). How academic freedom ends. Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic. com/international/archive/2021/06/china-hong-kong-freedom/619088/ Meriwether v. Hartop, 992 F.3d 492 (6th Cir. 2021). Metzger, W. P. (1990). The 1940 statement of principles on academic freedom and tenure. Law and Contemporary Problems, 53(3), 3–78. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1191793 Meyer, J. W., Boli, J., Thomas, G. M., & Ramirez, F. O. (1997). World society and the nation state. American Journal of Sociology, 103(1), 144–181. https://doi.org/10.1086/231174

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

199

Miller, V., Fernandez, F., & Hutchens, N. H. (in press). The race to ban race: Legal and critical arguments against state legislation to ban critical race theory in higher education. Journal of College and University Law, 88(1). Miller v. University of South Alabama, No. 09–0146-KD-B, 2010 WL 1994910 (S.D. Ala. May 17, 2010). Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940). Minta, M. (2022, April 21). College presidents now have final say on tenure after IHL quietly revises policy. Mississippi Today. https://mississippitoday.org/2022/04/21/tenure-ihl-revisespolicy/ O’Meara, K., Templeton, L., & Nyunt, G. (2018). Earning professional legitimacy: Challenges faced by women, underrepresented minority, and non-tenure-track faculty. Teachers College Record, 120(12), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811812001203 Park, D., Gelman, A., & Bafumi, J. (2004). Bayesian multilevel estimation with poststratification: State-level estimates from National Polls. Political Analysis, 12(4), 375–385. https://doi.org/10. 1093/pan/mph024 Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). Post, R. C. (2012). Democracy, expertise, and academic freedom: A first amendment jurisprudence for the modern state. Yale University Press. Poushter, J., & Fetterolf, J. (2019, April 22). A changing world: Global views on diversity, gender equality, family life, and the importance of religion. Pew Research Center. https://www. pewresearch.org/global/2019/04/22/a-changing-world-global-views-on-diversity-gender-equal ity-family-life-and-the-importance-of-religion/ Powell, J. J. W., Baker, D. P., & Fernandez, F. (Eds.). (2017). The century of science: The global triumph of the research university (International perspectives on education and society series) (Vol. 33). Emerald Publishing. Redlawsk, D. P. (2021). Academic freedom under attack in Turkey: 2019 presidential address. International Society of Political Psychology, 42(6), 901–921. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops. 12724 Reichman, H. (2021). Understanding academic freedom. Johns Hopkins University Press. Rhoades, G. (2021). Academic freedom in a contingent academy. In J. C. Hermanowicz (Ed.), Challenges to academic freedom (pp. 143–159). Johns Hopkins University Press. Renken v. Gregory, 541 F.3d 769 (7th Cir. 2008). Robertson, K. (2021, November 9). Nikole Hannah-Jones is granted tenure after weekslong dispute. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/business/media/nikole-hannahjones-unc-tenure.html. Rohrer, G. (2021, June 7). DeSantis signs laws to combat Chinese influence at Florida universities. Orlando Sentinel. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-desantis-china-influencebills-20210607-7mlip2poz5hl3pcsokaabdg22i-story.html Rotella, S. (2021, November 30). Even on U.S. campuses, China cracks down on students who speak out. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/even-on-us-campuses-china-cracksdown-on-students-who-speak-out Samuels, W. J. (1991). The firing of E. A. Ross from Stanford University: Injustice compounded by deception? The Journal of Economic Education, 22(2), 183–190. https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 1182424 Schedler, A. (2009). The new institutionalism in the study of authoritarian regimes. Totalitarismus und Demokratie, 6(2), 323–340. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-311637 Schiermeier, Q. (2021, February 12). Russian academics decry law change that threatens scientific outreach. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00385-5 Scholars at Risk. (n.d.). Academic freedom monitoring project. https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/ academic-freedom-monitoring-project-index/ Schuette v. Coalition to defend affirmative action, Integration & Immigration Rights, 572 U.S. 291 (2014).

200

N. H. Hutchens and F. Fernandez

Settles, I. H., Jones, M. K., Buchanan, N. T., & Brassel, S. T. (2021). Epistemic exclusion of women and faculty of color: Understanding scholar(ly) devaluation as a predictor of turnover intentions. The Journal of Higher Education, 93(1), 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1914494 Sharma, Y. (2020, December 12). US targets Chinese talent in drive to ‘decouple’ science. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story¼20201211141 413735 Smith, S. A. (2015). Contingent faculty and academic freedom in the twenty-first century. First Amendment Studies, 49(1), 27–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/21689725.2015.1016362 Spannagel, J., Kinzelbach, K., & Saliba, I. (2020). The academic freedom index and other new indicators relating to academic space: An introduction (Users Working Paper Series 2020:26). The Varieties of Democracy (V-DEM) Institute, University of Gothenburg. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.vdem.net/media/publications/users_working_paper_26.pdf Sun, J. C. (2022). Academic freedom: Its historical development, current state future challenges. In M. N. Bastedo, P. G. Altbach, & P. J. Gumport (Eds.), American higher education in the twentyfirst century: Social, political, and economic challenges (5th ed., pp. 37–67). Johns Hopkins University Press. Sun, J. C., & Hutchens, N. H. (2019). Faculty speech and expression. In S. C. Bon, D. H. K. Nguyen, & J. Rippner (Eds.), Contemporary issues in higher education law (4th ed., pp. 101–127). Education Law Association. Sun, J. C., & McClellan, G. S. (2019). Student clashes on campus: A leadership guide to free speech. Routledge. Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957). Thelin, J. R. (2013). Success and excess: The contours and character of American higher education since 1960. Society, 50(2), 106–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-013-9630-8 Thelin, J. R. (2019). A history of American higher education (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. Thro, W. E. (2020). Follow the truth wherever it may lead: The Supreme Court’s truths and myths of academic freedom. University of Dayton Law Review, 45, 261–286. Tiede, H. J. (2015). University reform: The founding of the American Association of University Professors. Johns Hopkins University Press. Tiede, H. J. (2018). The front rank: On tenure and the role of the faculty in the defense of academic freedom. History of Education Quarterly, 58(3), 441–447. https://doi.org/10.1017/heq.2018.21 Tiede, H. J. (2021). Extramural speech, academic freedom, and the AAUP: An historical account. In J. C. Hermanowicz (Ed.), Challenges to academic freedom (pp. 97–118). Johns Hopkins University Press. Times Higher Education. (2021, August 19). Academics speak out on rising tensions at UK-China branch campuses. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ academics-speak-out-rising-tensions-uk-china-branch-campuses?utm_source¼newsletter& utm_medium¼email&utm_campaign¼editorial-daily&mc_cid¼2745ee9f5d&mc_ eid¼0c80d4d99b Times Higher Education. (2022, June 8). About THE’s rankings. https://www.timeshigher education.com/world-university-rankings/about-the-times-higher-education-world-universityrankings Turner, J., & Bernard, P. (2000). The German model and the graduate school: The University of Michigan and the origin myth of the American university. In R. Geiger (Ed.), The American college in the nineteenth century (pp. 221–241). Vanderbilt University Press. United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (1997). The UNESCO recommendation concerning the status of higher-education teaching personnel. https://unesdoc. unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000160495 University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985).

4

Academic Freedom as a Professional, Constitutional, and Human Right

201

University of Southern California. (2022). USC’s Pullias Center Awarded $1.5 Million from the National Science Foundation to Develop and Test National Survey on Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://pullias.usc.edu/blog/ uscs-pullias-center-for-higher-education-awarded-1-5-million-from-the-national-science-foun dation-to-test-and-develop-national-survey-on-faculty-academic-careers-and-environments/ Urofsky v. Gilmore, 216 F.3d 401 (4th Cir. 2000). Veblen, T. (2015). The higher learning in America: The annotated edition: A memorandum on the conduct of universities by business men. Annotated and edited by R. F. Teichgraeber III. Johns Hopkins University Press. Vesey, L. R. (1965). The emergence of the American university. University of Chicago Press. Wamsley, L. (2021, July 6). After tenure controversy, Nikole Hannah-Jones will join Howard faculty instead of UNC. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/06/1013315775/after-tenurecontroversy-nikole-hannah-jones-will-join-howard-faculty-instead-of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). Williams, R. L. (2006). Academic freedom in higher education within a conservative sociopolitical culture. Innovative Higher Education, 31(1), 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-006-9005-9 Williamson-Lott, J. A. (2013). The battle over power, control, and academic freedom at southern institutions of higher education, 1955–1965. The Journal of Southern History, 79(4), 879–920. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23799247 Wines, M. (2021, November 4). Florida bars state professors from testifying in voting rights case. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/us/florida-professors-voting-rightslawsuit.html Wright, B. (1991). The “untameable savage spirit”: American Indians in colonial colleges. The Review of Higher Education, 14(4), 429–452. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.1991.0007 Zehr, M. A. (2010). Ariz. ELL programs found to violate civil-rights law. Education Week. https:// www.edweek.org/policy-politics/ariz-ell-programs-found-to-violate-civil-rights-law/2010/09 Zhang, L., Sun, L., & Bao, W. (2017). The rise of higher education and science in China. In J. J. W. Powell, D. P. Baker, & F. Fernandez (Eds.), The century of science: The global triumph of the research university (pp. 141–172). Emerald.

Neal H. Hutchens is a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky. His research focuses on legal and policy issues in higher education, with a key strand of his scholarship centered on free speech and academic freedom. Among his publications, Hutchens is on the author team – along with William A. Kaplin, Barbara A. Lee, and Jacob H. Rooksby – for the sixth edition of The Law of Higher Education, a leading treatise on higher education law. Frank Fernandez is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration and Policy and affiliate faculty with the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. He writes about educational equity and policy issues. Fernandez has authored or co-authored articles published by the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, and Higher Education, among others. His research has been funded by groups such as Arnold Ventures, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. Fernandez was a 2022 Scholars at Risk/Mellon Foundation Academic Freedom Fellow

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary Education Through the Equity X Governance Paradigm

5

Demetri L. Morgan , Raquel M. Rall , and Felecia Commodore

Contents Introduction: An Origin Story and the Next Act – Background and Chapter Overview . . . . . . Chapter Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Making the Case for a Paradigm Shift: From Equity and Governance ! Equity X Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relevant Stakeholders: An Ecosystem Perspective on Equity X Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mapping the Governance Ecosystem to Non-GB Actor’s Equity Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Equity X Governance Paradigm’s Nemeses: Naming Ecosystem Bottlenecks . . . . . . . . Readying the Theoretical Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical Race Theory Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Standpoint Theory Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Governance to What End?: A CRT Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Taking a Step Back to Take a Leap Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Governance as Raceless and Unaware of Power Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Equity as the Fulcrum of Governance, But Where and How Do We Apply It: Core Challenges and Opportunities for Boards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Do We Mean by Core Governance Practices? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Save the World on Your Own Time: Navigating “Unchartered” Territory in Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All Eyes on Boards: Opportunities Before Boards of Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wrap Up: The Future of Governance Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

204 206 207 211 211 217 219 220 221 222 222 225 229 230 230 232 233 235

Adrianna Kezar was the Associate Editor for this chapter. D. L. Morgan (*) School of Education, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. M. Rall School of Education, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA F. Commodore Darden College of Education & Professional Studies, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_8

203

204

D. L. Morgan et al.

(Re)Envisioning Governance and Equity for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Equity X Governance Model: A (Re)Envisioned Approach for Transformation . . . . . . Bringing It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Equity X Governance Model Counternarrative: The “Case” of Justice University . . . . Implications for Future Research: Defining a Praxis Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Strengthening the Equity X Governance Paradigm Through Reflective Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . Questions for Future Research Rooted in the Equity X Governance Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodological Advancement: Governance Participatory Action Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

235 238 240 242 243 243 244 246 248 250 251

Abstract

Governing Boards of postsecondary institutions and systems, the stakeholders with the most legal power and responsibility for institutions, do not have a strong record of contributing to equity work. The reality of Board detachment from the intricacies of equity work is compounded by too few scholars locating Boards in organizational equity research. Consequently, lasting institutional transformation remains elusive and the scholarship on Boards remains largely descriptive, raceless, and power-unaware. Accordingly, built on interrelated reviews of existing research and theory, the authors introduce the Equity X Governance (pronounced Equity by Governance) paradigm, which narrates for a shift in praxis toward postsecondary education governance and Boards. This paradigm offers insights for scholars interested in research with Boards or postsecondary governance more generally, from more critical and intersectional stances. We close the chapter with ideas for a research agenda that builds on these conceptual offerings and present emergent examples from practice, research, and teaching that provide insight into operationalizing the Equity X Governance paradigm. Keywords

Critical race theory · Equity · Governing boards · Higher education · Institutional policy · Leadership · Organizational theory · Scientific paradigms · Standpoint theory · Social justice · Trustees

Introduction: An Origin Story and the Next Act – Background and Chapter Overview At the 2015 Association for the Study of Higher Education meeting in Denver, Colorado, Drs. Morgan and Commodore, graduate school friends and colleagues, decided to attend one of the only paper sessions tackling postsecondary education governance issues. Throughout our graduate school experiences, we had found kinship and community in our emerging interest in governance and its role in the pursuit of producing equitable opportunities for people to experience success. As the session began, Dr. Commodore quickly whispered to Dr. Morgan that we were seemingly the only Black people in the room other than one of the paper authors. That author ended up being Dr. Rall, who shared insights into the experiences of

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

205

student trustees that stemmed from her dissertation work on the socialization of boards of trustees (2014). Following the session, Drs. Morgan and Commodore approached Dr. Rall to introduce themselves. Dr. Commodore shared that her dissertation sought to advance our understanding of the role of trust among Board members involved in presidential selection at African Methodist Episcopal (AME) affiliated institutions (2015). Dr. Morgan chimed in that he was pursuing his dissertation research to illuminate the influence of policy and governance on students’ political identity development (2016). We quickly became enraptured in the similarities in our research interests and agenda. Despite the nuanced takes, we found synergy at the intersection of contemporary governance tensions and the realization of equitable opportunities for success. We exchanged contact information and agreed to stay in touch because we each knew that there were few folks who looked like us, “doing the work” to advance equity in governance spaces. The following summer, we met virtually to brainstorm ideas and projects in hopes of continuing our moment. The expansive and overwhelming need for empirical research, theory building, convenings with people in the field, and the generation of practical insights related to governance quickly emerged in our strategy session. We came to a consensus that precisely locating Governing Boards (GB1) in the broader governance research landscape was critical since our individual lines of research had all landed us at the same conclusion: Boards were immensely consequential to a range of issues but were underresearched relative to equity concerns when compared with students, student affairs educators, faculty, administrators, and other institutional stakeholders. Furthermore, we decided that a multi-prong approach was critical if we wanted to move the needle and conversation about governance, GBs, and equity. At that moment, the Critical Higher Education Governance Collaborative was born, made up of two Black women and one Black man, all in the nascent stages of their faculty careers but united in our ultimate vision of helping realize a more just and equitable postsecondary experience for all stakeholders – which we describe throughout as a concern for “equitable opportunities for stakeholder success.” We resigned ourselves to interrupt the norms of governance research even if it Meant we were the lone voice in the literature.

Throughout the manuscript we use the US-centric terminology of “GB(s),” “governing board(s),” “boards,” and “trustees” interchangeably. These terms encapsulate local variations such as Boards of “Curators,” “Governors,” “Regents,” or “Visitors.” Most often we are referring to institutionallevel boards and state-level governing boards together – with the distinguishing characteristic that the Board has consequential decision-making authority for the entity and is understood as the institution or system’s fiduciary (as opposed to a University Foundation Board or an Alumni Board (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges [AGB], 2021; Kezar, 2004; McGuinness, 2016). Further. we do not parcel out nuances between 2-year and 4-year or for-profit and non-profit institutions unless explicitly stated. In addition, when only referencing state-level governing boards, we make the distinction clear. Finally, our chapter is situated in the history, manifestation, and trajectory of US settler colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, anti-LGBTQ actions, and economic stratification (Nicolazzo, 2021; Patel, 2015; Patton, 2016). Our review is not designed to capture the rich comparative governance context and we point readers to resources of interest that informed our thinking from/about non-US contexts but do not land in our review (e.g., Gornitzka et al., 2017; Hartley & Ruby, 2017; Maassen, 2017; Stensaker & Vabø, 2013). 1

206

D. L. Morgan et al.

We intentionally articulate a concern for the somewhat generic “stakeholder success,” because we want to avoid describing the pursuit or realization of desired postsecondary education outcomes (i.e., “success”) only in terms or metrics connected to students (e.g., graduation, retention) or faculty (research productivity, teaching evaluations). Furthermore, we want to avoid being solely concerned with racial/ethnic identities and realities. Instead, given our macro-concern for the entirety of institutions, our expansive proposition is that all stakeholders need to have meaningful opportunities for success that are sensitive to their backgrounds, goals, roles, and contextual realities. Therefore, this stakeholder success stance includes GB, students, staff, faculty, administrators, policymakers, and community members in the surrounding locale. By focusing on stakeholder success we also build on Hurtado et al.’s (2012) diverse learning environments model with a focus on the overarching public good to which institutions seek to contribute (Marginson, 2011), and a consciousness of the unrealized promises of a vibrant and functional democracy (Morgan & Davis, 2019; Saltmarsh & Hartley, 2011). We are not naïve or overly idealistic though – we recognize the necessity of contending with the inherent nuances between stakeholder groupings for a variety of reasons. Throughout this chapter we seek to sit in the tension between an intersectional awareness that interlocking systems of oppression manifest (Collins, 2015; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; Harris & Patton, 2019) and the conviction that White supremacy and colonialization continue to be significant structuring features of postsecondary education organizations (Pasque & Carducci, 2015; Patel, 2015; Ray, 2019) and higher education scholarship (Harper, 2012; Jayakumar et al., 2018; Patton, 2016). Our motivating concern is for all the ways people experience oppression related to their minoritized social identities (Huddy, 2001) on an individual plane and the interlocking systems and structures that maintain those realities (Dache-Gerbino & White, 2016; Garces, 2014; Kimball et al., 2016; Museus, 2014; Nicolazzo, 2021; Renn, 2020b). Throughout, we toggle between a race-centric and intersectional sensibility as just one of many ways to push toward our version of stakeholder success.

Chapter Overview From the extrajudicial slayings of Black and Brown people (Hill, 2016), to the resurgence of campus activism (Davis III et al., 2022), to an increasingly fraught political landscape (Parker, 2019), as well as persistent concerns about the affordability and value of a postsecondary education credential (Conner & Rabovsky, 2011), and a global pandemic that unmasked deep-seated disparities for people of color in higher education and beyond (Kettl, 2020) – much has happened in the world and in US postsecondary education space since our collaborative’s origin story. We have also witnessed and been party to an emergent interest in understanding and enacting the role and potential of GBs in equity work (Commodore, 2018; Commodore et al., 2020, 2022; Commodore & Morgan, 2021; Grummert & Rall, 2020; Morgan et al., 2019; 2021a, b; Owens & Commodore, 2018; Rall, 2020,

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

207

2021a, b; Rall et al., 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021a, b, 2022a; Rall & Maxey, 2020; Rall & Orué, 2020; Tierney & Rall, 2018). Yet, many tensions remain as the translation from research and theory to governance practice is ever-evolving (Rall et al., 2021a). Therefore, our chapter focuses on helping scholars and graduate students grow more familiar with the scholarship of GBs in particular. Consequently, we examined the ontological (i.e., what is the nature of GBs), epistemological (i.e., how do we come to know GBs), axiological (i.e., what GBs value), and praxis Centered (i.e., what GBs do) dimensions of Boards via a review and synthesis of available literature. More plainly, we aimed to thoroughly dissect GBs to their component parts to ready their reconstruction in a new paradigm that (re)envisions Board governance for the future. Hence, we submit that the primary contribution of this chapter is offering a paradigm and conceptual model focused on organizational change that has both descriptive and practical utility for scholars and those that directly or indirectly interact with GBs. This chapter is divided into seven additional sections. In the following section, we outline our case for a paradigm shift in the postsecondary education governance context toward the Equity X Governance paradigm – pronounced Equity by Governance (section “Making the Case for a Paradigm Shift: From Equity & Governance ! Equity X Governance”). We then review research highlighting how relationally oriented GBs are in equity work by identifying and mapping a range of institutional actors (section “Relevant Stakeholders: An Ecosystem Perspective on Equity X Governance”) that make up what we describe as the Governance Ecosystem. Section “Readying the Theoretical Frameworks” overviews our theoretical frameworks leading to a review that uses Critical Race Theory to examine the study of governance (section “Governance to What End?: A CRT Analysis”) and Standpoint Theory to examine the practices of GBs (section “Equity as the Fulcrum of Governance, But Where and How do we Apply it: Core Challenges and Opportunities for Boards”). The final sections detail a conceptual model for change within the Equity X Governance paradigm and then offer research implications that advance equitable opportunities for stakeholder success.

Making the Case for a Paradigm Shift: From Equity and Governance ! Equity X Governance The introduction of the Equity X Governance paradigm at this moment is especially critical to help institutions navigate intensifying uncertainty (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic, political dysfunction) in ways that efficiently combat and transform institutions rather than slowly reform or placate, which traditionally has kept institutions in the status quo (Morgan & López, 2022; Patton et al., 2019). Said differently, a paradigm shift is needed because current governance paradigms and the research and practice that emanates from those paradigms are inadequate to address the multifaceted nature of postsecondary education’s challenges while also locating and implicating the role of the GB.

208

D. L. Morgan et al.

While sustained agreement on what constitutes the “best” theories or paradigms within any given sub-field is challenging to realize (Nicolazzo, 2021; Renn, 2020a), we make an initial assertion that the time is ripe to advance the intersection of equity and governance along multiple fronts. Prior to building our argument for the need for a new paradigm to understand governance, it is important to operationalize some key terms to set a foundation for our discussion. We operationalize “governance” as power and agency wielded by Governing Boards via decision-making exercises to preserve an organization (American Association of University Professors [AAUP], 1966; Bess & Dee, 2014; Kezar, 2004; Kezar & Eckel, 2004). Governance processes then become contested as internal and external actors vie for influence, at times described as “shared governance,” illuminating different actors’ animating values that come together in ways that shape a range of organizational outcomes and change processes (Castagno & Hausman, 2017; Eckel, 2000; Minor, 2006; Taylor, 2013). However, we mark governance and, by extension, trustees, as neither neutral nor inherently benevolent, taking a decided step away from traditional renderings of governance and Boards as generally altruistic lay leaders/volunteers (AGB, 2021; Barringer & Riffe, 2018; Chait et al., 2005; Dominguez, 1971). This more powerconscious and critical rendering of governance (Gonzales et al., 2018; Pasque & Carducci, 2015; Patton, 2016) elevates the need to provisionally answer the question, governance to what end? For us, the answer is that governance should always be oriented toward pursuing and realizing equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. Which begs the follow-up question, how do we operationalize equity? We favor a definition of “equity” that is concerned with structures, policies, and systems that constrain opportunities for success and mindful of the unique realities of different campus stakeholders (e.g., students, faculty, staff, community members), as our use of Standpoint Theory (Kokushkin, 2014) will accentuate. This dual consideration allows for a unifying organizational direction (i.e., equity is the pursuit and outcome of dismantling barriers, policies, and structures, that moderate opportunities for success based on an awareness of how context and systems impact people with minoritized identities (Garces, 2014; Jordan, 2010; McNair et al., 2019) and specificity in the role different constituents must play in that pursuit (i.e., casting equity as a fiduciary duty of GBs (Commodore et al., 2022)). This multifaceted approach to defining equity makes GBs active rather than passive and central rather than ancillary in advancing equity work. With these definitions in mind, bringing the two concepts together then, quite literally (Equity X Governance), tentatively forms the foundation of a new paradigm (Kuhn, 1962) within the broader leadership, governance, and organizational change literature (Dee & Leišytė, 2016; Gonzales et al., 2018; Kezar, 2004; Kezar & Eckel, 2004). Explained simply, we aim to position the Equity X Governance paradigm as a philosophical approach to viewing, understanding, and interacting within an organizational transformation process that (re)centers the GB and seeks to realize equitable opportunities for stakeholder success through institution/system-level governance processes. To be clear, we firmly believe that everyone has a role to play in advancing equity in higher education and that there are actors with more experience with, proximity to, and skill at governing higher education than

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

209

governing boards. This reality does not negate the prominence, power, purview, privilege, and potential GBs have in this arena. Our contention is that because GBs have been ignored so long in pivotal conversations of both equity and governance, they require our attention. So, while in the end, the empirical literature and history at many institutions demonstrate that there are plenty of ways to improve equity and governance, without GBs, we do not believe that approach can maximize outcomes. Further, because we call for more attention to boards, it does not mean we can forget about or neglect the other key actors on campus (see section “Relevant Stakeholders: An Ecosystem Perspective on Equity X Governance”). The other conversations must endure, but we cannot continue to act like Boards cannot and do not impact policies, practices, people, and outcomes – especially when it comes to stakeholders with minoritized identities. For example, we highlight in earlier work how boards often fall into one or a combination of five roles: initiator, catalyzer, bystander, inhibitor, or barrier to equity (Rall et al., 2020; Rall, 2021a, b) so we center boards here because they have not been included and because they are a necessary, but insufficient player in Equity X Governance. When an “and” is interspliced between governance and equity, it conveys that the concepts could be understood jointly. Yet, as our review will show, this grammatical framing often keeps the concepts siloed in practice and research. In contrast, the Equity X Governance paradigm necessarily denotes an additive and positive relationship between each concept, forming the basis for a new reality and approach to organizational transformation altogether. To explain this shift further we adapt the co-branding collaborations strategy that has permeated most industries in the last decade (Uggla & Åsberg, 2010). Starting with clothing, cross-brand collaborations take one company’s strengths, style, and consumer base and merge it with an entirely different company with non-overlapping strengths, style, and audiences. For instance, the Versace X H&M collaboration creates a new set of customers for Versace while driving traffic to H&M stores. The Starbucks X Spotify collaboration saw baristas create specific playlists for coffee shops driving customer engagement with the stores and introducing Spotify to a wider array of potential consumers. The inspiration for us as we conceive a novel paradigm is that the result of these collaborations is a never-before-seen product or relationship that is mutually beneficial in financial, functional, emotional, and self-expressive ways (Uggla & Åsberg, 2010). Given the noted challenges associated with neoliberalism and academic capitalism in the academy, some might fairly question the use of market strategies for an equity endeavor (Cantwell, 2016; McClure, 2016; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). In response, we follow la paperson’s creative reimagining of the scyborg in A third university is possible, where it was stated, “Scyborg—composed of s + cyborg—is a queer turn of word . . . to name the structural agency of persons who have picked up colonial technologies and reassembled them to decolonizing purposes” (Paperson, 2017, Chapter Introduction), hence the scyborg is a “sculptor of assemblages” made up of individuals plugged into but intentionally remaking the colonial university machine, in essence teetering between a colonizing and decolonizing logic and practice (Paperson, 2017, Chapter You, a Scyborg). Similarly, we expansively (re)envision the Equity X Governance paradigm as an approach that takes what can be viewed as neoliberal

210

D. L. Morgan et al.

logic and reorients it toward an endeavor that is focused on dismantling inequities and promoting stakeholder success. la paperson goes on to state: Decolonization is, put bluntly, the rematriation of land, the regeneration of relations, and the forwarding of Indigenous and Black and queer futures—a process that requires countering what power seems to be up to. To take effective decolonizing action, we must then have a theory of action that accounts for the permeability of the apparatuses of power and the fact that neocolonial systems inadvertently support decolonizing agendas. [emphasis added] (Paperson, 2017, Chapter Introduction)

In agreement, we expound on the Equity X Governance paradigm in this chapter to counter what one of the most powerful entities is often up to (i.e., the GB) and provide a complementary theory of action for scholars. Consequently, we view the Equity X Governance paradigm approach to organizational transformation as not quite structural, political, relational, or symbolic (Bolman & Deal, 2017; Gonzales et al., 2018; Kezar & Eckel, 2004) – while encompassing all of those frames depending on how the “collaboration” between institutional actors comes together within the postsecondary education context. Accordingly, the Equity X Governance paradigm seeks to span multiple ways of understanding and analyzing organizations, from a theoretical standpoint (Gonzales et al., 2018; Kezar & Dee, 2011), in service of leveraging whatever theory is most conducive to the pursuit of equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. Neither is Equity X Governance just focused on addressing issues of access, diversity, inclusion, belonging, or any of the myriad student or faculty-centric concerns (Garces, 2014; Hurtado et al., 2012; Museus, 2014; Patton et al., 2019; Renn, 2020b) – while necessarily attending to each of those challenges, in intersectional and holistic ways (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; Harris & Patton, 2019). In healthy partnership, operating within the Equity X Governance paradigm allows institutions to be: (a) high-functioning in an operational sense, (b) spaces for liberation and success of its stakeholders, and (c) ultimately advancing the broader public good (Freire, 1970; Hooks, 1994; Marginson, 2011). The paradigm’s north star is the extent to which decision-making of the GB and their wielding of power, as well as the related research on these endeavors, synergistically serves these three aims. Let us use a brief example to substantiate our claim. In a recent study, Morgan and Commodore, along with LePeau (2021), documented GBs as passive recipients of equity-related information and interventions from other more agentic institutional actors (e.g., chief diversity officers, students, and faculty). Furthermore, we described sharing equity-related information with GB as “performative” GB work because it did not seem to lead to substantive changes to GB processes or institutional outcomes (Morgan et al., 2021a). These documented tensions bolster our initial thesis that there is no shared consensus or robust line of research on the role GBs should have in equity work amid institutional change processes. So, we need a new paradigm for governing boards and governance more broadly. To (re)envision a future where GBs advance equity work within institutions, the Equity X Governance paradigm is designed to center the role of GBs and conduct research or engage in practice with trustees that focuses on transforming

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

211

organizations to better serve their constituents, especially those with minoritized identities. With a tentative outline of the need for the Equity X Governance paradigm in mind, our next task is to identify how non-GB postsecondary education actors engage in the Equity X Governance paradigm relative to GBs.

Relevant Stakeholders: An Ecosystem Perspective on Equity X Governance A critical component of the Equity X Governance paradigm is its conceptualization of any given organizational frame (e.g., structural or symbolic (Bolman & Deal, 2017)) through a consideration of how it advances an organization toward or away from equitable stakeholder success. This section aims to situate the array of stakeholders for an institution within the Equity X Governance paradigm and map their connection to GBs through a review of related literature. Our purpose is to demonstrate the relative absence of GBs in existing equity focused research to underscore how the Equity X Governance paradigm can help us differently understand and map actors involved in helping realize stakeholder success within the Governance Ecosystem (see Fig. 1).

Mapping the Governance Ecosystem to Non-GB Actor’s Equity Work Adner (2017) describes elements of an ecosystem in the management literature as: (1) activities which are discrete actions that can be taken to advance a value proposition and (2) actors, or people who undertake activities. In alignment with Kapoor (2018), we collapse Adner’s original positions and links into the “architecture” of an ecosystem. Architecture refers to the coupling of actors amid activities relative to one another in the ecosystem. To operationalize the Governance Ecosystem within the Equity X Governance paradigm, we conceive activities as transactions between postsecondary education actors amid their equity work. Further, we position the architecture of the ecosystem as the linkages between actors and activities, which is how and why actors come together to produce value. In Table 1, we synthesized literature that focuses on non-GB actors’ equity work and how they connect to GBs in a relational sense. We draw two conclusions from our review of postsecondary education actors. First, to locate the positioning of stakeholders relative to GB, we constructed a matrix of direct to indirect on the Y-axis and internal to external on the X-axis. Direct to indirect refers to the degree of coupling (Weick, 1976) between the stakeholder and the GB. We understand more tightly coupled stakeholders as direct reports to the GB. This means that they have access to trustees via committee work, full board meetings, or as a result of their policymaking authority. Directly positioned stakeholders are likely to be well aquatinted with individual trustees and understand the GB’s norms, activities, and processes and vice versa. On the other hand, indirect stakeholders are likely to have greater responsibility for day-to-day equity work but

212

D. L. Morgan et al.

Actors

Architectures

Activities

Agents with Capacities to aid in transformation

Transformative Strategies & Tactics focused on Alignment & Mutual Value Between Actors & Activities

Actions that Transform Postsecondary Education

Coalition Building

Governing Boards

Activity 1

scaling promising interventions

Presidents

Students

Advocacy and consciousnesses raising via student activism

Student

Improve access and move beyond representation diversity

Academic

Philanthropic Foundations

Research & Policymaking Community Members

Stakeholder Success Contributions to and safeguarding of the Public Good; Socioeconomic Mobility Self-Agency & Collective Concern Deconstruction of Oppressive Structures Love Ethic

Roles and agendas of intermediaries like groups, and philanthropic organizations

Student Success Professionals

Curriculum development and implementation

Faculty

Infrastructure & Facilities Professionals

Policymakers

High-impact practices Cocurricular opportunities for support and development

Organizations

Presidential councils for diversity

Campus

Political, Expertise, & Relational & Personnel Bottlenecks

Implementation & Execution Bottlenecks

Technical, Data & Resources Bottlenecks,

Interlocking Systems of Oppression Bottleneck

Fig. 1 “Equity X Governance” Ecosystem View

are more loosely coupled to the GB (LePeau, 2015; Patton et al., 2019; Taylor, 2021). The internal/external dimension refers to insider and outsider status in day-to-day activity with a particular institution. We depict this arrangement visually in Fig. 2. The connection to the Equity X Governance paradigm here is the reiteration of the range and complexity of relationship types and activities within equity and success work. The reality of this breadth and complexity foreshadows the need to effectively organize and layer in a model of change that brings coherency to GB-centered equity work. The second overarching conclusion in Table 1 is an enhanced focus on activities that advance equity work for stakeholders (i.e., joint-value creation) that lay outside the practices and responsibilities of GB – but still permeate the Equity X Governance paradigm. These value-added activities include: advocacy and consciousnesses

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

213

Table 1 Governance Ecosystem Stakeholders Ecosystem Positioning External to institutions

Stakeholder Policymakers

Interest groups

Communities

Philanthropies

Non-profits

Other industries (e.g., Business sector)

Definition of Stakeholder Individual or groups that contribute to the creation of policies at the federal, state, municipal, or organizational level (Gándara, 2020; Rodriguez et al., 2021) “Any association of individuals, whether formally organized or not, that attempts to influence public policy” (Opfer et al., 2008, p. 2008) Physical communities that the university or college is located in or near (Jacoby, 2009) An advocacy focused organization that funds events, initiatives, projects that align with the organization’s mission (Miller & Morphew, 2017) Organized group that operates for collective benefit, increasingly addressing what were once considered public services (Renz & Anderson, 2014) Ecosystems, made up of firms, individuals, and activities that shape the external environment that impacts postsecondary institutions (Hendrickson et al., 2012)

Link to Governing Boards Direct external

Example Role in Equity Work Baker (2019) and Rodriguez et al. (2021)

Indirect external

Gándara et al. (2017)

Indirect external

Saltmarsh and Hartley (2011)

Indirect external

Hess and Henig (2015)

Indirect external

Bernstein et al. (2019)

Indirect external

Jongbloed et al. (2008)

(continued)

214

D. L. Morgan et al.

Table 1 (continued) Ecosystem Positioning Periphery of institutions

Stakeholder State level governing boards

Governing boards

Definition of Stakeholder “Although there are variations among states about how public higher education governing boards are structured, they maintain the same role-to supervise higher education institutions for the public good-and have similar responsibilities, such as hiring and evaluating the president, establishing and terminating programs, maintaining fiduciary responsibility, and ensuring the institution fulfills its mission” (Kezar, 2006, p. 969) In the United States Governing Boards typically identify and evaluate their institutions’ leaders; maintain and communicate their institutions’ mission statements; safeguard their institutions’ financial health; interact with outside stakeholders; and assess their own performance (Hendrickson et al., 2012)

Link to Governing Boards Direct external

Example Role in Equity Work Rall et al. (2022b)

n/a

Rall et al. (2022a)

(continued)

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

215

Table 1 (continued) Ecosystem Positioning Internal to institutions

Stakeholder Presidents

Academic leaders

Student affairs leaders

Diversity leaders

University operations leaders

Academic and student affairs staff & administrators (i.e., student success workers)

Definition of Stakeholder Head of a university or college, chief executive officer (Freedman, 2004) Institutional leaders whose role focuses on promoting academic success and attainment efforts (Hendrickson et al., 2012) Institutional leaders whose role is focused on student success inside and outside the defined classroom space (McClellan & Stringer, 2016) Institutional leaders whose role is focused and centered on cultivating, implementing, and supporting equity efforts (Leon, 2014) Leaders responsible an institution’s planning, programming, information, facilities, and budgeting systems and personnel “. . .while staff are individuals who have non-instructional responsibilities such as student affairs, admissions, alumni affairs, fund-raising or business affairs (often termed

Link to Governing Boards Direct internal

Example Role in Equity Work Kezar and Eckel (2008), LePeau et al. (2019)

Direct internal

LePeau (2018)

(In)Direct internal

Patton et al. (2019), Rhoads and Black (1995)

(In)Direct internal

Stanley et al. (2019)

Indirect internal

Clauson and McKnight (2018), Kutch and Kutch (2022)

Indirect internal

Kezar et al. (2011, p. 130, 2021), LePeau et al. (2018), McNair et al. (2019), Museus and Neville (2012), Taylor (2021)

(continued)

216

D. L. Morgan et al.

Table 1 (continued) Ecosystem Positioning

Stakeholder

Faculty

Student activists

Definition of Stakeholder administrative staff internationally). However, staff are not administrators in the United States, as administrators have formal positions where they are delegated authority from the board of trustees and work more directly with the president and top-level leadership” (Kezar et al., 2011, p. 130) Individuals whose role is centered around research and scholarship, teaching, service, and funding (Bess & Dee, 2014) Students collectively engaged in political projects (Morgan & Davis, 2019)

Link to Governing Boards

Example Role in Equity Work

Indirect internal

Croom and Patton Davis (2012), López and Morgan (2021), Wilkinson (2019)

Indirect internal

Davis et al. (2022), Wheatle and Commodore (2019)

raising via student activism (Davis III et al., 2022; Wheatle & Commodore, 2019), efforts to improve access and move beyond representational diversity (Garces & Jayakumar, 2014), the role of research in equity-focused policymaking (Baker, 2019; Felix & Trinidad, 2019; Gándara, 2020; Rodriguez et al., 2021), the various functions and agendas of intermediaries like nonprofits, interests groups, and philanthropic organizations (Gándara et al., 2017; Ness et al., 2015), co/curriculum development and implementation (Hurtado et al., 2012), high-impact practices (Kuh et al., 2010; Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2018), and scaling promising interventions (Kezar, 2011b; Kezar & Holcombe, 2020). However, other than a few prominent examples (e.g., grassroots leadership (Kezar, 2011a), shared equity leadership (Kezar et al., 2021), equity-minded practitioners (McNair et al., 2019), or presidential councils for diversity (LePeau et al., 2019), most times in related scholarship, equity actors are depicted in relative isolation from one another. In addition, GBs’ involvement in any of these activities is seldom, if ever, illuminated. Scholars rarely directly connect leadership, decisionmaking, and other related topics inherently to governing boards. At most, we see

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

217

Fig. 2 Institutional stakeholder positioning relative to the governing board

work that tinkers around the edges and generally speaks to leaders without specifically naming governing boards or ambiguously framing governance without giving specific attention to the role and influence of governing boards on higher education. Hence, we maintain this necessary shift to the Equity X Governance paradigm, synergizes with existing equity activities and allows the work to be more sustainable and transformative (Morgan et al., 2021a; Rall et al., 2020).

The Equity X Governance Paradigm’s Nemeses: Naming Ecosystem Bottlenecks In this section we conceptualized the connections to the Equity X Governance paradigm among various actors that make up the postsecondary education Governance Ecosystem. Our review concludes that there is little scholarly consensus on how actors should relate to each other in the pursuit of stakeholder success. Nevertheless, consistent with our recent research, we assert that GB can serve as potential energy sources (i.e., electrical sockets) (Morgan et al., 2021a), through the generous

218

D. L. Morgan et al.

delegation of their power when stakeholders “plug-in” to the Board. This connection spurs and permits a more intense, efficacious, and sustainable activity within institutions that can help actualize stakeholder success. However, the aforementioned prevalence of isolation amid equity work manifests as actors within an ecosystem become competitors for resources and claims to success rather than form mutually beneficial and sustained collaborative relationships (Cho, 2018; Leon, 2014; Patton et al., 2019). The business literature describes this isolation or competition as a misalignment (i.e., “a bottleneck”) in the architecture of an ecosystem that prevents the realization of value (Adner, 2017; Kapoor, 2018). Figure 1 depicts various bottlenecks as red lines in the Governance Ecosystem that interfere with the flow of relationships and the execution of activities. We identified and summarized these bottlenecks based on recurring challenges in the non-GB actor literature review. These bottlenecks undermine the Equity X Governance paradigm and disrupt the Governance Ecosystem in four ways that operate both independently and together: • Entire Ecosystem Bottleneck: Interlocking Systems of Oppression refers to the various ways settler colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, cis-normativity, economic stratification, and various other systems interact with one another to complicate in multiple ways how actors experience the governance ecosystem, how activities are designed and implemented, and the resources necessary to sustain activities. • Actor Bottleneck: The political, attitudinal expertise, relational, and personnel conflicts that isolate actors in the ecosystem from one another in attempts to advance equity work. • Activities Bottleneck: The technical, data, and resource constraints that impede activities that seek to advance equity. An example of this bottleneck is when student or faculty data are not disaggregated by race, gender, and other relevant identities and then decisions are made that purport to advance racial or gender equity. • Architecture Bottleneck: The implementation and execution challenges that inhibit the links between the right actors and the optimal activities. A prevalent example of this bottleneck are the notorious layers of idiosyncratic bureaucracy and incompatible internal systems within an institution. For instance, a faculty member may follow up about a concern of a student’s academic struggles in one fashion, an academic advisor may follow another set of activities, and another campus partner might not be aware of any issues related to the student. The actors may be well meaning and the activities might be available to help, but if there are obstacles that impede how actors and activities come together, then the potential of optimal synergistic outcomes for stakeholders is narrowed. Additionally, the isolated and competitive reality of the Governance Ecosystem brought on by the bottlenecks listed above and the inability of actors within institutions to materially address these concerns operates as an under-identified “organizational truce” (Adner, 2017), among many actors – including the GB.

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

219

An organizational truce occurs when change efforts remain at the level of actors or activities but leaves the underlying architecture of an organization in place (Adner, 2017). In the postsecondary education context, this truce perpetuates the status quo of oppression and disrupts opportunities for the success of minoritized stakeholders, while also appearing to engage in equity related work (Ahmed, 2012; Patton et al., 2019; Squire et al., 2019). We seek to entirely disrupt this complacency through our subsequent literature synthesis that focuses on the study of governance. Then we turn our attention to GBs via a review of their function, role, and practices to search for ways of (re)envisioning how actors identified in this section might partner with GBs in equity work. Finally, we conclude with an agenda for research and practice inspired by the Equity X Governance paradigm.

Readying the Theoretical Frameworks Thus far we have argued that the goal of governance and governance research should be to help realize equitable opportunities for stakeholders’ success in postsecondary education contexts (i.e., shifting to the Equity X Governance paradigm). Additionally, we have mapped most of the personnel that make up the Governance Ecosystem relative to their equity work and the GB and the bottlenecks within the ecosystem that allow for inequities to persist. We now turn our attention squarely to the fulcrum of the governance ecosystem, the GB. Stanley (2007) argues that a “master narrative is a script that specifies and controls how some social processes are carried out” (p. 14). The master narrative about “principled” trustees and as an extension GBs, is that they are “engaged in the most important issues, at the right time, in the right way” (AGB, 2021, p. 4). Yet, an undergirding premise of the Equity X Governance paradigm is that GBs remain decidedly absent from the equity landscape. We posit that they have been absent from the landscape because they do not have a comprehensive understanding of equity challenges/issues, there is a disconnect between who serves on governing boards and those who they govern for, and finally because definitive engagement with power-conscious and critical frameworks have been minimally leveraged in the governance space (Gonzales et al., 2018; Pasque & Carducci, 2015). Said differently, GB do not know how to engage in this important work (which is not surprising given the literature that shows that GBs seldom know how and are prepared for their roles) and they are often oblivious to the impact of issues of power, exclusion on their role. These dynamics allow the master narrative that trustees just need to be engaged in the right way to persist unquestioned. Hence, we wonder when it comes to equity, what frameworks examine how GBs should be engaged? What is the right time for GB involvement in equity? And even more fraught in the equity landscape is a consideration for what would be agreed upon as the right way? At the same time, the study of governance in postsecondary education is undertheorized on its own terms. Researchers tend to rely on adapting frameworks from other fields and disciplines (e.g., management, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology (Eckel, 2019; Kezar & Dee, 2011; Kezar & Eckel, 2004;

220

D. L. Morgan et al.

Rall et al., 2021a)). At times, there is great utility in this researcher norm. Frameworks both create new ideas for inquiry and new areas of inquiry can require new frameworks. In this case, we have a new focus (GBs with equity) which requires new framing. Our premise with the Equity X Governance paradigm calls for tailoring all related concepts to the overarching thesis of the paradigm (i.e., foregrounding approaches to governance that center the GB and help transform institutions and realize equitable stakeholder success) and moving away from master narratives about Boards. Therefore, we want to cautiously augment the theories we utilized for our reviews and articulate how they connect to the Equity X Governance paradigm. In particular, Critical Race Theory (hereafter CRT) as a theoretical framework is interested in “studying and transforming the relationship between race, racism, and power” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017, p. 3). Given the history of GBs and postsecondary education, as well as the current demographic make-up and prevailing hegemony of whiteness on modern-day Boards (Rall et al., 2018), CRT provides a slate of useful analytical tools that focuses on the role of race in the operation of power and oppression. This is the starting point of our deconstruction of GBs, unraveling how whiteness has been a consistent feature in the study of GBs in higher education and how that has limited our understanding of how boards operate in the Governance Ecosystem. Second, Standpoint Theory (Kokushkin, 2014) complements CRT, focusing on structure but with a more nuanced and intersectional approach that seeks to elevate those rendered invisible or powerless because of multiple interlocking systems of domination (Collins, 2015; Crenshaw, 1991; Harris & Patton, 2019).

Critical Race Theory Overview We point readers to the rich and vast literature that serves as an introduction, primer, and catalog of CRT from its genesis in legal studies to perhaps the most (in)famous theory in all of education (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw, 2010; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Gillborn, 1995, 2005; López et al., 2022; Yosso, 2005). Our purpose here is to, as precisely as possible, augment one rendering of CRT into the postsecondary education governance space for our review (section “Governance to What End?: A CRT Analysis”). To that end, we leveraged Lori Patton’s (2016) CRT of Higher Education. The premise of Patton’s (2016) CRT of Higher Education is to “disrupt racelessness in education, but focus specifically on higher education and the challenges associated with moving the academy forward in a way that explicitly names racism/White supremacy in areas such as college access, curriculum, and policy” (p. 316). Accordingly, Patton (2016) puts forth three foundational propositions and a corollary statement to operationalize a CRT of Higher Education: • “The establishment of U.S. higher education is deeply rooted in racism/White supremacy, the vestiges of which remain palatable” (p. 317).

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

221

• “The functioning of U.S. higher education is intricately linked to imperialistic and capitalistic efforts that fuel the intersections of race, property, and oppression” (p. 317). • “U.S. higher education institutions serve as venues through which formal knowledge production rooted in racism/White supremacy is generated” (p. 317). • “Higher education serves as a space for transformative knowledge production that challenges dominant discourses and ways of operating in and beyond the academy” (p. 335). In summation, looking at higher education through the lens of CRT causes us to ask whether institutions might be governed differently if viewed from the outset of their establishment from a research and practice posture that takes seriously the points raised in each of the three propositions and corollary statement. Neither equity nor governance challenges “just happened.” The challenges we face in both areas (and most importantly, at the intersection of the two) stem from years of explicit and implicit exclusion due to racism, capitalism, and a host of other “isms” as suggested by the propositions. At the same time, however, we cannot lose hope because just as higher education has been a source of marginalization, it is also an environment ripe for and with the capacity for change that will spill out into society. In using these propositions as a foundation, our review of how GBs are studied demonstrates how raceless and oppressive realities manifest in current scholarship and theory about GBs – strengthening the Governance Ecosystem’s organizational truce. At present governance literature is mostly void of equity conversations and the literature that centers equity often fails to grapple with governance. While both topics are important alone, it is the research and practice intersection of the two that has the potential to inform and transform pivotal institutional decision-making going forward. Therefore, continuing the tradition of counter-storytelling, we do not leave the analysis there. Instead, engaging Patton’s (2016) corollary, we conclude our synthesis by reimaging the “governance to what end” question.

Standpoint Theory Overview With just a CRT lens, we risk understanding GBs as isolated actors (i.e., the architecture issue from our Governance Ecosystem). We have maintained that GBs must be understood within an ecosystem of actors, power relationships, and shared activities. Therefore, we supplement a view of higher education via CRT with Standpoint Theory. Standpoint theorists emphasize that understanding and objectivity are enhanced with more knowledge and clarity of epistemological and political baggage (Adler & Jermier, 2005, 2016). Standpoint theory is a “set of theoretical and epistemological propositions designed to produce alternative knowledge” (Kokushkin, 2014, p. 10). It starts with the notion that the less powerful individuals experience a different reality in society due to their oppression (Swigonski, 1994). Hill Collins (1997) put forth that “Standpoint theory argues that groups who share common placement in hierarchical power relations also share common experiences

222

D. L. Morgan et al.

in such power relations” (p. 377). Put succinctly, Standpoint Theory takes seriously the perspective of people with relatively less power and elevates their insights as a form of knowledge.

Standpoint Theory in Equity X Governance Kronsell (2005) explains that “Institutions largely governed by men have produced and recreated norms and practices associated with masculinity and heterosexuality” (p. 281). Power relations present a challenge for social science methodology (Patel, 2015). Fields that only or overwhelmingly depend on elite standpoints are susceptible to overlooking viewpoints. There is, therefore, a rationale to encourage scholarship that leverages different standpoints, especially those of disadvantaged communities, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, and women (Adler & Jermier, 2005). It is imperative that research that seeks to be transformational start with the lived experiences of the “systematically oppressed, exploited and dominated, those who have fewer interests in ignorance about how the social order actually works” (Harding, 2004, p. 150). Minoritized groups such as women and people of color are often underrepresented in decision-making positions like higher education trustees (Lynall et al., 2003), which means their concerns are often ignored or considered deviations from the norm (Henwood & Pidgeon, 1995). The resulting dynamic is identifying how “dominant institutions and their conceptual frameworks create and maintain oppressive social relations” becomes essential to enhancing knowledge of the trusteeship (Harding, 2004, p. 33). Specifically, within the Equity X Governance paradigm, Standpoint Theory allows us to examine the habits and practices of GBs more deeply as they intersect with the realities of other actors. This deeper review builds on the review from section “Relevant Stakeholders: An Ecosystem Perspective on Equity X Governance,” keeping the actors and relationships (e.g., the architecture) the same and swapping the activities under examination to illuminate how the bottlenecks in the Governance Ecosystem manifest for GBs.

Governance to What End?: A CRT Analysis Taking a Step Back to Take a Leap Forward To understand current conversations regarding GBs, it is essential to understand the foundational work in the area. This effort to historicize GBs is consistent with the CRT notion of disrupting ahistorical narratives of history on a topic that tends to blot the prevalence and structuring reality of White supremacy (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). This is especially essential in understanding how GBs have been studied. Much of the seminal work regarding higher education boards provided insight into the formal function of the Board (AAUP, 1966; Baldridge, 1971, 1980; Birnbaum, 1988; Corbally, 1970; Dominguez, 1971). As higher education began to go through various eras and transitions, the research on boards would mirror. As business and industry became more intertwined with the higher education enterprise,

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

223

research would explore what this meant for boards (Kezar & Dee, 2011; Kezar & Eckel, 2004). This research still focused heavily on the function of boards within this new paradigm. The studies also highlight how board composition, foci, and responsibilities also began to shift (Knott & Payne, 2004; Payette, 2001; Toma, 1990). Research would also focus on providing practical insights for boards and institutions (Corbally, 1970; Holland et al., 1989; Taylor et al., 1991). From a CRT of higher education vantage point (Patton, 2016), these foundational works rarely and explicitly grappled with interlocking systems of oppression. Most scholars (most of whom appear to be White men) took the necessity of GBs as self-evident and not worthy of troubling, choosing rather to grapple with the structure and relational dimensions and not the undergirding ontological considerations. Consequently, we see that from the inception of GB research, there has been an unstated truce between GBs and most scholars do not critically name or interrogate ways power or inequities play out on campus (Gonzales et al., 2018; Pasque & Carducci, 2015; Ray, 2019). Our contention here connects to Eckel and Trower’s (2018) concern that GBs do not make their cultural norms visible and actionable for transformation. Accordingly, they note the need to increase curiosity in the boardroom so that boards break routines. Moreover, a renewed and refined focus on GBs means that other important related topics such as accountability may also be explored. The next wave of Board research would begin to bring the importance of context into conversation (Carpenter & Westphal, 2001; Dalton et al., 1998; Lynall et al., 2003; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). Higher education governance scholars nuanced the board discussion by exploring the impact of institutional context on not only the work of the board but also its composition (Ehrenberg et al., 2012; Kezar, 2006; Pusser et al., 2006). The unique challenges and political considerations that impact public institution boards and SLGBs highlight the complex intersections of state interests, politics, state economics, public interests, and institutional mission (Knott & Payne, 2004; McLendon, 2003; Pusser, 2003). Though context would be introduced into understanding higher education governance and boards, much of this literature would still fall short of offering critical approaches related to race, power, and class (Gonzales et al., 2018; Pasque & Carducci, 2015). Unsurprisingly then, scholars did not explore GBs or board members as perpetrators of White supremacy via how they operate within their context and GB composition (Patton, 2016). During this era, some scholars would attempt to discuss race, institutional identity, and governance through the discussion of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) (Hughes, 1992; Pope & Miller, 1998). Minor (2004, 2005) explicitly explores the unique characteristics of shared governance at HBCUs. Minor’s exploration of HBCU shared governance highlights the absence of race, culture, and criticality in the broader discussion of higher education governance. The challenge of marrying criticality and business informed governance literature was not shocking for Dr. Commodore, often being told in her undergraduate career that her Marketing major with a Sociology minor was evidence of her clearly confused state and identity. However, it was while reading James Minor’s work as a master’s student that would open her eyes to how to bring higher education governance, race,

224

D. L. Morgan et al.

culture, and context into conversation with each other. However, as she began to engage in HBCU governance scholarship, she began to realize that there was a lack of critical scholarship and scholars in this area. This reality made her engage in HBCU board research differently because many of the colorblind and culture blind models seemed inappropriate to employ. In order to properly understand the nature of governance at HBCUs and similar institutions, governance scholarship had to be generated that wrestled with the intersections of organizational culture, context, and race. Intersections of culture, race, ethnicity, institutional behaviors, and decisionmaking practices within higher education governance literature would be used to inform practice, policy, and emerging governance scholars. Neglecting to see such intersections in this literature often fell short when applied to or used to assess institutions with unique contexts and strong cultures, racial and otherwise, that overlapped with institutional identity. This “raceless” or identity unaware approach is another reason why GBs and governance scholarship have struggled to help bring about stakeholder success for individuals with minoritized identities (Harper, 2012; Patton, 2016). Scholars would build upon understanding higher education boards through a contextual lens to examine how power flowed within and through GB. As higher education began to experience mission creep and corporatization, the research literature explored how these shifts affected Board composition, priorities, and decision-making. The underlying theoretical frameworks rely on the concept of resource dependence. The corporate governance literature suggests that Boards that can tap into the various resources of their directors have enhanced firm success (Hillman et al., 2009; Nienhüser, 2008; Pfeffer & Salancik, 2006). Within the postsecondary education context, scholars found strong ties between major areas of industry and some of the most prominent and resourced institutions (Barringer et al., 2019, 2020; Pusser et al., 2006; Slaughter et al., 2014). These findings raised further questions about how such strong ties influenced Board composition, decisions made, and investments processed. These critiques expose the nexus of power and governance. These critiques would extend to discuss who had access to said nexus in such areas as gender, race, class, and students (Piscopo & Clark Muntean, 2018; van der Walt & Ingley, 2003). Or, in other words, whose capital or what type of capital matters most in the context of the GB (Yosso, 2005)? Furthermore, as society and legislators began to call for higher accountability for higher education institutions, in areas such as equity, it became more apparent that boards were being left out, or some might say, excused from the conversation (Rall et al., 2022b). Rall et al. (2018) would push the discussion forward by highlighting how the lack of Board diversity and equity-centered Board practices reinforce inequitable higher education institutions and, ultimately, an inequitable higher education system. Building upon this work, we posit the necessity for a more critical understanding of how researchers come to understand GBs.

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

225

Governance as Raceless and Unaware of Power Dynamics Higher education governance research has been approached in various ways to fully understand the phenomenon (Kezar & Dee, 2011; Rall et al., 2021a). Often these methodological approaches and research designs were employed to explore and expound upon the functional understandings of governance, governance structures, policy and decision-making practices, and governing boards. Due to the challenges regarding access to some of the most pertinent bodies and spaces within higher education governance (e.g., boards of trustees, coordinating boards, legislative bodies) unearthing complex, nuanced, layered understandings of governance and governance process is not always in reach of higher education researchers (Kezar, 2003; McClure & McNaughtan, 2021; Rall et al., 2021a). This difficulty in attaining a nuanced understanding contributes to the often-narrow understandings and conceptions of higher education governance that do not serve the diverse sector well. In addition to these restrictions present in conducting higher education governance research, when taking a more focused eye to the literature, it becomes apparent that it is not simply these restrictions that exacerbate this narrow understanding. The methodological approaches of higher education governance have provided rich and compelling work in the field. These approaches include qualitative, quantitative, archival, and policy analysis methodological research designs (Rall et al., 2021a). Though this is the case, a sizable gap exists in the area of critical lenses, specifically the CRT lens, when employing these methodological approaches in governance research. Continuing our use of Patton’s (2016) CRT of Higher Education as a framework of analysis, we conclude that the higher education governance literature does and does not set itself up to engage with a critical understanding of higher education governance, further perpetuating a lack of knowledge of the relationship between governance and equity. The lack of understanding ultimately results in a resolve to practice governance separate from the work of advancing equity within higher education. This dynamic also presents the uncomfortable reality that the higher education research community is complicit in this fracturing by virtue of the implications of research design choices in terms of impact when viewed in a particular light rather than researcher intention (Patel, 2015). We provide some deepdive examples from oft-cited postsecondary education governance studies as support. Importantly, our commentary is not meant to cast these scholars (many of whom we consider mentors, friends, or supportive colleagues) in a negative light or detract from their essential contributions to building a body of knowledge about higher education governance. Further, we own that we make informed assumptions that may be inconsistent with the authors intentions. Additionally, we do not consider ourselves to be CRT scholars per se as we have not always used CRT in our prior studies. Our point is that we see the potential and necessity of a more decided engagement with power conscious frameworks like CRT in higher education governance research and practice (e.g., Rall et al., 2022a). To highlight what that means, we think it is helpful to engage the persistent ambiguity in some governance studies that prompts us to reflect on our own work and levy a CRT critique of the

226

D. L. Morgan et al.

field – since research can inform practice. In so doing, we hope that future studies leave no room for potential misinterpretation in terms of how the study conceptualizes GB relative to equity considerations. These are the essential elements of fully ensuring our Equity X Governance paradigm is divested from colonizing and neoliberal dynamics (Paperson, 2017; Patel, 2015). For instance, Tandberg (2010, 2013) rigorously explores higher education governance structures as boundary-spanning organizations. Providing an empirical assessment of the conditioning effect of consolidated state governing boards, Tandberg focuses on the patterns and trends of state higher education policy over a period of nearly 30 years. The study establishes that the type of governance structure a state employs matters and that the structure plays a critical role as a boundary spanner. Ultimately this positioning gives state higher education governance structures the capacity to buffer and magnify the effect other actors and influences have on state higher education funding decisions. Taking a quantitative approach, Tandberg engages in a multivariate analysis using a fixed-effects model. Though appropriate for the research question, when engaging in a CRT of higher education analysis of the work, where the work falls short in approaching the inquiry is in a way that would unearth issues of inequity. Tandberg attempts to understand more about the relationship between the political state and higher education institutions but does so in a very color evasive and non-critical manner, given what subsequent research has illuminated about racialized policymaking (Baker, 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2021). By engaging in this raceless approach, Patton’s (2016) second proposition that the functioning of US higher education is intricately linked to the imperialistic and capitalist efforts that fuel the intersections of race, property, and oppression is ignored. Furthermore, the absence of Patton’s (2016) second proposition is coupled with the absence of acknowledging Patton’s first proposition that the establishment of US higher education is deeply rooted in racism and White supremacy, and such vestiges are still palatable. The multivariate approach and quantitative approaches to understanding governance can lend themselves to ignoring critical lenses, such as CRT, in the name of objectivity. However, the argument can be made that the quest for ultimate objectivity within itself is a tool to aid in supporting Patton’s (2016) third proposition, that US higher education institutions serve as venues through which formal knowledge production rooted in racism/White supremacy is generated (p. 317). In essence, approaching governance research in this manner reproduces whiteness through knowledge production and by choosing not to challenge dominant methodological ideologies in the area of governance. There have been increased discussions regarding the necessity for critical quantitative work (e.g., Garvey, 2019; Sablan, 2019). This discussion must find its way to the area of higher education governance research, especially within quantitative approaches to studying postsecondary education governance. Another example comes from Bastedo (2009a, b), who takes an institutional approach to studying educational policy. The studies examine trends in activist governance and unearth four core logics for higher education policymaking, specifically in the state of Massachusetts. To engage in these studies, Bastedo engages in a

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

227

qualitative approach, coding for emic concepts, constant comparative method, and a policy review. This approach provides a useful conceptual contrast to the predominant political science theories (McLendon et al., 2007; McLendon & Ness, 2003; Pusser, 2003). However, analysis through the lens of Patton’s (2016) framework highlights some challenges in the criticality of the work. Bastedo’s study highlights and focuses on Boards and their role in forming and establishing educational policy. By virtue, policies generated from Boards, activist or otherwise, that have not uncoupled from what Patton (2016) presents in her second proposition as inextricably linked imperialistic and capitalistic efforts are bound to produce policies that aid in the maintenance and perpetuation of both policy and governance practices that “fuel the intersections of race, property, and oppression” (Patton, 2016, p. 317). By not acknowledging this in the approach to this inquiry, this work also allows for a lack of knowledge of how Boards and policies they influence to aid in supporting Patton’s (2016) third statement of US higher education institutions that serve as venues through which formal knowledge production is rooted in racism/White supremacy. Barringer et al. (2019) begin to explore power and control issues by analyzing the patterns of ties between governing boards and industry and how they have or have not changed over time. Putting forth trustees traversing these boundaries between higher education and other industries creates a network that draws together universities, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and business firms (Barringer et al., 2019). Using the methodological approach of social network analysis (SNA) and latent profile analysis (LPA), through descriptive statistics, the authors can establish connectedness and patterns of connectedness through social networks that were identified. To note, this continues a conversation on the role of social networks and power in university governance practices, particularly within the public higher education sector (Barringer et al., 2019; Pusser et al., 2006; Slaughter et al., 2014). Yet, though SNA and LPA may be appropriate methodological choices for the question explored, the lack of a CRT lens leaves a colorblind understanding and evaluation of networks. The practice of colorblindness, intentionally or unintentionally, is a practice and rhetoric that often reinforces ideals of a postracial society and works to “sanitize patterns of institutional exclusion” (Crenshaw, 2010, p. 1319). Engaging in colorblindness in an attempt to analyze social networks downplays how race plays a role in the establishment and maintaining of social networks and ties within the Governance Ecosystem (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; Ray & Purifoy, 2019). In turn, this colorblind methodological approach fails to recognize higher education institutions as racialized (Gonzales et al., 2018; Ray, 2019). Furthermore, though the counterargument may be that it was outside the scope of this study, this methodological approach sans a CRT lens lacks acknowledgment of the experiential knowledge that CRT deems necessary in understanding the experiences of the racially oppressed stakeholder, which is an essential component in the quest for liberation and liberatory practice in higher education (Crenshaw, 2010; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Hooks, 1994; Patton, 2016). Therefore, when applying Patton’s (2016) framework as a tool of analysis, this methodological approach fails

228

D. L. Morgan et al.

to acknowledge Patton’s second and third propositions pointing to the imperialistic and capitalist nature of US higher education and its contribution to the intersections of race, property, and oppression and how these institutions are vehicles of knowledge (re)production that is rooted in racism and White supremacy. Minor (2004) attempts to push against the colorblindness present in several methodological approaches to higher education governance research in his qualitative case study examining governance and decision-making at HBCUs. In his case study approach, Minor (2004) makes sure to engage in and highlight the need for a culturally sensitive approach when studying governance due to how institutional culture is often intertwined with racial culture, especially at institutions such as HBCUs and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). Minor unapologetically acknowledges the differences between governance practices at HBCUs and predominantly white institutions, without falling into the ahistorical trap of using Whiteness as the normative measure by explaining why they cannot be compared. Culturally sensitive methods were central to the research paradigms that consider African Americans’ historical, cultural, and contemporary experiences. In essence, Minor (2004), unlike many of his early to mid-2000 contemporaries, centers CRT and culturally sensitive methods in his methodological approaches to understand higher education governance. In doing this, Minor does well, through this approach, to acknowledge Patton’s (2016) first proposition and positions his study to add to a critical understanding of higher education governance. Kezar (2005) attempts to speak to the necessity of institutional change but, more importantly, lasting and effective institutional change. Through case study and grounded theory approaches, Kezar (2005) addresses the literature gap regarding engaging in radical change governance processes and its possible consequences. The study’s findings establish that radical change has many adverse effects, and though no governance system or model is ideal and should be examined and altered on an ongoing basis, gradual change and innovation appears to be more promising change approach to enhancing governance in higher education (Kezar, 2005). Like Barringer et al. (2019), Kezar (2005) begins to explore the tensions between power and politics and how they play out in the institutional change process. Yet, there is a lack of identifying these institutions as racialized organizations and how that impacts what may be perceived as disruption or “radical change.” The approach free of this CRT lens lacks in challenging dominant ideologies and inadvertently presents incrementalism as a form of upholding structures, processes, and practices supported by inequitable structures. This points to Patton’s (2016) first proposition that the establishment of US higher education is deeply rooted in racism and White supremacy and that its vestiges remain palatable. The palatable nature of higher education’s racist roots lays the foundation for the resistance to radical change, especially if that radical change is connected to the liberation of oppressed persons within the system (Hooks, 1994). Consequently, moving toward this reality requires minoritized people to have access to and the ability to attain power or engage in power redistribution within said system – what critical theory and epistemologies seek to make possible (Gonzales et al., 2018; Nicolazzo, 2021; Pasque & Carducci, 2015; Patton, 2016).

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

229

Though some higher education governance scholars engage in critical approaches and are sensitive to the concerns of CRT, they/we are seemingly the minority within the larger body of research. Our representative review of some of the higher education governance “cannon” is that studies do not center equity concerns in the questions explored, the methodological choices made, and approaches taken to “get to know governance.” Consequently, and unsurprisingly, what we find or do not find as a research community is influenced by how we attempt to unearth those findings. By not centering equity or critical models and lenses such as CRT in the methodological approaches and research design, and by not acknowledging the deep-rooted racism and inequitable foundations of higher education, inequity becomes embedded in the study of governance regardless of methodological underpinnings. This reality accentuates our call for shifting to the Equity X Governance paradigm.

Summary and Conclusions Our use of CRT of Higher Education (Patton, 2016) demonstrates the relatively limited and uncritical ways governance and, by extension, GBs have been operationalized in the literature across their history and the methods used to study them. We draw two conclusions to aid us in operationalizing GBs within the Equity X Governance paradigm. First, although there is much written about governance in general, because so few of the animating features of the studies are focused on equity, we feel encouraged to disregard the traditional approach of citational practices and building upon prior work when it was never meant to pursue or do the work of equity (Mott & Cockayne, 2017). The oft-quoted refrain from Audre Lorde (1983) comes to mind “for the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” We draw inspiration from the fact that this chapter, moving forward, frees us and more critically oriented scholars from having to use raceless and power-unaware theories or governance reviews to situate postsecondary education GB research. Additionally, it invites reflection from those who might feel threatened, dissatisfied, or hostile toward a competing paradigm in the postsecondary education governance space, especially a paradigm that seeks equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. Our second conclusion reiterates a key finding from our traditional literature review (Rall et al., 2021a) and those before it (Kezar & Dee, 2011; Kezar & Eckel, 2004). The methods and frameworks used in studying higher education governance are not expansive and have not mirrored the uptake of equity-oriented approaches to methods in higher education research (e.g., Garvey, 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2021; Sablan, 2019). These methodological limitations are exacerbated by the predominance of available methods that tend to be power-unaware unless explicitly rooted in a race-conscious or critical paradigm (Gonzales et al., 2018; Pasque & Carducci, 2015; Patton, 2016). As a result, a vital feature of the Equity X Governance paradigm is the iterative and co-generative inquiry process, whose antecedence comes from versions of participatory action research (Brydon-Miller & Maguire, 2009; Santos, 2015). We describe our methodological adaptation as “Governance

230

D. L. Morgan et al.

Participatory Action Research” or G-PAR. We overview this promising avenue of localized inquiry in our implications for future research section and share some early reflections on its implementation.

Equity as the Fulcrum of Governance, But Where and How Do We Apply It: Core Challenges and Opportunities for Boards Having reviewed the history of literature, shown it wanting and needing a new perspective, our goal now is to apply CRT and standpoint to re-examine and explore GBs anew, starting with core GB practices. To advance this goal we explored what existing literature puts forth to inform what GBs do (i.e., their practice) from a different vantage point. Our contention is that by raising the core challenges and opportunities for Boards as unearthed by the perspective of others, we can enhance the Equity X Governance paradigm in terms of its relevance to inform practice as well as research and theory.

What Do We Mean by Core Governance Practices? GBs are most commonly associated with the following roles: (1) selecting and appointing a college president or university chancellor, (2) upholding and supporting the mission, values, and purpose of the institution, (3) oversight of academic programs, (4) growing tangible assets of the university, whether they be relationships to key stakeholders or donors, and (5) nurturing intangible assets such as academic freedom, commitment to the impartiality of opinions, and ethical standards (Dominguez, 1971; Freedman, 2004). What follows is a representative but not exhaustive series of considerations for Boards and researchers to (re)envision core governance practices based on views from different actors in the Governance Ecosystem.

Budget Maintenance Boards are tasked with prudent use of institutional funds and being good stewards. Tuition setting, endowment and investment management, procuring financing for new buildings, and more all fall within their purview (Bastedo, 2006; Bird-Pollan, 2021). Optimally, Boards review the budget to ensure it reflects and advances the institution’s mission. What if the budget also reflected the stakeholders on our campuses? By that, are fiscal resources being allocated based on the diverse needs at an institution? If an institution has a large population of first-generation students, for example, are resources for access and retention of these students equitable with their demographic representation? Further, if there are inequities across metrics, is the budget being purposed to try to address those gaps? Is the Board complicating tasks like raising tuition to not only think about the bottom line but also which student groups may be priced out or adversely impacted by the change?

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

231

Presidential Selection The selection of presidents and chancellors of institutions and systems is the most influential role boards play in higher education (Commodore, 2018). The selection of the face of the institution carries rippling effects for campus culture, hiring of the provost and faculty, and overall direction (Cole, 2020; Odle, 2022; Rutherford & Lozano, 2018). Therefore, it is important for GBs to not merely rely on search firms (that often struggle with issues of equity themselves) to bring them “good” candidates. Boards must be actively involved in diversifying and expanding the pool of candidates to move beyond “fit” with their campus (Posselt et al., 2020) and instead center on how the selection helps align with the pursuit of equity. Moreover, while GBs ensure candidates are asked questions about fundraising, leadership styles, and vision, ways to ascertain commitment to and opportunities for equity and justice are also essential. However, boards themselves must be trained and equipped with the knowledge to have these conversations. In Dr. Commodore’s experiences with discussing the presidential selection process and engaging in the work of the board with GB members, it was not uncommon for boards to struggle with identifying issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion that were present. This was especially true if seemingly representational diversity existed (i.e., 1 woman or 2 Black people) or a critical mass of a marginalized group was present (i.e., an HBCU). In these instances, figuring out if the presidential candidate was “one of us” seemed to take priority over trying to negotiate commitments to equity. Changes to presidential selection may require more intentionality with the selection of the search firm and the search committee (Bensimon & Associates, 2022). It may also mean that GBs allow for more interaction with the candidates before selection so that such an important post is not selected with one visit to the campus or interactions with a small subset of actors. While we are sensitive to challenges with “open searches” (McLendon & Hearn, 2006), a middle ground is needed because the secrecy in which most searches are done, we assert, allows for too many problematic norms to be reified (Commodore, 2018), especially when history is compelling that presidents can help institutions better serve minoritized students (Cole, 2020). Upholding and Supporting the Mission, Values, and Purpose What exactly is the institution’s stance on equity? What is the Board’s approach to equity? Better-articulated structures like clearly defined charges and roles can shape effectiveness (Mortimer & McConnell, 1978; Schuster et al., 1994). The Board is responsible for setting the institution’s direction through mission articulation (Hill et al., 2001). At present, approaches to equity-related issues have been broad and ambiguous. More than ever, there is potential for GBs to hold higher education accountable; no other university stakeholder has the same degree of responsibility to evaluate the progress of a university (Corbally, 1970). Boards must ensure that the campus aligns with the established and communicated mission, values, and purpose. If the campus deviates from these, the Board’s responsibility is to help the institution course correct. Moreover, if the institution has outgrown or needs to revamp its mission, the Board needs to lead this process.

232

D. L. Morgan et al.

It is also crucial to center introspection at the Board level via an embrace of accountability in its myriad forms (mission alignment, public opinion, internal Board levers, accreditation, etc.). Birnbaum (1989) makes it plain that “Clarity and agreement on organizational mission are usually considered a fundamental principle for establishing systems of accountability,” yet, most boards are unclear as to the mission, especially in light of the recent push for equity (p. 11). GBs have a track record of underperformance (Eckel, 2019). Even answers to the classification of governance effectiveness “depends” (Birnbaum, 1991; Kezar, 2004). Effective governance is contingent upon the willingness of individuals to share their insights and ideas (Chait et al., 2005; Kezar, 2004; Kezar & Dee, 2011; Morgan et al., 2021a). Indeed, how GBs or others subtly describe their work is crucial, “. . .but it is up to higher education and society to ensure their role is defined correctly and executed (Taylor & de Lourdes Machado, 2008, p. 253). Unfortunately, GB’s efforts to improve and transmute colleges and universities fall flat in the absence of clarity around equity. The next portion of our review grapples with the challenges GBs navigate in trying to carry out their core practices.

Save the World on Your Own Time: Navigating “Unchartered” Territory in Governance When Dr. Rall was in her Ph.D. program, she read Stanley Fish’s (2008) book, Save the World on Your Time. The three major takeaways apply to today’s higher education Boards: Do your job, don’t do somebody else’s job, and don’t let someone else do your job” (Fish, 2008, p. 8). The first task is “Do Your Job.” It seems straightforward enough, but this is actually highly complicated in the case of boards. Historically, GBs have been warned to stay in their lane; that they need to think about the big picture and avoid the weeds. As a result, GBs are expected to defer the lion’s share of their responsibilities to the president or chancellor of their institutions. Accordingly, GBs have typically taken two approaches to action in higher education – pro forma action or noninvolvement; boards either weigh in on decisions already committed and would not be changed considerably by the time they acted or they did not act at all (Dominguez, 1971; Morgan et al., 2021a). For example, there are activist boards and trustees on one end of the spectrum, “. . .those who take an independent and aggressive role in the policy-making process, resulting in organizational characteristics that are appreciably distinct from traditional boards” (Bastedo, 2005, p. 552). In the past, it has been activist trustees alone who acted against the consistent rhetoric to be both unseen and unheard. However, challenges before our nation’s institutions have forced all GBs into the realm of visibility. So from a different standpoint, these moves into more visible roles for GB have often been involuntary; they have been prompted to respond to presidential misconduct (Rutherford & Lozano, 2018), racial injustice (Commodore & Morgan, 2021), crises of safety (Tierney & Rall, 2018), etc. At the same time, boards have also brought critique upon themselves via decision-making errors at institutions like the University of Virginia, University of Maryland, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

233

Hill. Instead of being pushed to act, however, the literature supports that a more proactive Board role may be required (Chait et al., 2005; Eckel & Trower, 2018). Staying clear of the pejorative connotation of activist, boards must undoubtedly be active in their Board roles. That said, while some voices have argued that boards have and exercise too much power, our collective voice is arguing that boards have only dabbled with power and have failed in general to enunciate and act upon the major stewardship responsibilities which. . . “must be assigned to them” (Corbally, 1970, p. 243). We also add that authentically operating within the Equity X Governance paradigm serves as a check on “activist trustees” since the undergirding logic of the paradigm calls for all actors to pursue equity in healthy consensual partnership (Commodore et al., 2022; Morgan et al., 2021a; Rall et al., 2020). Another complication with boards “doing their job” is rooted in the problem of information. Boards must remain detached enough to remain impartial but this distance obfuscates their role in oversight because they often do not have access to information integral to do their job (Dominguez, 1971). Think about the ramifications at Penn State when boards did not have access to the information or only had to rely on what key decision-makers decided to tell them (Tierney & Rall, 2018). In addition, their lack of familiarity with higher education and lack of time on campus limits their awareness of campus issues (Eckel & Trower, 2018). Despite the limitations, “The Board must ensure that goals are set, that processes are in place for the institution to monitor its progress, and that the president and key leaders are held accountable for results” (Hill et al., 2001). Oversight and public accountability are essential roles of boards (Woodward, 2009). Reviewing institutional purposes, evaluating how the institution hits those marks, and insisting upon changes when the purpose is not being met are requisite (Corbally, 1970). Boards must do their job, but it is also imperative that they do this job well, a feat we fear is impossible without strategic integration of equity via organizational transformation.

All Eyes on Boards: Opportunities Before Boards of Higher Education Kokushkin (2014) delineates two versions of Standpoint Theory – “Standpoint Theory is” (“a set of theoretical and epistemological propositions designed to produce alternative knowledge,” p. 10) and “Standpoint Theory can.” As our chapter transitions to (re)envisioning governance and equity for the future, we leave you with the notion that “Standpoint Theory can” help us better examine and anticipate key governance practices. Though trustees serve and leave (Corbally, 1970), during their terms they can make intentional changes that can impact the future of the higher education enterprise. Governance meaningfully shapes the institutional environment (Chait et al., 2005; Kezar & Dee, 2011; Kezar & Eckel, 2004). So just like we go a step further than most governance literature to question why do we not know enough about GBs (Rall et al., 2021a), here we encourage key postsecondary stakeholders to not simply put forth “best practices” but interrogate how these practices might be achieved with the Equity X Governance paradigm as the fulcrum. We offer a concrete example of what we mean next.

234

D. L. Morgan et al.

Diversify Board Demographics as a Genesis Not Completion Board decisions impact all aspects of students’ lives (Siqueiros, 2020). However, its composition remains one of higher education’s most inequitable decision-making entities (AGB, 2020; Bustillos & Siqueiros, 2018; Rall et al., 2018). Organizations often fail to keep pace with growing societal demographic complexity (Operario & Fiske, 2001); boards are no exception. There are few women or people of color on many boards and even fewer women of color. Increasing the number of marginalized voices represented on boards can reveal otherwise left-out perspectives (Allen, 1996; Torchia et al., 2011). Regardless of the selection method, the personal backgrounds of Board members are overly narrow and students and faculty have been abjured from direct representation on boards (Dominguez, 1971; Rall et al., 2022a; Rall & Orué, 2020). Older trustees, wealthy trustees, and trustees from certain professional backgrounds like business and politics are overrepresented on boards (AGB, 2020). Marginalized groups often cannot hit a critical mass in representation on the Board. Yet, boards often focus only on composition alone without doing the necessary work to address and combat the systematic reasons for such inequity. Further, boards often lack innovative ways to initiate and sustain actionable change beyond developing diversity statements, committees, and positions. According to AGB Senior Fellow Alvin Schexnider, “There is a general understanding that if we are diverse and inclusive it helps to better inform policy, it helps to better inform decisions, it helps to raise the level of awareness about issues that sometimes boards, while well-intentioned, may not be aware of” (as cited in Elletson, 2017). When a Board is homogenous, there is a higher tendency to minimize conflict by not considering alternative ideas or perspectives that could prevent consensus from being reached as quickly (Minor & Tierney, 2005). Dynamic tension, which does not stifle internal disagreement, is preferred over an integrationist approach (Tierney & Rall, 2018). And while the call for more (and more intentional) diversification is not new, it cannot be overstated enough because in the past few decades there has been movement (albeit marginal) but noticeably not on par with the changing student demographics (AGB, 2020). Until governing boards are more diverse, we need to reiterate the message and innovate the approaches to bringing Board diversity to fruition. We also contend that groups like boards need to be able to change their structures and processes to respond to circumstances (Dee & Leišytė, 2016; Kezar, 2004; Rall et al., 2022a). It is necessary but insufficient to diversify a GB across identities of race, gender, SES, etc.; these groups must also feel included. Different types of trustees have different attitudes and some research has shown that diversity in attitudinal orientations may be even more critical than biographical characteristics (Dominguez, 1971; Ford-Eickhoff et al., 2011; Johnson et al., 2013; Lynall et al., 2003). Along both axes, however, it is not enough to change the people and not also change the policies, procedures, and practices that prompted the disparities in the first place. Accordingly, Critical Race Feminism combats dominant narratives that continue to rule our public and private sector, despite social beliefs that we are a nation of “equal opportunity.” Boards should represent the populations they serve, but diversifying boards will not fix all governance issues.

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

235

Wrap Up: The Future of Governance Practice In this section, we have considered how knowledge resulting from varying standpoints can maintain or change unjust power practices that create challenges and opportunities for GB (Collins, 1997). Nearly 20 years ago, Kezar (2004) noted that governance issues are pervasive yet, “. . .few solutions have been proposed and, of those, few have been successful” (p. 35). Here is where we hope Boards can transition into the next gear and move from understanding the value of equity and identifying inequity to transforming institutions in ways that better serve all stakeholders (Rall et al., 2020). While GBs do not choose the issues that go before them per se (Eckel & Trower, 2018), how they address pivotal issues, such as equity, matters. The Board can set the tone for the entire institution (Hill et al., 2001). Knowing that Boards are not diverse is not enough. Knowing that Boards can play an integral role in improving inequity is insufficient. Boards cannot escape the forces (i.e., the bottlenecks) that will test their duty to provide strategic direction for the future of higher education (Taylor & de Lourdes Machado, 2008). With the help of the research community and advocates, Boards have to start to bridge the equity talk with the equity walk (McNair et al., 2019). Note that this is not an invitation. Boards and researchers have already assumed their role in advancing equity, whether a barrier, inhibitor, bystander, Catalyst, or initiator (Rall, 2021b; Rall et al. 2020). Our contribution here is elevating that standpoint considerations are essential. Hence, as we (re)envision governance and equity for the future, the effort requires decision-making actors and researchers to check their standpoint within the Equity X Governance paradigm. This standpoint view combined with our CRT lens fully prepares us to focus on the connectivity of actors and activities and the GBs roles in the Governance Ecosystem, which we seek to fully detail in the next section.

(Re)Envisioning Governance and Equity for the Future The preceding literature reviews lead us to the following summarized conclusions that inform the components of the Equity X Governance paradigm: The key concepts utilized in the study and practice of governance and equity in higher education are not sufficiently aligned with the pursuit of equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. This conclusion calls for a clear and accessible term or phrase that reorients people’s understanding of the study of governance and the pursuit of educational equity. The Governance Ecosystem is vast and not often optimally organized to both locate the role of the GB and detail the relationships between GB and other ecosystem actors. These dynamics allow ecosystem bottlenecks to wreak havoc on governance processes and consequential outcomes. This conclusion calls for a (re) commitment to organizational transformation. Most studies about GBs have traditionally been done in raceless or powerunaware ways. Unfortunately, this trend leaves the study and practices of GBs decidedly impotent to tackle the ever-evolving interlocking systems of oppression

236

D. L. Morgan et al.

embedded within organizational realities. This conclusion calls for a recommitment to centering GBs in change processes but in ways that are mindful of their histories and underlying logics. The standpoint view of GBs reveals that their practices and habits, wielded by trustees and entire Boards, are important contributors to the challenging dynamics GBs must navigate. This means GBs must attend to the realities of those they interact with (directly and indirectly) in ways that contend with their unique cultural, experiential, and identity contexts. This conclusion calls for a reimagining of how GBs are positioned with others in the Governance Ecosystem. The totality of these conclusions help us conceptualize the Equity X Governance paradigm’s theory of change illustrated in Fig. 3. This model is our (re)envisioned response to the bottlenecks in the Governance Ecosystem (i.e., the red dotted borders in Fig. 1) that impede the optimal functioning of the system, necessitating transformation. Although arranged linearly in the initial figure, these bottlenecks are dynamic. They often co-mingle depending on the institutional actor, presenting an additional layer of complexity. Likewise, the positioning and linkages between actors and activities (i.e., the ecosystem’s architecture) are also fluid, contextual, and highly idiosyncratic. Here, adapting from Kapoor (2018), we raise the consideration of using a “multisided platform approach” to transform the Governance Ecosystem. As opposed to models that focus on siloed aspects of an economic market, management scholars have identified the ways an organizational platform captures a more complex rendering of dynamics within a context (Helfat & Raubitschek, 2018). At a high level, a platform operates within an ecosystem and arranges the context and norms that facilitate alignment among actors and between actors and activities that work together to overcome bottlenecks and create value for all the participants of the platform. Platform logic is about transforming organizations toward joint-value creation facilitated by a third party (or platform owner). This is in contrast to traditional economic models that focus on one to one (e.g., producer to consumer) interactions in a marketplace. Although platform logic may seem unfamiliar to most, many people interact daily with the fruits of the logic. Take many of the apps likely on a smartphone (e.g., TikTok, Uber, Airbnb). These platforms (Helfat & Raubitschek, 2018) connect users to content creators or producers where value (i.e., entertainment or financial) is realized for all involved, including the companies that create, own, and manage the platforms. This belated shift to a platform view in the process of organizational transformation is a crucial advancement in the postsecondary education governance literature, given the conclusions of our literature synthesis. In essence, we have argued that the current paradigms that undergird approaches to governance and equity reify GBs as siloed entities and disconnected from comprehensive and interdependent efforts to advance equity. Common efforts to change this dynamic rely on a focus on a particular non-GB actor and are often focused on improving outcomes for a limited array of stakeholders or single social identity. In contrast, our Equity X Governance

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

Level 1

237

Board Training & Development

Board Composition

Governing Board

Board Onboarding

Level 2

Collaboratively Fix architecture via policies, process, & Planning

Embrace Accountability

Presidential Selection

Promote Mission, Values, Purpose

Cultivate And Enhance Stakeholder Relationships

Transformational Trusteeship Platform

Actors

Stakeholder 1

Level 3

Activities

Stakeholder 1

Activity 1 Activity 1

Stakeholder 2

Stakeholder 2

Activity 2 Activity 2

Stakeholder 3

Activity 3

Stakeholder 3

Activity 3

Arrows = Platform Architecture (positioning, transactions, information fows, accountability schemes, etc.)

Stakeholder Success

Fig. 3 Equity X Governance Theory of Change

238

D. L. Morgan et al.

paradigm alerts us to the need to tackle interrelated issues that derail value creation (i.e., success) for multiple actors (i.e., bottlenecks in the Governance Ecosystem) as a critical component in organizational transformation. Let us use an example to help translate this platform logic for organizational change into our Equity X Governance paradigm (see Fig. 3). Efforts concerning equity in postsecondary education tend to be heavily focused on the experiences and outcomes of students (Hurtado et al., 2012; Kuh et al., 2010; Mayhew et al., 2016; Museus, 2014; Renn, 2020b). However, the literature is clear and compelling that improving the experiences of staff and faculty (Gonzales & Griffin, 2020; Kezar et al., 2019; López & Morgan, 2021; O’Meara & Stromquist, 2015; Rhoades, 2017) can positively impact students’ experiences. However, these efforts to support and research actors are often done in silos as pointed out in section “Relevant Stakeholders: An Ecosystem Perspective on Equity X Governance.” In contrast, a platform approach to transformation within the Equity X Governance paradigm works to understand not only the interdependencies of how these various actors interact, but in order to keep the system running optimally, GBs must determine how to overcome ecosystem bottlenecks and align structures to create value for all actors as they engage in their activities and pursue desired outcomes. Said differently, a decision or action is preferred if it is demonstrable how it helps (or at least does not harm) the entire platform (i.e., all stakeholders). Fundamental changes are already afoot in the postsecondary education context, meaning GBs must transform their governance approaches to realize a different set of outcomes. We believe scholars’ and advocates’ ability to aid GBs in this shift is a critical responsibility to take up. Therefore, in the tradition of counterstory telling, in this section, we first imagine and conceptualize, informed by our synthesis, how the Equity X Governance paradigm allows us to understand the presented ecosystem (Fig. 1) differently (see Fig. 3). Specifically, we outline the points where GBs can be effectual in addressing the bottlenecks through architectural design (i.e., the arrangement of the arrows in Fig. 3) and help to orient institutions toward the pursuit of equity. From there, we outline a research agenda that can help build knowledge and postsecondary education organizational transformation. We conclude with additional practical implications.

The Equity X Governance Model: A (Re)Envisioned Approach for Transformation The Equity X Governance Transformation model is set upon four logics (which we frame as questions) that provide insights, from a more equity focused starting point, into why GBs exist, what they are supposed to do, who they are accountable for, and the practices and tools at their disposal to engage in governance.

Why Do GBs Exist? In the current paradigm, the existence and necessity of GBs are self-evident and untroubled as an effective intervention to curtail faculty overreach and self-interest

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

239

within postsecondary institutions (Bess & Dee, 2014; Dominguez, 1971). In the Equity X Governance paradigm, the GB earns its keep at the institution through more than a “give or get” ethos of fundraising and rubber stamps, characteristic of many nonprofit GBs (Renz & Anderson, 2014). To transform institutions, GBs should be able to periodically demonstrate to the campus community how they as a collective have been value-add to the enterprise over and above a model of governance where the GB did not exist or only existed to raise money. This prove your value philosophy is not intended to make trustees employees who wade into everyday realities. However, the current positioning and relationships between GB and institutions are not consistently yielding results enough for equitable stakeholder success. Therefore, doubling down on failed(ing) practices/paradigms of effectiveness, oversight, and detachment also cannot be the answer. Instead, Equity X Governance calls for systematic inquiry, experimentation, and transparency as GBs seek to find a more optimal alignment in their platform approach to institutions.

What Are GBs For? In existing paradigms, GBs exist for organizational preservation. In the Equity X Governance paradigm, GBs exist to lead and support institutions toward stakeholder success, concretely operationalized as: • • • • •

Contributions to and safeguarding of the public good Stakeholder socioeconomic mobility The realization of self-agency, balanced by a concern for the collective Always in the process of deconstruction of oppressive structures Rooted in a love ethic (Hooks, 2000)

Critically these markers of stakeholder success focus on both individual and communal outcomes – including the broader public good, which includes care for the earth and one’s surrounding community that is (in)directly connected to any particular institution (Crumley-Effinger & Torres-Olave, 2021). Further, hook’s (2000) love ethic is what is required to navigate otherwise contentious and intractable problems without GBs reinscribing the bottlenecks of the ecosystem. We ponder how different things might be if a love for one another, emanating from a deep concern for the liberation and experience of fullness for groups and the earth, were the underlying norms as GBs go to make difficult decisions or engage in the process of hiring a president?

Who Are GBs Accountable To? In current paradigms, GBs are accountable to sovereigns via the accountability regime, including taxes and accreditation. In the Equity X Governance paradigm, GBs are first and foremost accountable to the stakeholders’ standpoint (Kokushkin, 2014), who make up the ecosystem generally. The contextualized quality of care standard as one manifestation of equity (Jordan, 2010) asks to what extent is the institution that the GB is responsible for able to meet the unique needs of different stakeholders and ensure they have opportunities for success not bound by

240

D. L. Morgan et al.

circumstances outside of their control but in the domain of influence of the GB (Garces, 2014). However, the components driving decision-making at the GB level are often navigated toward compliance, risk aversion, and image management (Renz & Anderson, 2014). While those things are important, to the extent that they supersede the pursuit of equitable stakeholder success, they must be re-examined, reimagined, and redeployed when necessary.

What Practices and Tools Should GBs Use to Accomplish Their Purpose? A question we are frequently asked is if there are any “best practices” or exemplar GBs “doing the work” that the GB might look to for inspirations? It is always awkward as we shy away from providing direct answers because there are very few GBs doing this work well and over a sustained amount of time. Conversely, there have not been sustained efforts to compel GBs to pursue pushes for ranking increases (Gonzales, 2013; Pusser & Marginson, 2013; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004) or more recently to attain Hispanic Serving Institution status (Garcia, 2017). Yet, examples of institutions engaging in these practices abound and other interested institutions figure out how to mimic these pursuits. Hence, we know isomorphic pressures (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) are real and documented. So, this either bears our point out that there are too few examples of GBs to mimic or there are GBs out there exemplifying GB engagement in equity work well and other GBs are choosing not to emulate their pursuits. Based on potential responses to those prompts, there is no way to get around the reality that the current landscape of Board practices and tools is bleak, hence, the need to (re)envision. When it comes to enacting the practices and tools within the Equity X Governance paradigm, GBs should seek to operate within one of the following options to: (a) find ways to permanently dismantle the bottlenecks (ideal but unachievable); (b) partner with non-GB actors in an iterative inquiry-driven process to determine how to pursue equity in a contextually informed way (best) (Morgan et al., 2021a; Rall, 2021b); (c) generously allocate expertise and resources (better) (Commodore et al., 2022; Rall et al., 2020), or (d) stay out of the way and do no harm (sub-optimal but better than unhelpful interference (see Jones, Nikole Hannah (Commodore & Morgan, 2021)).

Bringing It All Together Our proposed model seeks to operationalize the Equity X Governance paradigm as a mechanism that can inform a research agenda and provides levers for how GBs might transform institutions toward stakeholder success. The top part of the model focuses on individual trustees and the GB as a unit. There are a set of practices that feed into the GB (Fig. 3, Level 1): Board training and development, Board composition, and Board onboarding. These practices merge to create the operating norms for trustees within the context of the GB. Flowing out from the GB context toward the institutional environment are the five core tactics (Fig. 3, Level 2) that GBs can leverage to facilitate stakeholder success in the process of organizational transformation. These include:

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

241

1. Working to collaboratively fix dynamics between actors through policies, processes, and planning 2. Embracing efforts to be held accountable as a GB and individual trustees 3. The process of presidential selection and evaluation 4. Actively promoting the mission, values, and purpose of an institution and the broader postsecondary education sector 5. Enhancing their relationships with various stakeholders We argue that GBs, via their typical habits (e.g., Board meetings, passing resolutions, selection and evaluation of institutional leaders, strategic planning), must engage in both patchwork efforts across those five listed tactics and longerterm transformational work that helps to realize equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. Within the institutional context (Fig. 3, Level 3) is where various non-GB actors come together and engage in different activities that have the potential to be oriented toward the critical outcome of equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. The arrows between stakeholders and activities represent a differently organized architecture of the ecosystem. This conveys how stakeholders are positioned relative to each other, the transactions they engage in over the course of their activities, how information flows between stakeholders amid the activity, and the accountability schemes embedded within the relationship to help lead the activity toward equitable opportunities. The usefulness of the Equity X Governance Transformation model is that it encourages both a structural and relational understanding of GBs relative to the actors and activities of the institution. For instance, in the model, we might understand “Stakeholder 1” as students and “Stakeholder 2” as faculty engaging in “Activity 1,” which is a classroom teaching and learning experience. Relatedly, “Activity 2” on the platform is faculty research and “Activity 3” is community engagement with the surrounding locality. In an effort to operate within the Equity X Governance paradigm, the resulting model, as a theory of change, illuminates and examines the architectures between these actors and activities for their ability to create equitable opportunities for stakeholder success and meaningfully reward community-engaged scholarship that involves students in reviews of faculty (Gonzales, 2013; O’Meara et al., 2014). Joint-value is created in expanding what counts as scholarship (O’Meara & Niehaus, 2009) and opens up avenues for students to have enhanced learning experiences (Saltmarsh & Hartley, 2011). Or a GB might review reports from the institutional research office to examine who has access to high-impact practices (Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2018) and whether the experiences are resourced appropriately to yield desirable outcomes across disaggregated stakeholder identities (Zilvinskis et al., 2021). Better resourcing supports both student access to these critical experiences and enhances the capabilities of the facilitator of the experience, another example of joint-value creation. Finally, in congruence with a chorus of scholars – the Equity X Governance model and the directional flows helps to highlight how GB working with the chief financial officer, the faculty representative body, and the president to improve the working

242

D. L. Morgan et al.

conditions of contingent faculty can produce a range of outcomes for the faculty in these roles and for the greater campus community (Kezar et al., 2019; Rhoades, 2017). Again – our point of emphasis and contribution is locating the GB as differently agentic and collaborative when it comes to equity considerations.

An Equity X Governance Model Counternarrative: The “Case” of Justice University To ensure our model is as concrete as possible, we want present a short allegorical story of a GB of the fictitious Justice University (JU): In search of a new way to support the Governing Board of Justice University, Chair Salazar came across a tweet overviewing the Equity X Governance model. Given her own background as a first-generation, low-income student who had become a successful business owner, she instantly connected with the unflinching commitment to equity. At that moment she figured she would use the model at an upcoming Board retreat to see if her fellow trustees would be willing to approach some of their persistent challenges if framed in a different way. In particular, Chair Salazar has been hearing for months now from the president of JU that the institution does not have enough financial or human resources to move some equity initiative forward. In addition competition for student enrollment and tuition discounting trends were straining any efforts to move past these considerations [i.e., systematically identifying bottlenecks]. In response, during the retreat Chair Salazar set up an activity that started with the prompt, “how can the Justice University Governing Board become more engaged and supportive of the institution’s equity work?”. She asked trustees and the institutional leadership that attended the retreat to separately list the actors and activities involved in the institution’s equity work that directly and indirectly contribute to advancing the success of stakeholders with minoritized identities at JU. She also asked that the trustees list what the JU Board had done in the last year to differently position themselves to support and engage with JU’s equity efforts [i.e., Contextually mapping the Governance Ecosystem]. Chair Salazar then asked the attendees to pick a bottleneck to consider and then flow through each level of the Equity X Governance Model, to consider how an action plan for the GB might be arrived at differently. The GB quickly settled on insufficient human resources to support equity focused work and what transpired next was a robust conversation and determination on what the GB could do about JU not having enough people to support its equity initiatives. Here were the key takeaways of how the Equity X Governance model was enacted by JU in the succeeding months: At Level 1 – focused on the GB, the JU Board agreed that they needed to engage in a particular type of Board training and development to learn about the implications of the “great resignation.” This strategy went beyond reading some literature or hearing a generalized report from the vice president for human resources. They requested data about who was leaving disaggregated by race, gender, and length of service [i.e., a CRT and Standpoint consideration], they did a policy audit of their retention and recruitment practices to ensure they were devoid of implicit biases [i.e., a CRT consideration], and they charted a plan to invite people who have recently left the institution or were considering doing so to hear directly from people navigating the realities of an evolving labor market [i.e., a standpoint consideration]. At Level 2, the Board engaged in negotiations with the president to update the President’s accountability structure for the upcoming year to include measures and considerations for the recruitment and retention of faculty and administrators who make demonstrable contributions to the institution’s equity initiatives. The GB agreed to redouble and support

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

243

fundraising efforts to support staffing the equity initiatives and the president agreed to create a specific strategy that would focus on recruiting and retaining faculty and staff. The activity at the first two levels signaled an important shift for the institution. Institutional units began to have discussions about areas of synergy where equity initiatives could be supported in multiple ways. For instance, at Level 3, the residence life department [stakeholder 1] and the faculty council [stakeholder 2] agreed to evolve the faculty in residence program to a faculty fellows program. Faculty with research interest in areas connected to equity would now spend a certain amount of hours at different residence halls to meet with students and share about ongoing research to make connections to current events [i.e., an activity]. Special emphasis was placed on recruiting tenured faculty from under-enrolled majors in an effort to help serve as another mechanism to bolster course enrollments. In exchange, faculty were provided a monthly meal allotment that they could use in the campus dining service. Prior to this collaboration residence life could not afford to hire new staff to explicitly focus on advancing equity initiatives in its residential curriculum and its core staff were already at capacity. Given concerns shared with the GB about why people were leaving the institution, the Residence Life leadership did not want to make the issues worst by adding to existing duties. However with a change in how two stakeholders collaborate with each other [i.e., a change in the architecture of the ecosystem] they were able to create an outcome that creates joint-value for all involved. Residence Life does not add to the burden of its staff, under-utilized faculty are able to meet with students and share their equity related research, and students get supported by interfacing with potential faculty mentors and learning about equity related research and how it connects to current events. Eventually the success of this new program was reported back to the GB. Chair Salazar connected the dots between the GBs early work and all the additional labor and ideas and execution that went into the successful establishment of a project that serves so many purposes. One trustee was particularly inspired and ended up sharing the program with a business partner. The business partner was also impressed and decided to work with the trustee to endow the fellows program with a sizable gift.

Admittedly, this counternarrative may seem far-fetched – but we wonder if GBs were involved in equity work in systematic and expansive ways, if these sorts of stories might become more commonplace. Nevertheless, the contribution of the Equity X Governance model is within the unpacking of the complexities and interconnected nature of the actors and activities that GBs, through the five core tactics, can help to unravel the bottlenecks that infringe on functioning of the Governance Ecosystem. In addition, the multifaceted nature of this model and the ecosystem it exists within presents numerous implications for future research and practice, which we address in the next section.

Implications for Future Research: Defining a Praxis Agenda Overview Thus far, this chapter has sought to: articulate the utility of shifting to the Equity X Governance paradigm, illuminate the bottlenecks in the Governance Ecosystem that impede the realization of Equity X Governance, and introduce a model of transformation as a way to conceptually center the GB’s role in organizational

244

D. L. Morgan et al.

change efforts to enact stakeholder success. This section focuses on braiding these tentative contributions together into a coherent praxis agenda. Paulo Freire (1970) operationalized praxis as both “reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed” (p. 126). This definition comports with the structural and relational nature of the Equity X Governance paradigm and our emphasis on the need for organizational transformation rather than episodic change, captured in our rendering of the transformation model. We open up our recommendations with more philosophical and reflective questions that guide researchers to interrogate their readiness to operate within the Equity X Governance paradigm. We then provide a series of potential research questions that emanate from the illustrations conveyed in the Governance Ecosystem (Fig. 1) and the transformation model (Fig. 3). To close, we highlight examples from our emerging and ongoing research, practice, and teaching to provide insight and encouragement that progress is possible in this space, albeit slow. We hope these examples stimulate more significant attention to this work to foster a more rapid pace of transformation in the governance space and with GBs in particular, given existing realities for far too many stakeholders with minoritized identities.

Strengthening the Equity X Governance Paradigm Through Reflective Inquiry The call for a shift to Equity X Governance invokes Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) seminal work on scientific revolutions. In summation, Kuhn (1962) argues that scientific advancement occurs between dynamic periods of normal science and scientific revolutions. Kuhn (1962) suggests that normal science comprises an agreed-upon set of theories, instruments, values, and assumptions that a field uses to solve puzzles. However, a crisis in a field happens when the normal way of pursuing scientific work is insufficient to handle increasingly complex and problematic puzzles. In this way, our chapter’s premise has been that the “normal” way of approaching the study of governance and GBs is no longer sufficient for the evolving realities faced by postsecondary institutions and their stakeholders regarding the pace and realization of equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. The tension between “normal” and “revolution” is complicated by Renn’s (2020a) argument, which we agree with in part, that higher education studies is a low-consensus field. However, as we have demonstrated via our engagement with existing literature, there are identifiable patterns in the study of postsecondary governance and GBs in particular, that have constituted a “normal” – way of practicing governance and doing GB research. Within this normal approach to the study and practice of governance and GB, we have identified that the pursuit of equity is not foregrounded as a central concern. Therefore, within this broader moment in postsecondary education, where many are attuned to the importance of equity (McNair et al., 2019; Patton et al., 2019; Perna, 2018), the Equity X Governance paradigm names this shift in the postsecondary education governance space for GBs.

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

245

To further realize this shift, we loosely adapt Kuhn’s (1962) criteria for paradigms to roadmap how future research can take up the Equity X Governance paradigm and evolve. First, a new paradigm should suggest different puzzles for the research community to solve. In an overarching sense, the new puzzles we are arguing for, take up how to realize equitable opportunities for stakeholder success and effective GB stewardship of an institution as a starting point. This is different than traditional research concerns that foreground “sound financial management,” “operational excellence,” or “guardianship” as the most desirable ways to be fiduciary stewards of institutions (AGB, 2021; Chait et al., 2005; Eckel & Trower, 2018). Consequently, we create a short checklist of questions that could help future scholars enact an Equity X Governance paradigm in their studies: • What are my underlying assumptions about how governance operates in the postsecondary education sector? What steps can I take to unearth how interlocking systems of oppression shape these assumptions? • How do my identities and experiences inform my understanding of governance and governing boards? Where are my assets and where are my biases in this work? How do I wrestle with the tensions brought forth in this reflection in my effort to conduct research in this area? • What am I hoping comes out of my study of governance and governing boards? Is that rationale oriented toward the realization of equity for multiple stakeholders of an institution? How and where am I locating stakeholders with minoritized identities in this scholarship? • How does conceptualizing Boards or Trustees within the Equity X Governance paradigm differ from an alternative approach to studying Boards? What does the Equity X Governance paradigm allow me to do uniquely that other approaches do not? • How might Equity X Governance be paired with complementary or supplemental theories or paradigms? How do I narrate the overlaps and the places where they diverge and then leverage those insights to set up studies? The second criterion for a paradigm is whether the paradigm suggests novel approaches to solving the new puzzles that the paradigm shift brings into focus. We highlight one of our emerging attempts to craft the Equity X Governance paradigm in section “Methodological Advancement: Governance Participatory Action Research.” Finally, a paradigm should convey a standard of quality for which solutions to puzzles in the paradigm can be measured against (Kuhn, 1962). On the one hand, the measure of quality for puzzle solutions in the Equity X Governance paradigm is straightforward: As a result of GB involvement, are institutions being transformed in intentional and demonstrable ways that help facilitate opportunities for all stakeholders to be successful. Yet it is the complexity and detail inherent in any measure of quality (Jones et al., 2014; Patel, 2015) that has perplexed scholars before us and will continue to do so. Rather than try to provide a sweeping answer, we focus on questions for future research rooted in the paradigm that we believe, if taken up and answered in the coming years, will help foment more clarity into

246

D. L. Morgan et al.

whether the puzzles of the Equity X Governance paradigm are being solved in ways that bring us closer to the ideal outcomes.

Questions for Future Research Rooted in the Equity X Governance Paradigm The Governance Ecosystem (see Fig. 1) presents numerous considerations for future scholars to take up. We defined Actors as “agents with capacities to aid in transformation,” which raises questions about the competence of each actor in this work. As our review in section “Relevant Stakeholders: An Ecosystem Perspective on Equity X Governance” highlights, there is already a good deal of work that understands postsecondary actor’s capacity and some that seeks to look at the capacity in relation to other actors. However, we concluded that only a handful of studies seek a coalitional understanding of capacity. Therefore, we encourage future researchers to continue to understand the capacity of individual actors to engage in equity transformation but to do say in ways that map their capacity to those of other actors, similar to the recent work on shared equity leadership (Kezar et al., 2021) or president’s councils for diversity (LePeau et al., 2019). In addition, there is an opportunity to examine Actor’s capacity and do it relationally and focus on how the Ecosystem bottlenecks constrain capacity (e.g., political, expertise, relational, personnel). Yet, we also implore researchers to take the next critical step in this line of inquiry and precisely locate and implicate what GBs can do to help alleviate the Actor bottlenecks. Example research questions include: • What is the relationship dynamic between student success units with irregular access to GBs (e.g., student affairs, faculty development, community relations) and how does distance inform their capacity to aid in organizational transformation? • What Actor bottlenecks are governing boards better situated to address for Actors in the Governance Ecosystem? • In what ways do GBs receive and partake in shared equity leadership (Kezar et al., 2021) or coalition (Morgan et al., 2021a) approaches to organizational transformation? We define Activities in the Governance Ecosystem as the actions, carried out by Actors that transform postsecondary education. Here continued research is needed that grapples with the bottlenecks (e.g., technical, data, and resources) and locates the GBs’ responsibilities to address and work alongside others to curtail the bottlenecks. Similar to the Actors, there is an immense amount of research on the different activities that institutions wield to try to move toward equitable opportunities for stakeholder success. Our suggestion for future study is to continue these efforts but do so in ways that weave in the role and realities of the GB. Some lines of “activity” inquiry, such as policymaking (Baker, 2019; Gándara, 2019; Rall et al., 2022b; Rodriguez et al., 2021), do this more readily than other areas of activity. Hence the

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

247

opportunity is for all research on activities in the Governance Ecosystem, when thinking about organizational transformation, to consider how the GB is implicated in both a structural and relational sense. Questions could include: • What are the roles GBs can play to maximize the effectiveness of empirically informed interventions for student success such as high-impact practices? • In what ways can GBs help scale and sustain promising interventions? • How can GBs diagnose the optimal level of involvement in activities designed to advance equity? • What are effective accountability checks on GBs that help to prevent overreach while encouraging engagement? • Can GBs develop their awareness of the technical and data bottlenecks that impede the success of activities designed to advance equity? Finally, and most novel, is a concern for the Architectures of the Governance Ecosystem. These are the strategies and tactics that effectively bring Actors and Activities together. So often these connecting points remain underexplored because so many of the dynamics are concealed by organizational culture norms and systems of oppression that impact working relationships and the execution of activities. The Equity X Governance model (Fig. 3) seeks to illuminate these relationships conceptually. The circles in the model are all focused on the GB. Each circle, we argued in sections “Governance to What End?: A CRT Analysis” and “Equity as the Fulcrum of Governance, but Where and How do we Apply it: Core Challenges and Opportunities for Boards,” remains under-investigated due to the previous studies that engage in power-unaware methodological choices and standpoint challenges that do not consistently illuminate the perspectives of those that GBs interact with. Therefore, future research in the circles of the model must engage in power-conscious approaches to theory and research. We offer the Equity X Governance paradigm as an alternative starting point that roots questions in an awareness of interlocking systems of oppression and the various standpoints in the governance space. For instance, future studies focused on dynamics that flow into the GB (Fig. 3, Level 1) could take up: • What aspects of Board training and development have the strongest relationship to enhancing trustees’ understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion? • What strategies, rooted in equity, are most effective at diversifying postsecondary education governing boards? • How do interlocking systems of oppression manifest in the trustee selection and onboarding process? • In what ways can the onboarding process for new trustees help a Board enhance its commitment to equity? • What are successful strategies for Board accountability for espoused commitments to stakeholder success?

248

D. L. Morgan et al.

Concerning tactics and strategies that flow from the GB into the institutional context (Fig. 3, Level 2), questions might include: • How might the presidential selection process, led by a GB, embed an Equity X Governance paradigm? • What aspects of policies, processes, and planning, that the GB is most responsible, position institutions for equitable opportunities for stakeholder success? • What are the characteristics of effective relationships between stakeholders and governing boards that promote equity? • Under the scope of the governing board, which accountability mechanisms are most optimal for facilitating institutional transformation toward the pursuit of equity? In the third level of the model (Fig. 3) – the actual platform (i.e., the institutional context), additional questions emerge that focus on the arrows in the model. Recall that the arrows represent the platform architecture and focus on how GBs and, as an extension, institutions, navigate around the bottlenecks that manifest in the Governance Ecosystem. Consequently, questions here focus on how actors and activities are positioned, the transactions between actors, how information flows within the platform, and what accountability schemes are optimal for the healthy functioning of the platform. This is where the idea of a platform approach to organizations is critical, as any effort to address one actor or activity must be understood for how it affects the entire platform. Future scholarship in this area could help to highlight the utility of understanding this unique platform dynamic. For instance: • How does supporting community-based research and training of faculty impact the classroom experiences of minoritized students? What are the implications for institutional governance? • From the vantage point of community members, how does student activism on campuses impact an institution’s relationship with its surrounding community and how the Board engages its resource dependence roles? • Which aspects of an institution’s budgeting process connect most optimally with an institution’s ability to allocate money toward scaling and sustaining initiatives that facilitate stakeholder success? • What information shared from the Board level is most likely to inform the practices of institutional leaders around efforts to advance equity? We turn finally to one example of how we have already sought to operationalize the Equity X Governance paradigm to help institutions be transformed.

Methodological Advancement: Governance Participatory Action Research In the last couple of years, we have engaged collectively and individually with various boards in a traditional researcher as expert or advocate approach (Perna, 2018).

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

249

These efforts often entail one-off workshops or speaking engagements where we introduce GBs to much of the content shared in this chapter. However, we have recently grown somewhat disillusioned with this approach because it allows for GBs to appear as though they are embracing transformative efforts toward equity, without doing anything differently in a sustained way. Consequently, in one project, in collaboration with Lucy LePeau, we have sought to leverage participatory action research (PAR) in the context of Boards. PAR’s use in education is widespread (Brydon-Miller & Maguire, 2009) and has been an emergent research approach in higher education (Santos, 2015). While no agreed-upon consensus exists for what makes a study appropriately PAR, recurring considerations include: (a) starting with a problem of practice that originates within a community or bounded context; (b) the researcher dynamic is nonhierarchical; (c) reflexivity among the researchers is woven into each stage of the research process to move through iterative cycles between reflection and action; (d) power and politics dealt with throughout the research process; and (e) the research process creates knowledge and understanding to address the problem of practice (Brydon-Miller & Maguire, 2009; Freire, 1982; Lewin, 1946; Santos, 2015). Critically, if the research “does not make a difference in a specific way for the participants, then it has failed to achieve its objectives” (Savin-Baden & Wimpenny, 2007, p. 333). Building on these considerations, we initiated a new project in collaboration with a system-level governing board. The participatory part of the project started by the board chair reaching out to us after the media publication of a research project summary (Zamudio-Suarez, 2021). We shared the idea of engaging with the Board in alignment with the spirit of the PAR consideration, to which they responded favorably. In a subsequent proposal, we ended up describing this emergent approach as “G-PAR” with the “G” as a stand-in for “governance.” This iteration of PAR is analogous to youth participatory action research (YPAR) (Caraballo et al., 2017) but focused on the unique realities that the governance dimension entails (i.e., dynamics of the Governance Ecosystem). The early stages of the project have shown that there are distinctive tenets, methodological underpinnings, and practical considerations that make this approach novel from other research projects we have engaged in or seen in the literature. In particular, we have had to grapple with the power and political dimension of the governing board and their hyper-focus on some issues (e.g., the legislative season) in their purview and not others (engaging in equity work). We have identified the challenge of getting momentum in G-PAR tied to tasking GBs with multiple complex actions when they are not structured to be overly active and engaged. This is especially tricky for a research approach that purports to be necessarily iterative, collaborative, and requires reflection and an awkward phase of navigating the newness of the method to non-academics. This is all on top of any potential hostility from trustees who are not aligned with the focus on equity. In addition, we have begun evolving particular data collection efforts into the GB space such as “elite interviews” (Kezar, 2003; McClure & McNaughtan, 2021), organizational ethnography (Posselt & Nuñez, 2022), and aspects of forming a community of practice (McNair et al., 2019; Patel, 2015). Future areas of inquiry could help flesh out G-PAR via contextualizing the method for different institutional

250

D. L. Morgan et al.

types based on mission (Morphew & Hartley, 2006) and GB dynamics (McGuinness, 2016). Furthermore, given the early stages of the project, how the GB moves from reflection to action in iterative cycles remains to be seen. We suspect that there will be important insights and additional areas of analysis that also stem from that process. At this stage, we know that securing a GB willing to engage in G-PAR is a huge hurdle in itself; it was years in the making for us. We encourage other scholars interested in this work to cultivate relationships early and often and make intentions clear about the type of research and relationship that is hoped for and how it can be a value-add to the espoused commitments many GBs make about student success and closing equity gaps.

Concluding Thoughts Our chapter set out to make three contributions: (1) naming and defining a more critical and power-conscious paradigm within the governance literature (i.e., Equity X Governance); (2) mapping the Governance Ecosystem which is made up of actors, activities, and architectures that various types of bottlenecks derail in efforts to organize the ecosystem for the pursuit of equity; and (3) presenting a theory of organizational transformation to address ecosystem bottlenecks, which conceptualizes how GBs can be located and more synergistic to institutional efforts to realize equity sustainably. This integrative literature review aimed to conceive a paradigm that is up to handling the immense challenges postsecondary education institutions are navigating and will continue to navigate in the future. It is not lost on us the audacity it takes to call a subsection of a well-established field of study into a new era of research. But, who are we to make such a bold declaration – some may wonder (and transparently, we wonder ourselves at times)? Yet – our shared conviction to operate within the Equity X Governance paradigm helps us to reframe this question to ask who are we to not call for and argue for an immediate shift in research, practice, and teaching? Our shared conviction emanates from our standpoint that postsecondary education institutions must ultimately be designed to better and more sustainably serve the communities and peoples we care about and reflect and those who suffer under the hegemonic weight of oppressions we do not readily encounter. This reality, this yet to be realized counternarrative, is only possible if the next generation of governance research and practice, consistently locates the import of GBs and orients those energies toward advancing the equity. Time is of the essence and the conceptual tools presented herein can help us and others sustain this pursuit, so that governing boards can get to where they need to be to recognize that governance work is equity work too. Acknowledgments We would like to thank Tori Callais, Alaa Abdel Ghaffar, and Gabrielle Smith for their research assistance during this project. We also appreciate Adrianna Kezar, Norma López, Gina Garcia, and an unknown reviewer for their thoughtful and generative feedback. Conflict of Interest We have no conflicts of interests to disclose.

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

251

References Adler, P., & Jermier, J. (2005). Developing a field with more soul: Standpoint theory and public policy research for management scholars. Academy of Management Journal, 48(6), 941–944. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2005.19573091 Adner, R. (2017). Ecosystem as structure: An actionable construct for strategy. Journal of Management, 43(1), 39–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316678451 Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press. Allen, B. J. (1996). Feminist standpoint theory: A black woman’s (re)view of organizational socialization. Communication Studies, 47(4), 257–271. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10510979609368482 American Association of University Professors. (1966). Statement on government of colleges and universities. https://www.aaup.org/report/statement-government-colleges-and-universities Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. (2020). The AGB 2020 trustee index. https://agb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/AGB_2020_Trustee_Index.pdf Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. (2021). Principles of trusteeship: How to become a highly effective board member for colleges, universities, and foundations. Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Baker, D. J. (2019). Pathways to racial equity in higher education: Modeling the antecedents of state affirmative action bans. American Educational Research Journal, 56(5), 1861–1895. https://doi. org/10.3102/0002831219833918 Baldridge, J. V. (1971). Power and conflict in the university. John Wiley & Sons. Baldridge, J. V. (1980). Managerial innovation: Rules for successful implementation. The Journal of Higher Education, 51(2), 117–134. https://doi.org/10.2307/1981369 Barringer, S. N., & Riffe, K. A. (2018). Not just figureheads: Trustees as microfoundations of higher education institutions. Innovative Higher Education, 43(3), 155–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10755-018-9422-6 Barringer, S. N., Taylor, B. J., & Slaughter, S. (2019). Trustees in turbulent times: External affiliations and stratification among U.S. research universities, 1975–2015. Journal of Higher Education, 90(6), 884–914. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2019.1574695 Barringer, S. N., Taylor, B. J., Riffe, K. A., & Slaughter, S. (2020). How university leaders shape boundaries and behaviors: An empirical examination of trustee involvement at elite us research universities. Higher Education Policy, 2020, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1057/S41307-020-00193-Y Bastedo, M. N. (2005). The making of an activist governing board. Review of Higher Education, 28(4), 551–570. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2005.0034 Bastedo, M. N. (2006). Tuition cuts: The political dynamics of higher education finance. Journal of Student Financial Aid, 36(2). https://ir.library.louisville.edu/jsfa/vol36/iss2/3/ Bastedo, M. N. (2009a). Conflicts, commitments, and cliques in the university: Moral seduction as a threat to trustee independence. American Educational Research Journal, 46(2), 354–386. Bastedo, M. N. (2009b). Convergent institutional logics in public higher education: State policymaking and governing board activism. Review of Higher Education, 32(2), 209–234. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0045 Bell, D. A. (1995). Who’s afraid of critical race theory. University of Illinois Law Review, 1995(4), 893–910. Bensimon & Associates. (2022). Whiteness rules: Racial exclusion in becoming an American college president. Bernstein, R., Aulgur, J., & Freiwirth, J. (2019). Racial equity, diversity, and inclusion in nonprofit governance: Case studies for use in the classroom and practitioner training. The Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, 9(4), 378–418. https://doi.org/10.18666/JNEL-2019-V9I4-10071 Bess, J. L., & Dee, J. R. (2014). Bridging the divide between faculty and administration: A guide to understanding conflict in the academy. Routledge.

252

D. L. Morgan et al.

Bird-Pollan, J. (2021). Taxing the ivory tower: Evaluating the excise tax on university endowments. Pepperdine Law Review, 48, 1055–1084. Birnbaum, R. (1988). How colleges work: The cybernetics of academic organization and leadership. Jossey-Bass. Birnbaum, R. (1989). The cybernetic institution: Toward an integration of governance theories. Higher Education, 18, 239–253. Birnbaum, R. (1991). The latent organizational functions of the academic senate: Why senates do not work but will not go away. In M. W. Peterson, E. E. Chaffed, & T. H. White (Eds.), Organization and academic governance in higher education (4th ed., pp. 195–207). Ginned Press. Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice and leadership (6th ed.). Jossey-Bass. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2010). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America (3rd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publisher. Brydon-Miller, M., & Maguire, P. (2009). Participatory action research: Contributions to the development of practitioner inquiry in education. Educational Action Research, 17(1), 79–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790802667469 Bustillos, L. T., & Siqueiros, M. (2018). Left out: How exclusion in California’s colleges and universities hurts our values, our students, and our economy. Campaign for College Opportunity. Cantwell, B. (2016). The new prudent man: Financial-academic capitalism and inequality in higher education. In S. Slaughter & B. Taylor (Eds.), Higher education, stratification, and workforce development: Competitive advantage in Europe, the US, and Canada (45th ed., pp. 173–192). Springer. Caraballo, L., Lozenski, B. D., Lyiscott, J. J., & Morrell, E. (2017). YPAR and critical epistemologies: Rethinking education research. Review of Research in Education, 41(1), 311–336. https:// doi.org/10.3102/0091732X16686948 Carpenter, M. A., & Westphal, J. D. (2001). The strategic context of external network ties: Examining the impact of director appointments on board involvement in strategic decision making. Academy of Management Journal, 44(4), 639–660. https://doi.org/10.5465/3069408 Castagno, A. E., & Hausman, C. (2017). The tensions between shared governance and advancing educational equity. The Urban Review, 49(1), 96–111. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-0160383-8 Chait, R. P., Ryan, W. P., & Taylor, B. E. (2005). Governance as leadership: Reframing the work of nonprofit boards. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. Cho, K. S. (2018). The perception of progress: Conceptualizing institutional response to student protests and activism institutional accountability view project. Thought & Action, 34(1), 81–95. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336591731 Clauson, C., & McKnight, J. (2018). Welcome to campus: Planning for diversity, inclusion, and equity. Planning for Higher Education, 47(1), 39–48. https://www.scup.org/resource/welcometo-campus/ Cole, E. R. (2020). The campus color line: College presidents and the struggle for black freedom. Princeton University Press. Collins, P. H. (1997). Comment on Hekman’s “truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited”: Where’s the power? Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 22(2), 375–381. https://doi.org/10.1086/495162 Collins, P. H. (2015). Intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas. Annual Review of Sociology, 41(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112142 Commodore, F. (2015). The tie that binds: Trusteeship, values, and the presidential selection process at AME affiliated HBCUs. In Publicly accessible Penn dissertations. University of Pennsylvania. Commodore, F. (2018). The tie that binds: Trusteeship, values, and the decision-making process at AME-affiliated HBCUs. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(4), 397–421. https://doi.org/10. 1080/00221546.2017.1396949

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

253

Commodore, F., & Morgan, D. L. (2021, June 30). Trustees’ handling of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure application shows how university boards often fail the accountability test. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/trustees-handling-of-nikole-hannah-jones-tenure-applica tion-shows-how-university-boards-often-fail-the-accountability-test-161622 Commodore, F., Morgan, D. L., & Rall, R. M. (2020). Access denied: Alienation, governing boards, and the lack of inclusion of Black and Latinx persons at the highest level of university control. Commodore, F., Rall, R. M., & Morgan, D. L. (2022). Equity as leadership: The role of higher education boards in advancing equity. In R. Johnson, U. Anya, & L. M. Garces (Eds.), Racial equity on college campuses: Connecting research and practice (pp. 61–82). SUNY. Conner, T. W., & Rabovsky, T. M. (2011). Accountability, affordability, access: A review of the recent trends in higher education policy research. Policy Studies Journal, 39(Suppl. 1), 93–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2010.00389_7.x Corbally, J. E. (1970). Boards of trustees in the governance of higher education. Theory Into Practice, 9(4), 239–243. Crenshaw, K. W. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, 139–168. Crenshaw, K. W. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. Crenshaw, K. W. (2010). Twenty years of critical race theory: Looking back to move forward. Connecticut Law Review, 43(5), 1253–1354. https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h¼hein.journals/ conlr43&i¼1271 Croom, N. N., & Patton Davis, L. (2012). The miner’s canary: A critical race perspective on the representation of black women full professors. Negro Educational Review, 62–63(1–4), 13–40. Crumley-Effinger, M., & Torres-Olave, B. (2021). Kicking the habit: Rethinking academic hypermobility in the anthropocene. Journal of International Students, 11(S1), 86–107. https://doi.org/ 10.32674/JIS.V11IS1.3845 Dache-Gerbino, A., & White, J. A. (2016). College students or criminals? A postcolonial geographic analysis of the social field of whiteness at an urban community college branch campus and suburban main campus. Community College Review, 44(1), 49–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0091552115616677 Dalton, D. R., Daily, C. M., Ellstrand, A. E., & Johnson, J. L. (1998). Meta-analytic reviews of board composition, leadership structure, and financial performance. Strategic Management Journal, 19(3), 269–290. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199803)19:33.0.CO;2-K Davis, C. H. F., III, Morgan, D. L., & Cho, K. (2022). Activism and social movements in college: Actors, contexts, tactics, and strategies of postsecondary political engagement. In M. N. Bastedo, P. G. Altbach, & P. J. Gumport (Eds.), American higher education in the 21st century (5th ed., pp. 1–44). Johns Hopkins University Press. Dee, J. R., & Leišytė, L. (2016). Organizational learning in higher education institutions: Theories, frameworks, and a potential research agenda. In M. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (31st ed., pp. 275–348). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-31926829-3_6 Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical race theory: An introduction (3rd ed.). New York University Press. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095101 Dominguez, J. I. (1971). To reign or to rule: A choice for university boards of trustees. Connecticut Law Review, 3(3), 375–405. Eckel, P. D. (2000). The role of shared governance in institutional hard decisions: Enabler or antagonist? The Review of Higher Education, 24(1), 15–39. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe. 2000.0022

254

D. L. Morgan et al.

Eckel, P. D. (2019). Why governing is so difficult: A synthesis of the (other) literature. Philadelphia, PA: Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (Penn AHEAD), University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Eckel, P. D., & Trower, C. A. (2018). Practical wisdom: Thinking differently about college and university governance. Stylus Publishing. Ehrenberg, R. G., Jakubson, G. H., Martin, M. L., Main, J. B., & Eisenberg, T. (2012). Diversifying the faculty across gender lines: Do trustees and administrators matter? Economics of Education Review, 31(1), 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2011.10.003 Elletson, G. (2017, September 7). IC board of trustees lacks gender and racial diversity. The Ithacan. https://theithacan.org/news/ic-board-of-trustees-lacks-gender-and-racial-diversity/ Felix, E. R., & Trinidad, A. (2019). The decentralization of race: Tracing the dilution of racial equity in educational policy, 33(4), 465–490. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1681538 Fish, S. (2008). Save the world on your own time. Oxford University Press. Ford-Eickhoff, K., Plowman, D. A., & McDaniel, R. R. (2011). Hospital boards and hospital strategic focus: The impact of board involvement in strategic decision making. Health Care Management Review, 36(2), 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1097/HMR.0b013e3182099f6e Freedman, J. O. (2004). Presidents and trustees. In R. G. Ehrenberg (Ed.), Governing academia: Who is in charge at the modern university (pp. 9–27). Cornell University Press. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Seabury Press. Freire, P. (1982). Creating alternative research methods: Learning to do it by doing it. In B. Hall, A. Gillette, & R. Tandon (Eds.), Creating knowledge: A monopoly (pp. 29–37). Society for Participatory Research in Asia. Gándara, D. (2019). Does evidence matter? An analysis of evidence use in performance-funding policy design. Review of Higher Education, 42(3), 991–1022. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe. 2019.0027 Gándara, D. (2020). How the sausage is made: An examination of a state funding model design process. Journal of Higher Education, 91(2), 192–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2019. 1618782 Gándara, D., Rippner, J. A., & Ness, E. C. (2017). Exploring the ‘how’ in policy diffusion: National intermediary organizations’ roles in facilitating the spread of performance-based funding policies in the states. Journal of Higher Education, 88(5), 701–725. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00221546.2016.1272089 Garces, L. M. (2014). Aligning diversity, quality, and equity: The implications of legal and public policy developments for promoting racial diversity in graduate studies. American Journal of Education, 120(4), 457–480. https://doi.org/10.1086/676909 Garces, L. M., & Jayakumar, U. M. (2014). Dynamic diversity: Toward a contextual understanding of critical mass. Educational Researcher, 43(3), 115–124. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 0013189X14529814 Garcia, G. A. (2017). Defined by outcomes or culture? Constructing an organizational identity for Hispanic-serving institutions. American Educational Research Journal, 54(1_Suppl), 111S–134S. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216669779 Garvey, J. C. (2019). Queer quantitative query: Sexual orientation in higher education surveys. Journal of College Student Development, 60(4), 495–501. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd. 2019.0042 Gillborn, D. (1995). Racism, identity and modernity: pluralism, moral antiracism and plastic ethnicity. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 5(1), 3–23. Gillborn, B. D. (2005). Education policy as an act of white supremacy: Whiteness, critical race theory and education reform. Journal of Education Policy, 20(4), 485–505. https://doi.org/10. 1080/02680930500132346 Gonzales, L. D. (2013). Faculty sensemaking and mission creep: Interrogating institutionalized ways of knowing and doing legitimacy. The Review of Higher Education, 36(2), 179–209. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2013.0000

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

255

Gonzales, L. D., & Griffin, K. A. (2020). Supporting faculty during & after COVID-19: Don’t let go of equity. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WQrIG6LsR04jGASfF6Z8WVxl4RIRpsMj/view? usp¼sharing Gonzales, L. D., Kanhai, D., & Hall, K. (2018). Reimagining organizational theory for the critical study of higher education. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 33, pp. 505–559). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72490-4_11 Gornitzka, Å., Maassen, P., & de Boer, H. (2017). Change in university governance structures in continental Europe. Higher Education Quarterly, 71(3), 274–289. https://doi.org/10.1111/ HEQU.12127 Grummert, S. E., & Rall, R. M. (2020). Looking beyond the toxic triangle: Connecting sexual abuse to failed governance. Journal of Higher Education Athletics & Innovation, 8, 34–54. https://doi. org/10.15763/ISSN.2376-5267.2020.1.8.34-54 Harding, S. (2004). Introduction. In The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies. Routledge. Harper, S. R. (2012). Race without racism: How higher education researchers minimize racist institutional norms. The Review of Higher Education, 36(1), 9–29. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe. 2012.0047 Harris, J. C., & Patton, L. D. (2019). Un/doing intersectionality through higher education research. The Journal of Higher Education, 90(3), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018. 1536936 Hartley, M., & Ruby, A. (2017). Higher education reform and development: The case of Kazakhstan. Cambridge University Press. Helfat, C. E., & Raubitschek, R. S. (2018). Dynamic and integrative capabilities for profiting from innovation in digital platform-based ecosystems. Research Policy, 47(8), 1391–1399. https:// doi.org/10.1016/J.RESPOL.2018.01.019 Hendrickson, R. M., Lane, J. E., Harris, J. T., & Dorman, R. H. (2012). Academic leadership and governance of higher education: A guide for trustees, leaders, and aspiring leaders of two-and four-year institutions. Stylus Publishing. Henwood, K., & Pidgeon, N. (1995). Remaking the link: Qualitative research and feminist standpoint theory. Feminism & Psychology, 5(1), 7–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0959353595051003 Hess, F. M., & Henig, J. R. (2015). The new education philanthropy: Politics, policy, and reform. Harvard Education Press. Hill, M. L. (2016). Nobody: Casualties of America’s war on the vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and beyond. Simon and Schuster. Hill, B., Green, M., & Eckel, P. D. (2001). Navigating the currents of change. Trusteeship Magazine, 28–32. https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/447 Hillman, A. J., Withers, M., & Collins, B. (2009). Resource dependence theory: A review. Journal of Management, 35(6), 1404–1427. Holland, T. P., Chait, R. P., & Taylor, B. E. (1989). Board effectiveness: Identifying and measuring trustee competencies. Research in Higher Education, 30(4), 435–453. https://doi.org/10.1007/ BF00992565 Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge. Hooks, B. (2000). All about love: New visions. William Morrow and Company. Inc.. Huddy, L. (2001). From social to political identity. Political Psychology, 22(1), 127–156. Hughes, C. E. (1992). A case for the formation of strategically focused consortia among HBCUs. The Journal of Negro Education, 61(4), 539–553. https://doi.org/10.2307/2295370 Hurtado, S., Alvarez, C. L., Guillermo-Wann, C., Cuellar, M., & Arellano, L. (2012). A model for diverse learning environments: The scholarship on creating and assessing conditions for student success. In J. C. Smart & M. B. Paulsen (Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 27, pp. 41–122). Springer. Jacoby, B. (2009). Civic engagement in higher education: Concepts and practices. Jossey-Bass.

256

D. L. Morgan et al.

Jayakumar, U. M., Garces, L. M., & Park, J. J. (2018). Reclaiming diversity: Advancing the next generation of diversity research toward racial equity. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 11–79). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-31972490-4_2 Johnson, S. G., Schnatterly, K., & Hill, A. D. (2013). Board composition beyond independence: Social capital, human capital, and demographics. Journal of Management, 39(1), 232–262. Jones, S. R., Torres, V., & Arminio, J. (2014). Negotiating the complexities of qualitative research in higher education: Fundamental elements and issues (2nd ed.). Routledge. Jongbloed, B., Enders, J., & Salerno, C. (2008). Higher education and its communities: Interconnections, interdependencies and a research agenda. Higher Education, 56(3), 303–324. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10734-008-9128-2 Jordan, W. J. (2010). Defining equity: Multiple perspectives to analyzing the performance of diverse learners. Review of Research in Education, 34(1), 142–178. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 0091732X09352898 Kapoor, R. (2018). Ecosystems: Broadening the locus of value creation. Journal of Organization Design, 7(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1186/S41469-018-0035-4/TABLES/3 Kettl, D. F. (2020). States divided: The implications of American Federalism for COVID-19. Public Administration Review, 80(4), 595–602. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13243 Kezar, A. (2003). Transformational elite interviews: Principles and problems. Qualitative Inquiry, 9(3), 395–415. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800403009003005 Kezar, A. (2004). What is more important to effective governance: Relationships, trust, and leadership, or structures and formal processes? New Directions for Higher Education, 2004(127), 35–46. https://doi.org/10.1002/HE.154 Kezar, A. (2005). Consequences of radical change in governance: A grounded theory approach. The Journal of Higher Education, 76(6), 634–668. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2005.11772303 Kezar, A. (2006). Rethinking public higher education governing boards performance: Results of a national study of governing boards in the United States. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(6), 968–1008. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2006.0051 Kezar, A. (2011a). Grassroots leadership: Encounters with power dynamics and oppression. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 24(4), 471–500. https://doi.org/10. 1080/09518398.2010.529848 Kezar, A. (2011b). What is the best way to achieve broader reach of improved practices in higher education? Innovative Higher Education, 36(4), 235–247. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-0119174-z Kezar, A., & Dee, J. R. (2011). Conducting multi-paradigm inquiry in the study of higher education organization and governance: Transforming research perspectives on colleges and universities. In J. C. Smart & M. Paulsen (Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (26th ed., pp. 265–315). Springer. Kezar, A., & Eckel, P. D. (2004). Meeting today’s governance challenges: A synthesis of the literature and examination of a future agenda for scholarship. The Journal of Higher Education, 75(4), 371–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2004.11772264 Kezar, A., & Eckel, P. (2008). Advancing diversity agendas on campus: Examining transactional and transformational presidential leadership styles. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 11(4), 379–405. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603120802317891 Kezar, A., & Holcombe, E. M. (2020). Barriers to organizational learning in a multi-institutional initiative. Higher Education, 79(6), 1119–1138. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10734-01900459-4 Kezar, A., Gallant, T. B., & Lester, J. (2011). Everyday people making a difference on college campuses: The tempered grassroots leadership tactics of faculty and staff. Studies in Higher Education, 36(2), 129–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070903532304 Kezar, A., DePaola, T., & Scott, D. T. (2019). The gig academy: Mapping labor in the neoliberal university. John Hopkins University Press. Kezar, A., Holcombe, E. M., Vigil, D., & Dizon, J. P. M. (2021). Shared equity leadership: Making equity everyone’s work. American Council of Education.

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

257

Kimball, E. W., Moore, A., Vaccaro, A., Troiano, P. F., & Newman, B. M. (2016). College students with disabilities redefine activism: Self-advocacy, storytelling, and collective action. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3), 245–260. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/dhe0000031 Knott, J. H., & Payne, A. A. (2004). The impact of state governance structures on management and performance of public organizations: A study of higher education institutions. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 23(1), 13–30. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.10176 Kokushkin, M. (2014). Standpoint theory is dead, long live standpoint theory! Why standpoint thinking should be embraced by scholars who do not identify as feminists? Journal of Arts and Humanities, 3(7), 8–20. https://doi.org/10.18533/JOURNAL.V3I7.520 Kronsell, A. (2005). Gendered practices in institutions of hegemonic masculinity: Reflections from feminist standpoint theory. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7(2), 280–298. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14616740500065170 Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., & Whitt, E. J. (2010). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press. Kutch, B. D. M., & Kutch, J. S. M. (2022). Innovation through diversity and inclusion: A roadmap for higher education information technology leaders. In Research anthology on changing dynamics of diversity and safety in the workforce (pp. 1811–1833). IGI Global. Leon, R. A. (2014). The Chief Diversity Officer: An examination of CDO models and strategies. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 7(2), 77–91. LePeau, L. A. (2015). A grounded theory of academic affairs and student affairs partnerships for diversity and inclusion aims. The Review of Higher Education, 39(1), 97–122. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/rhe.2015.0044 LePeau, L. A. (2018). Examining the experiences and characteristics of academic affairs and student affairs leaders identifying as social gadflies. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 11(4), 402–417. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000072 LePeau, L. A., Hurtado, S. S., & Davis, R. J. (2018). What institutional websites reveal about diversity-related partnerships between academic and student affairs. Innovative Higher Education, 43(2), 125–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-017-9412-0 LePeau, L. A., Hurtado, S. S., & Williams, L. (2019). Institutionalizing diversity agendas: Presidents’ councils for diversity as mechanisms for strategic change. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 56(2), 123–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2018.1490306 Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2(4), 34–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1540-4560.1946.TB02295.X López, N., & Morgan, D. L. (2021). Confronting the nameless-faceless: A duoethnography of navigating turnover and early career socialization. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 10(3), 229–243. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-03-2021-0012 López, F., Johnson, R. M., Patterson, A. N., & Ward, L. W. M. (2022). How do education researchers contest the anti-critical race theory propaganda? Teachers College Record. Lorde, A. (1983). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In C. Moraga & G. Anzaldúa (Eds.), This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color (pp. 94–101). Kitchen Table Press. Lynall, M. D., Golden, B. R., & Hillman, A. J. (2003). Board composition from adolescence to maturity: A multitheoretic view. The Academy of Management Review, 28(3), 416–431. https:// doi.org/10.5465/amr.2003.10196743 Maassen, P. (2017). The university’s governance paradox. Higher Education Quarterly, 71(3), 290–298. https://doi.org/10.1111/HEQU.12125 Marginson, S. (2011). Higher education and public good. Higher Education Quarterly, 65(4), 411–433. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2273.2011.00496.x Mayhew, M. J., Bowman, N. A., Rockenbach, A. B., Seifert, T., Wolniak, G. C., Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2016). How college affects students: 21st century evidence that higher education works (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. McClellan, G. S., & Stringer, J. (Eds.). (2016). The handbook of student affairs administration. John Wiley & Sons.

258

D. L. Morgan et al.

McClure, K. R. (2016). Building the innovative and entrepreneurial university: An institutional case study of administrative academic capitalism. The Journal of Higher Education, 87(4), 516–543. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2016.11777412 McClure, K. R., & McNaughtan, J. L. (2021). Proximity to power: The challenges and strategies of interviewing elites in higher education research. The Qualitative Report, 26(3), 974–992. https:// doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4615 McGuinness, A. C. (2016). State policy leadership for the future: History of state coordination and governance and alternatives for the future. In Education commission of the states (Issue May, p. 60). https://www.ecs.org/wp-content/uploads/051616-State-Policy-Leadership-for-theFuture-KL-final4-1.pdf McLendon, M. K. (2003). Setting the governmental agenda for state decentralization of higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 74(5), 479–515. McLendon, M. K., & Hearn, J. C. (2006). Mandated openness in public higher education: A field study of state sunshine laws and institutional governance. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(4), 645–683. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2006.11772310 McLendon, M. K., & Ness, E. C. (2003). The politics of state higher education governance reform. Peabody Journal of Education, 78(4), 66–88. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327930PJE7804_05 McLendon, M. K., Deaton, R., & Hearn, J. C. (2007). The enactment of reforms in state governance of higher education: Testing the political instability hypothesis. The Journal of Higher Education, 78(6), 645–675. McNair, T. B., Bensimon, E. M., & Malcom-Piqueux, L. (2019). From equity talk to equity walk: Expanding practitioner knowledge for racial justice in higher education. John Wiley & Sons. Miller, G. N. S., & Morphew, C. C. (2017). Merchants of optimism: Agenda-setting organizations and the framing of performance-based funding for higher education. Journal of Higher Education, 88(5). https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2017.1313084 Minor, J. T. (2004). Introduction: Decision making in historically black colleges and universities: Defining the governance context. The Journal of Negro Education, 73(1), 40. https://doi.org/10. 2307/3211258 Minor, J. T. (2005). Faculty governance at historically black colleges and universities. Academe. https://eric.ed.gov/?id¼EJ727551 Minor, J. T. (2006). A case of complex governance: A structural analysis of university decisionmaking. Journal of the Professoriate, 1(2), 22–37. Minor, J. T., & Tierney, W. G. (2005). The danger of deference: A case of polite governance. Teachers College Record, 107(1), 137–156. https://senate.oregonstate.edu/sites/senate. oregonstate.edu/files/4.newdirections2.2004.pdf Morgan, D. L. (2016). Revealing the role of higher education in a diverse democracy: A theory of college student political identity development. University of Pennsylvania. Morgan, D. L., & Davis, C. H. F. (Eds.). (2019). Student activism, politics, and campus climate in higher education. Routledge. Morgan, D. L., & López, N. (2022). Intensifying cracks in the bedrock of academic culture: Examining faculty’s connection to profession and community. In Promotion, Tenure, and Advancement through the Lens of 2020: Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief (pp. 1–19). https://www.nap.edu/resource/ 26405/2_The_Impacts_of_2020_on_Faculty_Culture-Morgan_Lopez.pdf Morgan, D. L., Rall, R. M., & Commodore, F. (2019). Building better boards [Infographic]. https:// www.chegc.org/infographic-page Morgan, D. L., LePeau, L. A., & Commodore, F. (2021a). Observable evidence and partnership possibilities for governing board involvement in diversity, equity, and inclusion: A content analysis. Research in Higher Education, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09651-x Morgan, D. L., Rall, R. M., Commodore, F., Fischer, R. A., & Bernstein, S. (2021b). Hiding in plain sight: The potential of state-level governing boards in postsecondary education policy agendasetting. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(4), 570–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546. 2020.1824885

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

259

Morphew, C. C., & Hartley, M. (2006). Mission statements: A thematic analysis of rhetoric across institutional type. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(3), 456–471. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00221546.2006.11778934 Mortimer, K. P., & McConnell, T. R. (1978). Sharing authority effectively: Participation, interaction, and discretion. Jossey-Bass. Mott, C., & Cockayne, D. (2017). Citation matters: Mobilizing the politics of citation toward a practice of ‘conscientious engagement’. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(7), 954–973. https://doi. org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1339022 Museus, S. D. (2014). The culturally engaging campus environments (CECE) model: A new theory of success among racially diverse college student populations. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (29th ed., pp. 189–227). Springer Netherlands. Museus, S. D., & Neville, K. M. (2012). Delineating the ways that key institutional agents provide racial minority students with access to social capital in college. Journal of College Student Development, 53(3), 436–452. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2012.0042 Ness, E. C., Tandberg, D. A., & McLendon, M. K. (2015). Interest groups and state policy for higher education: New conceptual understandings and future research directions. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (30th ed., pp. 151–186). Springer. Nicolazzo, Z. (2021). Imagining a trans* epistemology: What liberation thinks like in postsecondary education. Urban Education, 56(3), 511–536. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0042085917697203 Nienhüser, W. (2008). Resource dependence theory – How well does it explain behavior of organizations? Management Revue, 19(1/2), 9–32. https://doi.org/10.5771/0935-9915-2008-12-9 O’Meara, K., & Niehaus, E. (2009). Service-learning is... How faculty explain their practice. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 16(1), 17–32. O’Meara, K., & Stromquist, N. P. (2015). Faculty peer networks: Role and relevance in advancing agency and gender equity, 27(3), 338–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2015.1027668 O’Meara, K., Lounder, A., & Campbell, C. M. (2014). To heaven or hell: Sensemaking about why faculty leave. The Journal of Higher Education, 85(5), 603–632. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00221546.2014.11777342 Odle, T. K. (2022). Free to spend? Institutional autonomy and expenditures on executive compensation, faculty salaries, and research activities. Research in Higher Education, 63(1), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11162-021-09642-Y/TABLES/5 Operario, D., & Fiske, S. T. (2001). Causes and consequences of stereotypes in organizations. In M. London (Ed.), How people evaluate others in organizations (pp. 45–62). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Opfer, V. D., Young, T. Y., & Fusarelli, L. D. (2008). Politics of interest: Interest groups and advocacy coalitions in American education. In B. S. Cooper, J. G. Cibulka, & L. D. Fusarelli (Eds.), Handbook of education politics and policy (pp. 195–216). Routledge. Owens, L., & Commodore, F. (2018). Governing HBCUs for the future. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. https://www.diverseeducation.com/institutions/hbcus/article/15103563/governinghbcus-for-the-future Paperson, l. (2017). A third university is possible. University of Minnesota Press. Parker, K. (2019). Views of higher education divided by party. Pew Research Center. https://www. pewsocialtrends.org/essay/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education/ Pasque, P. A., & Carducci, R. (2015). Critical advocacy perspectives on organization in higher education. In M. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 275–333). Springer. Patel, L. (2015). Decolonizing educational research: From ownership to answerability. Routledge. Patton, L. D. (2016). Disrupting postsecondary prose: Toward a critical race theory of higher education. Urban Education, 51(3), 315–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085915602542

260

D. L. Morgan et al.

Patton, L. D., Sánchez, B., Mac, J., & Stewart, D.-L. (2019). An inconvenient truth about “progress”: An analysis of the promises and perils of research on campus diversity initiatives. The Review of Higher Education, 42(5), 173–198. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0049 Payette, D. L. (2001). Fiduciary responsibility of board trustees and officers in universities and colleges. Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, 1(4), 12–19. https://doi.org/10.1108/14720700110404306 Perna, L. W. (Ed.). (2018). Taking it to the streets: The role of scholarship in advocacy and advocacy in scholarship. John Hopkins University Press. Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. (2006). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. Harper & Row. Piscopo, J. M., & Clark Muntean, S. (2018). Corporate quotas and symbolic politics in advanced democracies. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 39(3), 285–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1554477X.2018.1477396 Pope, M. L., & Miller, M. T. (1998). Faculty involvement in governance: An HBCU case analysis. ERIC. Posselt, J. R., & Nuñez, A.-M. (2022). Learning in the wild: Fieldwork, gender, and the social construction of disciplinary culture. The Journal of Higher Education, 93(2), 163–194. https:// doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1971505 Posselt, J. R., Hernandez, T. E., Villarreal, C. D., Rodgers, A. J., & Irwin, L. N. (2020). Evaluation and decision making in higher education. In Higher education: Handbook of theory & research (Vol. 35, pp. 1–63). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11743-6_8-1 Pusser, B. (2003). Beyond baldridge: Extending the political model of higher education organization and governance. Educational Policy, 17(1), 121–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0895904802239289 Pusser, B., & Marginson, S. (2013). University rankings in critical perspective. Journal of Higher Education, 84(4), 544–568. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2013.0022 Pusser, B., Slaughter, S., & Thomas, S. L. (2006). Playing the board game: An empirical analysis of university trustee and corporate board interlocks. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(5), 747–775. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2006.11778943 Rall, R. M. (2014). Assuming the trusteeship: Studying the influence of learning and preparation on the decision-making practices of members of public multicampus boards of higher education. University of Southern California. https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/CS.aspx?VP3¼DamView& VBID¼2A3BXZ9G1WYH&SMLS¼1&RW¼904&RH¼717&FR_¼1&W¼904&H¼718 Rall, R. M. (2020). Governing boards should weigh in on racial issues but don’t know how (opinion). Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/10/22/governingboards-should-weigh-racial-issues-dont-know-how-opinion Rall, R. M. (2021a). Getting the boards involved: Challenges and opportunities for equity at the highest level of university governance. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED615826.pdf Rall, R. M. (2021b). Modeling equity-minded leadership amid crises: The call for higher education governing boards to lead the way. Journal of Higher Education Management, 36(1), 25–31. https://issuu.com/aaua10/docs/twin_pandemics/s/11997049 Rall, R. M., & Maxey, D. B. (2020). “A steeper hill to climb”: The role and experience of student trustees in public higher education governing boards. Journal of Power, Politics & Governance, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.15640/JPPG.V8N2A2 Rall, R. M., & Orué, V. (2020). I, too, am a lead(her): The power and possibilities of women of color on governing boards of higher education in California. Journal of Higher Education Management, 35(1), 32–39. https://issuu.com/aaua10/docs/final_jhem_35_1 2020_ Rall, R. M., Morgan, D. L., & Commodore, F. (2018). Invisible injustice: Higher education boards and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. In R. Jeffries (Ed.), Diversity, equity, and inclusivity in contemporary higher education (pp. 261–277). IGI Global. Rall, R. M., Morgan, D. L., & Commodore, F. (2019). Responding to the call for equity: What every board member should know. Blog: Association of Governing Boards of Universities and

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

261

Colleges. https://www.agb.org/blog/2019/02/26/responding-to-the-call-for-equity-what-everyboard-member-should-know Rall, R. M., Morgan, D. L., & Commodore, F. (2020). Towards culturally sustaining governance: Best practices of theory, research, and practice. Journal of Education Human Resources, 38(1), 139–164. https://doi.org/10.3138/jehr.2019-0006 Rall, R. M., Morgan, D. L., & Commodore, F. (2021a). Bounded boards: A commentary on the limitations of knowledge and scope of research on boards of higher education. Innovative Higher Education, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09582-6 Rall, R. M., Ramirez-Stapleton, M., & Galan, C. (2021b). A contrarian’s guide to the student trusteeship: Stories modeling purpose, persistence, and legacy on the UC board of regents. College Student Journal, 55(4), 440–456. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/prin/csj/ 2021/00000055/00000004/art00009 Rall, R. M., Dominguez, V., & Garcia, A. (2022a). What does it take to lead: The hidden curriculum of qualifications for service on public boards of higher education. Teachers College Record, 124(1), 191–226. https://www.tcrecord.org/LIBRARY/Issue.asp?volyear¼2022&number¼1& volume¼124 Rall, R. M., Morgan, D. L., Commodore, F., Fischer, R. A., & Bernstein, S. (2022b). Introducing boards to the equity conversation: State-level governing boards and discourses of social justice. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000397 Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418822335 Ray, V., & Purifoy, D. (2019). The colorblind organization. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 60, 131–150. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000060008 Renn, K. A. (2020a). Reimagining the study of higher education: Generous thinking, chaos, and order in a low consensus field. The Review of Higher Education, 43(4), 917–934. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/rhe.2020.0025 Renn, K. A. (2020b). Success for LGBT college and university students. In G. Crimmins (Ed.), Strategies for supporting inclusion and diversity in the academy (pp. 183–200). Palgrave Macmillan. Renz, D. O., & Anderson, F. O. (2014). Nonprofit governance: A review of the field. In C. Cornforth & W. A. Brown (Eds.), The governance of public and nonprofit organizations: Innovative perspectives and approaches (pp. 17–46). Routledge. Rhoades, G. (2017). Bread and roses, and quality too? A new faculty majority negotiating the new academy. Journal of Higher Education, 88(5), 645–671. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546. 2016.1257310 Rodriguez, A., Deane, K., & Davis, C. H. F., III. (2021). Toward a framework of racialized policymaking in higher education. In L. W. Perna (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 1–81). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66959-1_2-1 Rutherford, A., & Lozano, J. (2018). Top management turnover: The role of governing board structures. Public Administration Review, 78(1), 104–115. Sablan, J. R. (2019). Can you really measure that? Combining critical race theory and quantitative methods. American Educational Research Journal, 56(1), 178–203. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 0002831218798325 Saltmarsh, J., & Hartley, M. (2011). “To serve a larger purpose”: Engagement for democracy and the transformation of higher education. Temple University Press. Santos, D. (2015). Re-signifying participatory action research (PAR) in higher education: What does ‘P’ stand for in PAR?, 24(4), 635–646. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2015.1103658 Savin-Baden, M., & Wimpenny, K. (2007). Exploring and implementing participatory action research. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31(2), 331–343. https://doi.org/10. 1080/03098260601065136 Schuster, J. H., Smith, D. G., Sund, K. C., Yamada, M. M., & Kathleen, A. (1994). Strategic governance: How to make big decisions better. Intellect Books.

262

D. L. Morgan et al.

Siqueiros, M. (2020). Left out: California’s higher education governing boards do not reflect the racial and gender diversity of California and its student body. Campaign for College Opportunity. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., Thomas, S. L., Johnson, D. R., & Barringer, S. N. (2014). Institutional conflict of interest: The role of interlocking directorates in the scientific relationships between universities and the corporate sector. The Journal of Higher Education, 85(1), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00221546.2014.11777317 Squire, D., Nicolazzo, Z., & Perez, R. J. (2019). Institutional response as non-performative: What university communications (don’t) say about movements toward justice. Review of Higher Education, 42(5), 109–133. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0047 Stanley, C. A. (2007). When counter narratives meet master narratives in the journal editorialreview process. Educational Researcher, 36(1), 14–24. Stanley, C. A., Watson, K. L., Reyes, J. M., & Varela, K. S. (2019). Organizational change and the chief diversity officer: A case study of institutionalizing a diversity plan. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(3), 255–265. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000099 Stensaker, B., & Vabø, A. (2013). Re-inventing shared governance: Implications for organisational culture and institutional leadership. Higher Education Quarterly, 67(3), 256–274. https://doi. org/10.1111/HEQU.12019 Stewart, D.-L., & Nicolazzo, Z. (2018). High impact of [whiteness] on trans* students in postsecondary education. Equity and Excellence in Education, 51(2), 132–145. https://doi.org/10. 1080/10665684.2018.1496046 Swigonski, M. E. (1994). The logic of feminist standpoint theory for social work research. Social Work, 39(4), 387–393. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/39.4.387 Tandberg, D. A. (2010). Interest groups and governmental institutions: The politics of state funding of public higher education. Educational Policy, 24(5), 735–778. Tandberg, D. A. (2013). The conditioning role of state higher education governance structures. Journal of Higher Education, 84(4), 506–543. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2013.11777300 Taylor, M. (2013). Shared governance in the modern university. Higher Education Quarterly, 67(1), 80–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/HEQU.12003 Taylor, L. D. (2021). Toil and trouble: Contextualizing student success work at research universities. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.2010514 Taylor, J. S., & de Lourdes Machado, M. (2008). Governing boards in public higher education institutions: A perspective from the United States. Tertiary Education and Management, 14(3), 243–260. Taylor, B. E., Chait, R. P., & Holland, T. P. (1991). Trustee motivation and board effectiveness. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 20(2), 207–224. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 089976409102000207 Thornton, P. H., & Ocasio, W. (1999). Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: Executive succession in the higher education publishing industry, 1958–1990. American Journal of Sociology, 105(3), 801–843. https://doi.org/10.1086/210361 Tierney, W. G., & Rall, R. M. (2018). Lessons not yet learned: Culture, governance, and the Jerry Sandusky case. Journal of Higher Education Management, 33(2), 12–27. https://aaua.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/03/JHEM_2018_33-2.pdf Toma, E. F. (1990). Board of trustees, agency problems, and university output. Public Choice, 67(1), 1–9. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30025320 Torchia, M., Calabrò, A., & Huse, M. (2011). Women directors on corporate boards: From tokenism to critical mass. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(2), 299–317. Uggla, H., & Åsberg, P. (2010). The benefits and risks of strategic brand collaboration. IUP Journal of Brand Management, 7(3), 35–48.

5

“Getting to Where We Need to Be”: (Re)Envisioning Postsecondary. . .

263

van der Walt, N., & Ingley, C. (2003). Board dynamics and the influence of professional background, gender and ethnic diversity of directors. Corporate Governance, 11(3), 218–234. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8683.00320 Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/2391875 Wheatle, K. I. E., & Commodore, F. (2019). Reaching back to move forward: The historic and contemporary role of student activism in the development and implementation of higher education policy. Review of Higher Education, 42(5), 5–35. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe. 2019.0043 Wilkinson, A. M. (2019). Politics and pedagogy in the classroom: From rehearsal to performance. In D. L. Morgan & C. H. F. Davis III (Eds.), Student activism, politics, and campus climate in higher education (pp. 127–142). Routledge. Woodward, A. R. (2009). Land-grant university governance: An analysis of board composition and corporate interlocks. Agriculture and Human Values, 26(1), 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10460-008-9174-5 Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1361332052000341006 Zamudio-Suarez, F. (2021, July 20). These campuses wanted buildings renamed. Administrators opted to wait. Race on Campus. https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/race-on-campus/202107-20 Zilvinskis, J., Taub, D. J., DeAngelis, B. J., Novi, A. M., & Wilson, K. E. (2021). Disaggregating the engagement of students of color with disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education & Disability, 34(2), 141–161. https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AHEAD/ 38b602f4-ec53-451c-9be0-5c0bf5d27c0a/UploadedImages/JPED/JPED_Vol_34/JPED_34_ 2.pdf

Demetri L. Morgan is an associate professor of Higher Education at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Morgan’s research explores the relationship between the constituents of postsecondary education institutions and shifting socio-political realities and outcomes for minoritized groups. In 2019, Dr. Morgan co-edited “Student activism, politics, and campus climate in higher education” with Dr. Charles H. F. Davis III. Dr. Morgan has also co-authored numerous book chapters and refereed articles on institutional governance, campus climate, student activism, STEM education, and equity in higher education. Dr. Morgan was recognized in 2019 as a fellow of the Place-Based Justice Network and as an Emerging Scholar from ACPA College Educators International in 2021. He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. Ed from Indiana University, and a B.A. from the University of Florida. Raquel M. Rall is an associate professor in the Education Policy and Leadership (EdPAL) program in the School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. Her research centers postsecondary leadership and governance. Of particular interest to Rall is research that helps further illuminate the centrality of concepts like equity, diversity, and inclusion to postsecondary decisionmaking. With her research, teaching, and service, Rall centers equity-mindedness to push issues of leadership and decision-making from the periphery to the core to better understand how the decisions and decision-makers impact outcomes in higher education. Prior to her UCR appointment, Rall was a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, where she earned her Ph.D. in urban education policy. She obtained bachelor degrees in human biology and African and African American studies from Stanford University.

264

D. L. Morgan et al.

Felecia Commodore is an associate professor of Higher Education in the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. Felecia’s research focus area is leadership, governance, and administrative practices, with a particular focus on HBCUs and MSIs. Felecia’s research interests also lie in how leadership is exercised, constructed, and viewed in various communities, and the relationship of Black women and leadership. She is the lead author of Black Women College Students: A Guide to Success in Higher Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of Prestige Seeking in Higher Education Desiree D. Zerquera

Contents Introduction: Purpose and Overview of Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introducing Prestige Seeking Within the Context of Inequity in Higher Education . . . . . . . Expanding Prestige-Seeking Research into the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Purpose and Guiding Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assumptions About Higher Education Guiding This Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Prestige Seeking and Equity: An Engagement with Prestige and Equity as Ideology and Practice in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Equity for the Sake of Examining Prestige in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Prestige Seeking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Situating Prestige Seeking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contextualizing Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Accountability Demands and Levers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . State Policy Reform and Additional Funding Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Changing Demographic Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Situating Prestige in This Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prestige as Examined in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Academic Snake Monolith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Prestige Mosaic: Experiences of Prestige Seeking Within the Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problematizing Prestige Seeking: Centering Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Interplay of Prestige and Other Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prestige as Examined in Higher Education: Summarizing and Looking Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . The Future of Prestige-Seeking Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Furthering Institutional Lenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expanding Theoretical Lenses and Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multi-Paradigmatic Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodological Expansions to Accommodate These Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

266 267 269 269 270 272 272 275 285 285 285 286 287 288 289 290 296 299 303 306 306 307 308 309 310

D. D. Zerquera (*) University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_3

265

266

D. D. Zerquera

Measuring Prestige Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Capturing the Role of Equity in Prestige Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Framework for Centering Equity in Prestige-Seeking Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

310 311 311 313 314

Abstract

As policymakers, administrators, and researchers, we give attention to identifying and addressing the deeply ingrained and often-overlooked aspects of work in higher education that is complicit in producing inequity. One significant area where these critical approaches can be better extended is in the work around prestige in higher education. Importantly, the pursuit of prestige has been noted to have problematic implications for equity, including diminished access for marginalized students, minimizing voices of faculty in the academy, and an overall weakening of the public good of the university. This chapter seeks to deepen our understanding of prestige and its role in creating, shaping, and perpetuating inequity within higher education. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how an equity focus can be more strongly centered in research on prestige in higher education through the expansion of foci in studies on striving and the diversification of paradigms, theoretical lenses, methods, and institutional contexts. In so doing, this work aims to contribute to the body of research on prestige and offer further direction for researchers, institutional leaders, and policymakers. Keywords

Prestige seeking · Equity · Critical research · Prestige · Inequity · Higher education environment · Critical research

Introduction: Purpose and Overview of Chapter Inequity is a persistent plague on higher education, manifesting within the experiences of students, faculty, staff, and administrators; shaping campus environments, climates, and outcomes; and exhibited across individual institutions, college and university systems, and the nation as a whole. Demands for equity in higher education have had an impact on higher education decision-making, with calls for accountability to social justice demands, equity measures in state performance systems, and increased attention to how equity is enacted or performed (Byrd et al., 2021; Cho, 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Hoffman & Mitchell, 2016; Lerma et al., 2020; Museus & LePeau, 2019; Rhoads, 2016). As scholars, many of us have devoted our lives to the endeavor of equity research; truly, the span of scholarship on equity in higher education has not just been in response to the ills observed in the academy and beyond, but arguably proactive as well, reflecting the challenges within the communities we are a part of or in solidarity with, and working to imagine a different world and derive solutions to work towards it. Part of what we have learned in our collective work around equity is that addressing

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

267

inequity requires examining the varying layers of the higher education system. Frameworks and approaches such as critical race theory (CRT) (e.g., Delgado Bernal, 2002; Delgado Bernal & Villalpando, 2002; Harper, 2009; Harper et al., 2009; LadsonBillings & Tate, 1995; Solórzano, 1998; Solórzano et al., 2000), neoliberalism (e.g., Giroux, n.d.; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2009), critical organizational perspectives (e.g., Bensimon, 2007; Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Gonzales et al., 2018; Ray, 2019), and the methodological approaches offered by critical quantitative, QuantCrit, and critical qualitative research (e.g., Arellano, 2022; Denzin, 2019; Garcia et al., 2018; Gillborn et al., 2018; Stage, 2007; Wells & Stage, 2015) show the necessity of integrating a central, critical focus on inequity and injustice within our structures, policies, and practices through our work in research, policy, and practice. And, as these works demonstrate, equity efforts in our scholarship must focus not just on capturing the symptomatic features of inequity but on investigating the deeper ways in which the higher education system structurally encourages the development and continuation of inequity. It is important that as policymakers, administrators, and researchers, we give attention to identifying and addressing the deeply ingrained and often-overlooked aspects of work in higher education that is complicit in producing inequity. We need to think deeply about the interactions between and role of policies, practices, values, and beliefs that structure how opportunity plays out for students and communities disserved by higher education. One significant area where these critical approaches can be better extended is in the work around prestige in higher education. This chapter analyzes ways prestige literature has pushed forward in examining equity and, primarily through the engagement with the frameworks presented here, where it has room to deepen.

Introducing Prestige Seeking Within the Context of Inequity in Higher Education The work of equity in higher education is not simple or straightforward. Higher education exists within a complex, high-pressure environment. A perfect storm of building pressures from the previous decades of political, financial, and ideological strife have culminated into a complex and somewhat hostile environment that colleges and universities must now operate in. The new normal of higher education is such that funding for public services, including higher education, has been reduced, failing to return to prerecession levels, and deepening overall shifts in the situating of higher education from a public good to a private one. These shifts in funding, and the ideological veering they reflect, are interrelated with an increased scrutiny regarding the value of higher education, manifesting in accountability demands and calls for higher education institutions to demonstrate their value (Immerwahr, 2003; Ewell, 2015). Additionally, state-level policy changes for mission differentiation, performance funding, challenges to university autonomy, and placement of intentional roadblocks for equity work are increasing tension between institutions, their states, and the general public they are intended to serve. And while

268

D. D. Zerquera

managing enrollments has always been a key focus of universities, enrollment shifts are making institutional survival real in ways not experienced before. The term “enrollment cliff” has widely been used to capture the enrollment drop expected as a result of declines in the number of high school graduates coming from changes in birth rates and demographic shifts that reflect much larger Latinx populations (Bransberger et al., 2020; Grawe, 2018, 2021). These projections have been further exacerbated by a global health pandemic that has made college untenable for many, particularly Black and Latinx communities that were hit particularly hard by pandemic difficulties. Existing at the intersection of enrollment, belief systems, accountability, and state pressures, prestige is an ideological system expressed through institutional behaviors and is interconnected with complexities of the higher education environment. Prestige has served as such a strong driving force in higher education that colleges and universities have been described to “insatiably consume resources in hopes of increasing their prestige” (Meyers & Robe, 2009, p. 30). It acts as a driving force in the US higher education, as colleges and universities prioritize prestige-boosting behaviors to enhance their perceptions in the public eye and in rankings by external entities (Brewer et al., 2001; Gumport & Sporn, 1999; Thelin, 2019). It conveys value internally and externally while signifying the level of excellence of higher education institutions (Brewer et al., 2001; O’Meara, 2007; O’Meara & Bloomgarden, 2011). The pursuit of prestige involves costly spending on activities that are not necessarily associated with student success or public-serving outcomes and may be prioritized at the cost of other engagements (Dill, 2003; Hazelkorn, 2015; Morphew & Baker, 2004). For instance, prestige-seeking institutions may invest in certain athletic programs to help foster name recognition (Brewer et al., 2001; Ngo et al., 2022; O’Meara, 2007) or leverage the profile of the fall incoming class to boost the U.S. News and World Report rankings (Jaquette et al., 2016; O’Meara & Bloomgarden, 2011). Importantly, the pursuit of prestige has been noted to have problematic implications for equity, including diminished access for marginalized students, minimizing voices of faculty in the academy, and an overall weakening of the public good of the university (Doran, 2015; Gonzales, 2012, 2013; O’Meara, 2007; Zerquera, 2016). Prestige seeking covertly and overtly perpetuates inequity. Inherent notions of prestige center exclusionary policies that restrict people of color, condone work done in solidarity with marginalized communities, and foster oppressive campus environments for faculty, staff, administrators, and students (Gonzales, 2013; O’Meara, 2007; Orphan, 2018; Zerquera et al., 2017). Even among those institutions that may outrightly reject widely accepted notions of and practices around prestige, forces within the higher education environment strengthen value systems and encourage behaviors aligned with prestige seeking (Doran, 2015; Gonzales, 2012; Zerquera & Torres, 2018; Zerquera & Ziskin, 2020). Thus, research on prestige can generate important insights into the sources and mechanisms of inequity embedded in the deeper layers of the higher education system. It is imperative that research better capture the complexity of these intersections, particularly within the current evolving and trying context.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

269

Expanding Prestige-Seeking Research into the Future O’Meara’s (2007) chapter in a previous Handbook volume laid a foundation for understanding prestige and the implications of its pursuit, synthesizing the literature to work towards a new meaning of what striving is and what it looks like across various sectors. Further, she importantly examined pressures that may encourage prestige seeking and outlined potential implications of striving behavior. Her chapter has been significant in shaping prestige research in the decade and a half since its publication, with a number of scholars drawing from her ideas to encourage their own work (e.g., Gardner, 2010, 2013; Gonzales, 2012, 2013, 2014; McClure & Titus, 2018; Orphan, 2020; Torres-Olave et al., 2020; Warshaw et al., 2021). Researchers have engaged in O’Meara’s ideas and proposed directions for future research, examining implications of striving (e.g., Kim, 2018; McClure & Titus, 2018), identifying striving institutions (e.g., Orphan & Miller, 2020; Zerquera, 2019), and examining striving across varying contexts (e.g., Orphan, 2018, 2020; Warshaw et al., 2020; Zerquera, 2021). Still, prestige-seeking research remains crucial. With the Great Recession, COVID-19 pandemic, and significant changes in the US demographics and the national college-going population, the context of higher education has shifted significantly since the mid-2000s when O’Meara’s chapter was written. The body of work that has emanated has deepened how we engage in equity within this challenging context, and still there is more to do. Prestige scholarship must engage critical theoretical lenses; center equity and situate striving as a policy mechanism that fosters inequity; employ systems-level thinking in analysis of striving, not just setting of its context; and continue to expand considerations of diverse institutional contexts. Thus, the current chapter builds on O’Meara’s work and synthesizes the research published since, pushing forward a reshaped understanding of what prestige seeking is through an explicit centering of equity in that redefining, in an effort to provide guidance and direction for the next generation of prestige research.

Chapter Purpose and Guiding Questions This chapter seeks to deepen our understanding of prestige and its role in creating, shaping, and perpetuating inequity within higher education. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how an equity focus can be more strongly centered in research on prestige in higher education through the expansion of foci in studies on striving and the diversification of paradigms, theoretical lenses, methods, and institutional contexts. I synthesize the extant research on prestige seeking and use this understanding to call for future research on prestige seeking that strengthens a consideration of equity, via theoretical lenses, topics, and methods engaged. In so doing, this work aims to contribute to the body of research on prestige and offer further direction for researchers, institutional leaders, and policymakers. This chapter is guided by the following questions:

270

D. D. Zerquera

1. Amidst the tumultuous times surrounding higher education, what have we learned in the past decade and a half in the study of prestige and how it manifests? 2. How does this learning advance the ways we understand how prestige seeking manifests itself and its implications, in particular, on equity efforts in higher education? 3. What might future research in the study of prestige look like as it expands more critically in topic, theoretical, and methodological approaches and across different contexts to better inform the field to strengthen examination of inequity in higher education? To achieve these aims, this chapter first outlines a set of assumptions regarding higher education in an effort to position prestige seeking, as explored here, within a context that centers equity, the influence of the higher education environment, the public good of the university, and the contributions of varying institutional types. I then provide definitions for equity and prestige seeking, explaining prestige seeking as manifesting within tangible and intangible aspects of institutional activity. I next offer a portrayal of a higher education context that pressures colleges and universities through accountability levers, state policies, and shifting demographics, and situate prestige seeking within the complexity of this context. Building off these previous sections, I offer an analysis of prestige-seeking scholarship, with a focus on work published since O’Meara’s (2007) chapter. Categorizing the literature into four areas, I consider contributions of these varying bodies of work and areas for expansion within them. I close the chapter looking ahead at possibilities, picking up on threads outlined throughout the chapter that position where future research must go, and outlining future directions for scholarship on prestige seeking.

Assumptions About Higher Education Guiding This Work I outline the following assumptions to situate this chapter within the broader field of higher education and the varying influences on the approaches to the arguments and ideas proposed therein. These assumptions shape the guiding framework I used to engage with the broader literature through this work. Further, they help to situate prestige squarely within work on equity in higher education. The first assumption, which is not a given in today’s neoliberal context, is that higher education has a primary role and responsibility to serving the public good. Higher education is not a privilege that should be afforded to a few selected individuals, nor does it only benefit the individual who receives it. Higher education’s relationship with serving society has been described as a covenant (Chambers, 2005), social charter (Kezar, 2005), and social compact (Cherwitz, 2005; Faulkner, 2008), among other comparisons, underscoring the responsibility, grounding purpose, and role higher education plays as a social institution. Across these characterizations, the roles captured include benefits beyond just being of “an individual and economic nature” (Chambers, 2005, para 2) and have been stated as including

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

271

educating all to engage with our social democracy, providing access to research and knowledge generation, working in alignment with other institutions to support their work in providing social services, creating leaders and knowledge producers, strengthening surrounding communities, collaborating with other social institutions to achieve these aims, and providing equal access to higher education (Bloom et al., 2007; Brenna & Naidoo, 2008; Budd, 2009; Kezar et al., 2005; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2015). Building on this, the second assumption guiding this chapter considers how these varying responsibilities are carried and experienced by different institution types in different ways. Building on work of other scholars and their arguments around the different missions of higher education, elsewhere (Zerquera, 2016) I argue that the public good of higher education falls differently on different sectors, with institutions like community colleges and regional universities charged with the role of providing access to students of all levels of preparation, and urban-serving and regional universities centering their research in serving their surrounding communities. Similarly, not only are the different public good missions carried out differently, these varying sectors of higher education experience pressures differently as well. Particularly as we discuss the pressures for prestige and complexity of higher education later in this chapter, O’Meara’s (2007) call for examination of prestige across varying contexts rings particularly loudly. Examinations of prestige pressures in contexts such as regional institutions (e.g., Orphan, 2018, 2020) and HispanicServing Institutions (e.g., Aguilar-Smith, 2021; Perdomo, 2019; Vargas, 2018) have illuminated the distinction of forces and pressures that are not enacted unilaterally on all institutions and help advance a framework that better takes diverse institutional contexts into account. The third assumption guiding this chapter is that organizational behavior works towards survival through compliance with oppressive power structures in their environments, which they are intrinsically connected to. These environments are composed of other organizations that exert pressures and demands; simultaneously, colleges and universities serve as a force within that milieu of pressures, exerting their own pressures on these higher education organizations in the environment. Institutional theory provides an important lens for understanding how organizations interact with and shaped by their environments. Generally, institutional theory captures the interconnections between legitimacy and resources, both social and financial; legitimacy is earned through the replication of institutionalized patterns of structure and behavior (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Scott, 2013). These powers influence shared meanings of reality regarding what is of value and important for the organization. Organizations absorb meanings through interactions within their environment, then interpret and translate them into the organizational context, carrying them forward through embeddedness into rules, norms, and cultural elements of organizations. Institutional theory is complemented by a critical perspective of organizations, which assumes power structures at play within an organization perpetuate inequity (Ray, 2019) and has important implications for higher education organizational research aimed towards addressing oppression in higher education (Gonzales et al., 2018).

272

D. D. Zerquera

Defining Prestige Seeking and Equity: An Engagement with Prestige and Equity as Ideology and Practice in Higher Education As this chapter works to advance a definition and agenda for the study of prestige seeking that is firmly grounded within equity, it is important to set a foundation for what is – and is not – intended here. Two key concepts drive this chapter’s work: equity and prestige. The following section provides definitions for these notions and discusses how they fulfill the broader purposes of this chapter.

Defining Equity for the Sake of Examining Prestige in Higher Education Equity is a term often used without the provision of an explicit definition. For the purposes of this chapter, equity is grounded in an emphasis on institutional responsibility (Bensimon, 2007; Bensimon & Malcom, 2012), choosing an anti-deficit stance to consider how we should structure our policies and practices in higher education (Patton Davis & Museus, 2019). In doing so, this approach to equity chooses to not center the ways students may not meet certain outcomes or have certain qualities and experiences, but instead the role and responsibility of the institution to provide curricula, services, and supports that serve all students. Additionally, the conceptualization of equity as employed in this chapter takes a racial justice lens (Bensimon, 2018), centering the ways Whiteness dominates higher education policy, practice, and scholarship, countering efforts for equity (BonillaSilva & Peoples, 2022; Cabrera et al., 2017). Engaging the assumption of higher education’s role in serving the public good, thinking of equity in this way advances higher education as a space where the enactment of social justice may occur. As both “a process and a goal” where the goal is “full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs” (Bell, 2007, p. 1), social justice provides a framework through which we can collectively work towards eliminating injustices and enhancing outcomes for individuals and communities (Adams, 2007; Patton Davis et al., 2010; Zajda et al., 2006). It is through the embodiment of these concepts that institutions must work towards their public good roles.

Frameworks for Examining Equity in Higher Education Critical perspectives have long been employed in higher education. Critical race theory (CRT) has helped shape criticality in higher education research for decades and has provided an important lens for examining equity in higher education. In particular, CRT has provided an important framework and methodology for capturing the experiences of racism and racialization in higher education and the implications of racist ideology as they manifest in policy. CRT’s central tenets – the assumption that racism exists, is embedded in our systems, and is intersectional with other identities; challenging dominant ideologies like meritocracy and

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

273

colorblindness; significance of experiential knowledge of marginalized communities; interdisciplinary perspectives; and commitment to action and social justice – inform engagement with existing research later in this chapter. Ladson-Billings and Tate’s (1995) work extending CRT into education more broadly and the breadth of work by scholars like Delgado Bernal and her collaborative work with colleagues (e.g., 2002; Delgado Bernal & Villalpando, 2002), Solórzano and his collaborative work (e.g., 1998; Solórzano et al., 2000), Parker (e.g., 2003, 2015), and later scholars like Harper and Patton (e.g., Harper, 2009; Harper et al. 2009; Patton, 2016) have cemented CRT as an important theoretical, methodological, and even paradigmatic framework for understanding inequity in higher education. This noted work and that which has derived from it has deepened our understanding of experiences of racialized individuals within our institutional structures. Some has further expanded understanding of racial policies and practices as well, with much attention to affirmative action and access policies (e.g., Harper et al., 2009; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002b; Yosso et al., 2004; Winkle-Wagner et al., 2018). CRT helps to draw out who is centered within studies of prestige seeking, what ideas drive the research approaches, the extent to which equity is considered or not as part of the work, the methodological approaches taken to answering research questions, the assumptions about value and quality embedded in these studies, and what broader movements in higher education the research advances. CRT is not the only theoretical framework useful for the examination of inequity in higher education particularly at the layers of policy and ideology. Neoliberalism, for instance, has been helpful for capturing the implications of pernicious trends of prioritization of profit and market over social outcomes. The work of Giroux (e.g., n.d.) and Slaughter and Rhoades (e.g., 2009) established a strong foundation for understanding the impact of neoliberalism on higher education labor, curriculum, pedagogy, expectations, structuring, and later, experiences of individuals within the institution. The neoliberal framework in higher education research, in particular with regards to prestige, has helped reposition institutional activity to capture the marketdriven motivations of some efforts and the cost of these activities on equity-serving missions (e.g., Orphan, 2018, 2020). Further, the broad extension of organizational perspectives to inequity has taken an interdisciplinary approach to integrating the understanding of organizational structures, behaviors of organizational actors and collectives, and operations through an organizational lens. In an earlier edition of the Handbook, Gonzales et al. (2018) push for critical organizational approaches in higher education, to strengthen how power structures shape, create, and perpetuate inequity, illuminating the potentials of said approaches to the study of higher education. Kezar (e.g., Kezar et al., 2008; Kezar & Posselt, 2019; Kezar & Sam, 2013), Bensimon (e.g., 2007; Bensimon & Malcom, 2012), and others have long employed organizational perspectives in the advancement of equity in higher education through the use of organizational lenses in ways that underscore dimensions of power. The theory of racialized organizations is helpful for better understanding the racial power structures within organizations and how they operate (Ray, 2019). In a practical application to the tangible aspects of organizational behavior, this lens of

274

D. D. Zerquera

racialized organizations, when coupled with that offered by institutional theory, helps illuminate the relationship between an organization and its environment through the emphasis on relationship between the following aspects of the organization: the (1) racial substructure – the schemas that shape organizations through implicit ideologies and emotion, with (2) the racial structure – the aspects of the organization where formal and informal rules are enacted alongside the provision of resources, and then how this then feeds into (3) racial ideology – the deeper levels of the organization whereby racial inequality is justified and unaddressed. This approach is important for exploring prestige seeking and how it engages in equity, as it situates the interconnections between higher education organizations with one another, other forces that surround them and make up the higher education system, and the interplay of forces on equity and prestige within. The criticality of this work is integral in methodological practice as well. Critical methodological approaches have been important for drawing out the outcomes of inequity, and being intentional and reflective on the process of capturing them. CRT as methodology has been a significant research advancement for drawing out inequity through centering marginalized populations, using counterstories to illuminate inequity in experiences, and underscoring colorblindness, racism, and devious motivations in policies. Critical quantitative research is another methodological approach that draws out a critical approach within large data sets and statistics. This work has extended the use of critical theory in quantitative research to confront and eliminate oppression, acknowledging that oppression is multifaceted, and thus careful attention must be given to all of its aspects to fully understand and address oppression in its entirety (Baez, 2007; Kincheloe & McLaren, 1994; Stage, 2007). Critical quantitative research focuses the examination of educational outcomes through databases and multiple research approaches, with the intent of exposing perpetuation of systemic inequities in those outcomes and the processes that produce them (Stage, 2007; Wells & Stage, 2015). QuantCrit, or CRT for quantitative research, similarly centers social justice while extending notions of CRT to quantitative research through enacting the tenets of CRT in quantitative analyses (Arellano, 2022; Garcia et al., 2018; Gillborn et al., 2018). The centering of institutional responsibility and anti-deficit approaches to the data is essential, as is the consideration of categories of populations, centering the social construction of data, and reflection on positionality of researchers. There is much opportunity for extending these critical perspectives to prestigeseeking research. Application of CRT would allow for the explicit centering of implications prestige seeking on the experiences of marginalized populations. Use of neoliberal frames allows for capturing the dynamics of the higher education context that pressures actions that may go against the public good roles of the university in exchange for market benefits. Critical organizational approaches underscore the forces and pressures of environments with organizational sensemaking, values, policies, leadership decisions, and behaviors. Critical methodologies analytically allow for deep engagements in how inequity shapes policies, experiences, and outcomes. This integration of equity lenses in prestige-seeking research, as has been conducted and how it can be expanded, is a primary focus of later sections in this chapter.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

275

Defining Prestige Seeking The second concept driving this chapter’s work is that of prestige, or rather, the pursuit of it. As introduced earlier, prestige is pursued by institutions across all sectors, often at the expense of other areas of institutional activity (Brewer et al., 2001; Gumport & Sporn, 1999; Morphew, 2009; O’Meara, 2007; Thelin, 2019). The bulk of literature on prestige and rankings in a global context tackles the study of prestige slightly differently, largely centering on the role of globalization in shaping international engagements in global rankings, with varying reaction from higher education in different countries (e.g., Collins & Park, 2016; Hazelkorn, 2015). Given the distinction of different higher education national contexts, and the specific ways the US higher education navigates challenges of access and equity amidst pursuits of prestige, centering the USA in this understanding provides an important context for understanding the interplay of prestige seeking within the current tensions on its public good role. In the section that follows, prestige seeking is defined as engagement in efforts expected to bring about prestige. Prestige is understood here as expanding beyond just rankings and going deeper to speak to the levels of power institutions can wield and the leverage they have to do so. The latter is much more difficult to measure, yet speaks to the broader phenomenon of why prestige matters and the benefits that emanate from its possession. In some of the research examined in this chapter, prestige is captured in this very tactile way – rankings in the U.S. News and World Report, for instance, or reaching a different classification in the Carnegie Classification system. In other studies, prestige is pursued towards some big yet amorphous aim, such as being a high-class, global, first-in-class, top, etc., institution. The definition followed in this chapter aligns more with the second definition, in that prestige is not to be limited to a potential operationalization, but is this bigger concept that we are engaging with, navigating, and sometimes fighting. Important too, prestige seeking is not always or necessarily problematic. I recall a discussion during my dissertation defense nearly 10 years ago in which one of my committee members posed the question, “Don’t we want our universities to be better?” While yes, we can safely assume that we want higher education institutions to be better, the challenge here is how better is defined, by whom, and what trying to be better looks like for the institution and the community it serves. This will look differently across different institutions, institution types, and local and state contexts. Nevertheless, research has advanced salient understandings of prestige seeking and how it is pursued and resisted. The following section captures this complexity while working towards a shared definition of prestige seeking.

Why “Prestige Seeking”? It is worth noting that prestige seeking, as a concept, has various names and labels (O’Meara, 2007): striving, academic ratcheting, and other labels that underscore the homogenization of higher education as institutions drift from an established mission and role-defined activities and engage in others. I choose the term prestige seeking to capture this phenomenon because of the emphasis on action (“seeking”) and the

276

D. D. Zerquera

clarity of direction (towards “prestige”). The term, as both a noun and verb, helps to demonstrate institutions’ active engagement in going after prestige, and not so much if or when it is obtained, or whether it is a finite finish line. The importance is not the starting or ending point, but the actions involved in pursuing prestige. O’Meara’s chapter centered largely on how to identify striving institutions and used that as an entry point into her work. This chapter focuses not on whether an institution is a striving institution, but rather the shared prestige-seeking behaviors of institutions that strive for prestige within this framework, the means by which prestige is pursued, and the implications of those pursuits in different contexts. The emphasis here is on the forces that support the pursuit of prestige and the costs and implications on different institutions and communities. The following serves as a reintroduction to prestige seeking. Building largely off of O’Meara’s (2007) chapter, I categorize the literature in two ways, first capturing prestige seeking as conceptualized within tangible aspects of college and university activity (e.g., spending, student admissions) and then as conceptualized within the intangible aspects of higher education institutions (e.g., values, perceptions). This intendeds to inform understanding of what prestige seeking entails and how it affects different aspects of institutional activity, providing a description of how prestige is pursued as has been captured in the literature. The synthesis provided here can be useful for research in providing a framework for how to situate the aspect(s) of prestige seeking being captured within a given study, with implications on approaches, measures, and frameworks that are appropriate for each.

Tangible Aspects of Prestige Seeking Prestige may be built and pursued in a number of ways. Drawing from frameworks provided by Brewer and colleagues (2001) and O’Meara (2007), and incorporating the research across the past two decades of scholarship (e.g., Ehrenberg, 2003; Geiger, 2004; Gonzales, 2012; Morphew, 2002; Morphew & Huisman, 2002; Morphew & Baker, 2004; Tuchman, 2009), elsewhere (Zerquera, 2018a, b), I identify and articulate six areas of college and university activity where prestige is pursued and prestige seeking observed. The following captures each of these areas, citing studies that have centered these aspects of prestige seeking, and discussing equity tensions within so as to support future prestige-seeking research to engage these topics. In and of themselves, changes within these levers are not necessarily problematic; however, how prestige is pursued can have pernicious impacts on equity. Further, there is also noted resistance to pressures for prestige in many of these areas. To support this understanding, I highlight tensions in how these aspects of prestige seeking are understood and engaged by colleges and universities. Table 1 summarizes these prestige-seeking aspects. Research. Prestige is pursued largely through the work of the faculty to increase or enhance an institutional focus on research (Brewer et al., 2001; Massy & Zemsky, 1994; O’Meara & Bloomgarden, 2011). Research facilities are enhanced and research-focused faculty are acquired to win grants and increase publications and innovation (Gonzales, 2012; Morphew & Huisman, 2002; Morphew & Baker, 2004; O’Meara & Bloomgarden, 2011). Faculty research activity is often increased

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

277

Table 1 Tangible aspects of prestige seeking Aspect of institutional How leveraged for activity prestige seeking Work of faculty Research facilities are enhanced Research-focused faculty are acquired Faculty research incentives offered or promotion and tenure requirements adjusted

Research that has expanded understanding Gonzales (2012, 2013) O’Meara and Bloomgarden (2011) Orphan (2018)

Athletics

Men’s football and basketball athletic teams

Marketing and branding

Institution slogans

Academic offerings

Curricular programs made available to students

Fisher (2009) Toma (2003) Toma and Cross (2008) Gonzales (2012) Gonzales and Pacheco (2012) Tuchman (2009) Morphew (2002) Morphew and Jenniskens (1999)

Research

Resource allocation

Student levers

Equity implications Financial costs may be at the expense of other areas of work Measures of research productivity racist, sexist, and exclusive Deprioritization of community-serving research Sports teams Financial costs may be developed and invested at the expense of other in to foster name areas of work recognition Language and symbols Engagement by used to promote stakeholders stifled visibility and establish Promote image of an image of the exclusivity institution aligned with prestige aspirations

Elimination or shrinking of developmental offerings Growth in graduate programs Institutional Spending strategically spending on allocated towards different prestige-boosting activities efforts, to support increased administrative costs Investments in new areas Recruitment Recruitment of and selection of applicants not first-time in intending to admit college fall Increasing entering class requirements for admissions Selecting students with higher SAT scores

Accessibility issues for students needing some remediation

Reallocation from student services and teaching to prestigeboosting efforts

Kim (2018) McClure and Titus (2018) Morphew and Baker (2004)

Reliance on standardized tests, despite racial bias Increase enrollment of students from higherincome, White, and privileged backgrounds while diminishing likelihood of admission and enrollment for students from historically underserved groups

Ehrenberg (2003) Volkwein and Sweitzer (2006) Zemsky et al. (2005)

278

D. D. Zerquera

through incentives or promotion and tenure requirements (Gonzales, 2012; O’Meara, 2011; O’Meara & Bloomgarden, 2011). Further, similar to other areas of prestige-boosting activity, the prestige built here is lasting – investing in research facilities attracts faculty with greater emphasis on research, increasing an institution’s capacity for productivity and federal grant dollars. These efforts are expensive and require major investments in faculty (e.g., recruitment and compensation), facilities, and expanding (or developing) graduate programs to the doctoral level (Brewer et al., 2001). Further, institutions leverage promotion and tenure policies to promote a research emphasis among faculty (O’Meara, 2011; Gonzales, 2012). Research has documented how institutions engaged in striving alter their academic reward systems to reflect values and standards of higher prestige institutions (Morphew & Huisman, 2002; Morphew & Baker, 2004; O’Meara, 2011). The costs of these efforts are more than financial and have implications for equity. Certain types of research are rewarded within prestige systems more than others, and the metrics used to measure faculty and institutional productivity in the realm of research have been critiqued for being racist, sexist, and exclusive (e.g., Davies et al., 2021). Most grants require existing facilities and resources to support the enactment of grant activities, and prioritization is given to faculty who have established track records for research, largely excluding grant pursuits by those at less-resourced institutions (Stocum, 2013). Research centered on social and community issues, such as that largely engaged by faculty of color and those centered in regional-serving institutions, is often deprioritized by institutions amidst prestige-seeking efforts (Gonzales, 2012). Example of implications of research as a prestige lever on equity. Gonzales (2013) underscores the tension of research as a prestige driver within a regionaland minority-serving institution. In her work, she analyzes the narratives of faculty members as they make sense of institutional prestige ambitions and the implications on their own work within South Western University (SWU). Faculty in her study noted the investment needed to reach this status, stating, for example, “Research I status is much more costly than folks around here seem to realize. . .It involves a much higher level of productivity than almost all of the [SWU] faculty are achieving now” (p. 198). Faculty also underscored the necessary support for faculty and shifting of expectation needed by the university, “If we’re going to be a Tier One University, you have to be willing to give people time to do their research and to publish” (p. 192). Faculty adjusted their time to meet the shifting expectations, but some lamented about what this shift could mean to the mission of the institution. As cited in her manuscript, one faculty saw negative implications of this shift for teaching and supporting students: a rabid focus on money, external grants, will hurt university mission regarding service and quality education. . .. Many of our students need extra attention to succeed. There won’t be time for this attention if rewards are focused not on teaching, but some other activity. . .. It’s a shame. . .. Helping students was why I was most attracted to SWU. (p. 193)

Faculty narratives from Gonzales’ study give voice to the lived experiences of prestige seeking within an institution that fulfills equity foci in higher education.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

279

Not serving that role is one of the implications of prestige seeking in this context, at the cost of this regional-serving mission. Athletics. Athletics, especially men’s football and basketball, may be leveraged as well in prestige seeking. Sports teams are developed and invested in to foster name recognition in addition to additional revenue from ticket sales and merchandising (Brewer et al., 2001; Geiger, 2004). The notion of the “Flutie Effect” (Sperber, 2000) captures the trend of increased applications following appearances in championship games by institutions, a trend examined and captured over time by Toma and colleagues (2003; with Cross, 1998). While assumed to benefit prestige, Fisher (2009) found no direct relationship between athletic wins and changes in institutional rankings. Under this logic, elsewhere (2018, 2019) I found a small number of urban universities that were engaged in a wide range of prestige-seeking behaviors to also leverage athletics, either through joining NCAA or changing their division level. However, I found minimal evidence of impact of prestige seeking associated with athletic levers on equity goals. The financial cost of athletics activities points to potential inequities in resource allocation and whether or not those energies can be channeled elsewhere towards activities that better serve the greater good of the institution. Thus, research raises questions about implications of efforts to advance prestige through manipulation of the athletics lever. Marketing and branding. In this area of institutional activity, prestige seeking engages language and symbols to promote visibility and establish an image of the institution. This communication is directed internally and externally, and as such, centers not just image of the institution but identity as well. Further, these efforts might center on enhancing targeted marketing efforts to reach audiences that had previously not attended the institution (Brewer et al., 2001; Tuchman, 2009). Branding and rebranding are also a notable area. In my own research on prestige seeking among urban universities (e.g., 2018, 2019), I operationalized this as change in institutional name from one that is more regionally centered to one that may have a broader appeal. For instance, California State University, Hayward’s shift in 2005 to its new name, California State University, East Bay can be seen as a prestige-seeking move as it dropped the city association and adopted a broader regional identity. How might these changes have impacted the perceptions of the institution for those living in the largely working-class city of Hayward and surrounding cities? Gonzales also captured the rebranding and marketing messages promoted by their prestige-seeking institution in presidential speeches and institutional marketing efforts (Gonzales, 2012; Gonzales & Pacheco, 2012). They argue that the slogans used worked to stifle engagement around the changes facing the organization in its prestige-seeking ambitions. Academic offerings. An institution may deemphasize developmental offerings and emphasize graduate programs in hopes of serving the needs of certain students over others (Morphew, 2002; Morphew & Jenniskens, 1999). This may include the elimination of adult and community education programs that largely serve regional and marginalized students. The result of these changes may be observed in increases in numbers of graduate students and degrees awarded each year and elimination of developmental offerings (remedial services or adult basic education/high school

280

D. D. Zerquera

equivalency). The shift in these program offerings can have significant impacts on equity and access, whereby the institution structurally excludes potential students needing developmental support in particular areas. To address these changes, universities have worked to foster transfer pipelines with local community colleges that continue to offer developmental coursework, deferring students’ admission to the university until certain coursework is completed at the partnering institution. Research on regional universities in particular (i.e., Orphan, 2020) has underscored the perceived value of adding graduate programs that center regional needs, countering the perception that the adding of programs on its own is a prestige-seeking indicator. Resource allocation. Here, spending is strategically allocated towards prestigeboosting efforts, to support increased administrative costs associated with prestige activities, or investments in new areas driven by a desire for enhanced prestige. Spending may shift towards infrastructure, administrative support, and investment in competitive amenities, such as student centers, athletic teams, and residence halls (Brewer et al., 2001; Geiger, 2004; Morphew, 2002). A change in an institution’s Carnegie classification status might be expected to be associated with decreases in the ratio of instruction-to-research expenditures, decreases in the ratio of academic support/student services-to-research expenditures, and increased federal grant research revenue (as a proportion of all revenue). Some research has explored how prestige seeking interacts with resource allocation, essentially seeking to see the costs associated with increased prestige and finding mixed results (Kim, 2018; McClure & Titus, 2018; Morphew & Baker, 2004). However, while exploring questions of whether or not costs and spending increase is important, less research has considered the equity implications of this resource allocation, for instance, in capturing how that spending gets distributed and where those funds get redistributed from. Student levers. Given the heavy influence of rankings in shaping prestige and the dominant role of student selectivity in determining those rankings (Sweitzer et al., 2009; Volkwein & Sweitzer, 2006), it is not surprising that a primary means through which institutions pursue prestige is the recruitment and selection of their undergraduate student population. This is also a primary area where questions of equity have most deeply been engaged. Institutions may seek students with characteristics that contribute to their overall level of prestige – e.g., students with higher SAT scores, high school GPAs, and high school rank. Though graduate student characteristics surely also play an important role in determining the prestige of an institution (Gardner, 2010), much more work has centered on the role of undergraduate student characteristics as factored into the overall rankings of universities. A prestige-seeking institution may change undergraduate admissions processes to achieve higher selectivity rates and a student body that more closely resembles that of highly selective institutions (Ehrenberg, 2003; Zerquera et al., 2017). Institutions can leverage their admissions criteria in various ways. For example, financial aid strategies such as tuition discounting and merit aid are employed to target students who may not otherwise consider enrolling (Brewer et al., 2001; Hossler, 2000), seeking students with higher pre-college academic achievements whose

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

281

characteristics might boost the overall quality of an institution’s incoming freshman class. These students tend to be from more privileged backgrounds. Institutions may also adopt policies with “a view toward who can pay tuition” (Brewer et al., 2001, p. 31), offsetting the expense of discounting for desired students with revenue from students who want to attend and can afford to pay. Ehrenberg (2003), Brewer et al. (2001), and Zemsky et al. (2005), among others, identify a number of strategies employed by admissions offices to boost an institution’s prestige. For example, with early decision, a policy in which students apply to an institution under the condition that if accepted they will commit to enrolling, may improve an institution’s admissions yield and secure students who can afford to pay the full cost of tuition without institutional aid. Institutions may also even seek out applications from students they consider non-admissible. This practice benefits an institution’s selectivity rate as it can increase the number of applications the institution receives without the institution accepting greater proportions or numbers of students. Thus, as institutions seek to improve the “perceived desirability of their institutions,” they work to increase the overall number of applications they receive to be able to sift through them, rejecting a higher proportion and bringing in “higherquality students” (Brewer et al., 2001, p. 61). Additionally, in an effort to improve admissions yield, some institutions may turn away students who they believe are more likely to receive admissions from and subsequently attend a higher-prestige institution. Although SAT-optional admissions requirements have received some praise for breaking the norm of standard admissions practices and potentially increasing diversity on campuses (Epsenshade et al., 2009; Jaschik, 2006), researchers have warned of the self-serving nature of such practices (Rodriguez & Camacho, 2022). As the students who are most likely to submit their scores are those who perform better on these tests, this policy has resulted in increases in the reported average incoming class SAT scores, thus benefiting institutions and helping advance institutional rankings (Hossler & Kalsbeek, 2009; Jaschik, 2006). Researching tangible aspects of prestige seeking. Many have argued that prestige is shaped not by perceived ability to achieve any set of outcomes specifically, but largely by ranking metrics (e.g., the U.S. News and World Report) and by those institutions that have established accepted levels of prestige (e.g., Ivy League institutions, state flagships) (Brewer et al., 2001; Espeland & Sauder, 2007; Gonzales, 2013; Riesman, 1956). As noted by Bowen (1980), Morphew and Baker (2004), McClure and Titus (2018), and others, these pursuits are highly costly and often come at the expense of other core areas of institutional activity. Much prestige-seeking work has used these tangible areas of institutional activity to determine if and how prestige seeking is occurring and then connect that to implications. For instance, McClure and Titus (2018) identified prestige-seeking institutions as institutions that had changed Carnegie classification status and examined the relationship between this shift and administrative spending, finding a positive correlation. In another example, I (2018) examined the relationship between prestige-seeking efforts across various measures of prestige seeking and proportional enrollment of Black and Latinx students. In both of these manuscripts, like much of

282

D. D. Zerquera

the research on prestige, prestige seeking is situated as being intrinsically motivated by actors within institutions themselves but to at least some extent reflecting broader environmental pressures. Given the somewhat objectively observable nature of these activities, research examining tangible aspects of prestige seeking may more easily operationalize prestige-seeking activities within widely available institutional-level data, such as those provided by the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) or state-level data systems. This approach enables the identification of prestige-seeking trends within and across institutions and sectors, and connection of those activities to specific outcomes. The categorization of said behaviors as prestige seeking and the efforts to connect them to specific outcomes must be done carefully and through methods that cannot just control for intervening factors, but account for their co-occurrences over time. This requires longitudinal data that captures institutional data and incorporates, for example, regional demographic data from the US Census and state policy context data (e.g., I do this in my 2019 study of effects of prestige seeking on access for Black and Latinx students at urban-serving research universities). Grounding this examination through a critical quantitative or QuantCrit approach may support the enactment of equity in this work so as to focus on equity in outcomes and process of the research as well (Arellano, 2022; Garcia et al., 2018; Wells & Stage, 2015) to push beyond traditional measures and encourage creativity in data employed through state integrated data systems.

Intangible Aspects of Prestige Seeking Conceptions and perceptions are also important drivers of prestige. Research that has centered on the role of faculty in driving prestige seeking has largely focused on their perceptions, values, and beliefs, and how those shape how they experience prestige seeking within their broader institution, or how they might drive prestige seeking themselves (Finkelstein, 1984; Gonzales, 2012, 2013; Morphew, 2000). For instance, Finklestein (1984) captures the influence of the value systems of faculty who bring cosmopolitan orientations to their work that may detract from investment in the local institutions, norms fostered through professionalization within faculty spheres, and socialization processes through the doctoral training that encourage replication of the activities and behaviors dominant within the prestigious research universities faculty largely are trained within. Gonzales (2012, 2013) has examined the ways prestige is pursued by institutions within research activities and implications on the lives of faculty within striving institutions, centering the pressures from the neoliberal market on the expectations of faculty and their own meaning-making processes about it. Notably, her work centered around prestige seeking within a Hispanic-Serving Institution that plays a vital role within its community, and she highlights the risks and loss of that mission within prestige seeking. In another example, I alongside Ballysignh and Templeton (2017) center on administrators’ own meaning-making processes related to their access-serving organizational missions and prestige. We examined perceptions of administrators across urban-serving universities in how they perceive their access missions in light of

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

283

prestige pressures and the individual and collective processes for navigating these pressures from the environment while upholding the intangible role of their organizational mission. Administrators cited a number of navigational strategies, such as admitting larger numbers of National Merit Scholars so as to bring in greater numbers of students with lower test scores without having too large of an impact on the overall institutional SAT score averages, or deferring fall first-time-in-college applicants to the spring term when they will not be counted towards the fall cohort that counts for institutional rankings. The focal point in this work, like others cited, remains on individuals within the university; however, external influences from the higher education environment are centered within these studies and help in contextualizing and offering deeper meaning to individual perceptions. This could be more strongly underscored within this literature base to better inform understandings of the complexities involved in prestige seeking. While internally driven aspirations and actions that push prestige are noted within the literature over time, what the more recent literature cited here does differently is capture this through an external lens. It builds explicitly on the prior work on prestige, but in centering the external influences on institutions, this more recent body of work advances the ways we understand prestige seeking by capturing the role of external bodies in shaping internal decisions and activities. This research highlights the complexity involved in prestige seeking moving forward amidst policy changes and the broader societal context, while falling short of fully interrogating the complex nature of prestige seeking in higher education that includes the varying layers of accountability, contextual changes, and other demands. Research engaging in these intangible aspects of prestige seeking requires a deep situating within the organization and its actors to capture decision-making processes, sensemaking, cultural elements that comprise beliefs and identity, and/or discourses within the institution. As will be discussed more fully later in this chapter, research in this area would benefit from a grounding in grounded in critical qualitative (Denzin, 2017) or critical race (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002a) methodological approaches, and engage organizational frameworks to situate qualitative narratives within the organizational structure and oppression shaping the experiences of stakeholders within prestige-seeking efforts.

Prestige Seeking Versus Reputation Building in the Context of Equity Prestige seeking and reputation seeking are distinct, albeit overlapping concepts. Reputation is a fundamental asset for all organizations, and in higher education, it is important to achieving institutional objectives (Brewer et al., 2001; Farrugia & Lane, 2013; Plewa et al., 2016). A strong reputation may improve an institution’s ability to hire desired faculty and staff candidates, attract desired students, create competitive advantage against other institutions, and improve partnerships that benefit faculty recruitment and research (Miotto et al., 2020). Despite its significance, there is a lack of consensus regarding the dimensions of reputation, how to manage it, or how it manifests differently among stakeholders or across geographical areas (LafuenteRuiz-de-Sabando et al., 2018). Brewer et al. (2001) offer several important distinctions between prestige and reputation, arguing that the former takes longer to build

284

D. D. Zerquera

and lose, while the latter can be quickly built and likewise quickly eroded, though requires continual investment. Further, unlike prestige, reputation is a non-rival good (i.e., an institution having a strong reputation does not impact another institution’s ability to also have reputation), measured in absolute terms (as opposed to relative ones), and defined by stakeholders (instead of by organizational actors). Building on these ideas, Breault and Callejo Perez (2012) argue that institutional behaviors have evolved over time, with reputation-building behaviors invested in to support prestige-seeking behaviors in another area. Some institutions are reputation-based rather than prestige focused. Community colleges, for instance, are noted to be responsive to community needs as part of their overall mission, relying heavily on partnerships with community stakeholders and thus are considered to be reputation-based institutions. In their study, Breault and Callejo Perez (2012) note several prestige-seeking behaviors, with some institutions using prestige-based resource allocation strategies, emphasizing student recruitment within their region and beyond, and transfer rates to well-known universities in the area. The work of Brewer et al. (2001) suggests that reputation may be more malleable for meeting equity demands and potentially leveraged to address calls for equity while maintaining inequity through prestige-seeking systems. By definition, reputation is about identifying and responding to constituent needs, whereas prestige is shaped by internally defined measures, even while the criteria are being defined externally. Demands for equity in higher education have been met by a number of responses by colleges and universities. Many of these responses have been rightly criticized for performative, additive, and reactive efforts that repeat the mistakes of the past, perform allyship while enacting inequitable policies and practices, and enabling systems and culture that work to preserve the status quo of anti-Black racism (Parker et al., 2021). This speaks to the differences between reputation and prestige as it relates to equity, and how changes in the institution occur (or do not). For example, an institution’s holding of a community forum with students and campus police following a racial profiling incident on campus might promote an image of care and concern and demonstrate a response to community outrage; it is short term and additive to the institution’s practices, but benefits the reputation of the institution. On the other hand, the focused hiring of faculty doing communityengaged scholarship as a response to equity demands for greater diversity representation in faculty might counter prestige systems, but addresses community needs for enhanced equity in a more systematic way – through not just representation of diverse faculty, but also the type of research conducted and how communities benefit from institutional research. This would require deep shifts in hiring processes, criteria for hiring, and then later, how faculty are evaluated so that the type of research being conducted is valued. Thus, the former example of institutional action for equity is shorter term and may have big gains in the striving for stronger reputation, whereas the latter takes much more time, engages a number of institutional processes, and may have negative implications on institutional prestige. Yet, the latter is the deeper work needed to address the equity demands higher education is being called to face.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

285

Situating Prestige Seeking Prestige seeking captures a series of actions and behaviors aimed towards a particular goal – increasing perceived or measured levels of prestige. The trickiness includes that no singular activity can be connected directly to increasing prestige (O’Meara, 2007). Further, prestige itself is somewhat elusive, situated largely through rankings and perceptions. As with other aspects of higher education, the concept of prestige is deeply interconnected to the environment of colleges and universities, shaped by the general public, government entities, and other colleges and universities. This presents difficulty in our own work to examine and analyze prestige seeking and its implications. It also requires a complex engagement with prestige seeking to account for these varying pressures and center the equity implications involved. Prior to engaging in analysis of the prestige-seeking literature to examine the ways we have collectively captured these varying elements to date, I first contextualize the higher education context, highlighting the key elements that most interact with prestige seeking.

Contextualizing Higher Education As an interdisciplinary and socially grounded field, our work in higher education should be deeply grounded in the realities and experiences of our subjects – the elements of “higher education” that we examine and work to support through our research. Prestige and equity, as both ideological and enacted concepts, are deeply interconnected within the environmental context of higher education institutions. The study of prestige must take a contextualized understanding of this institutional environment. Furthering this argument, I here expand on this context as it operates for colleges and universities navigating prestige in the postrecession, post/currentCOVID-19 era amidst multiple layers of accountability, mandates, and demographic shifts in the nation. This is all situated against a backdrop laid out in previous sections of this chapter that highlight the tensions on equity. In doing so, I place emphasis on how these pressures interact with prestige and equity.

Accountability Demands and Levers A perfect storm of pressures building from previous decades has culminated into a complex and somewhat hostile environment that colleges and universities must now operate in. Scrutiny has increased regarding the value of higher education, manifesting in accountability demands and calls for higher education institutions to demonstrate their value (Ewell, 2015; Immerwahr, 2003; Kelchen, 2018; Powell et al., 2012). Kelchen (2018) summarizes the various influences on this increased accountability, highlighting the growing cost of higher education, which has largely passed along to students, happening alongside concerns about the quality of education received. In his analysis, he notes the various layers of accountability as enacted on higher education and which have been particularly pointed in recent years: the

286

D. D. Zerquera

federal government’s data transparency efforts and financial aid eligibility guidelines; state controls of setting tuition and fees, appointment of individuals at the trustee or governing board levels, and funding mechanisms; and accreditation agencies, which are themselves in a state of flux but exert important accreditation policies that force conforming to certain expectations. In the COVID-19 pandemic/ endemic period, certain of these pressures are even more pronounced. At the state level, this scrutiny has translated into the ways that many states are funding their institutions of higher education, implementing performance-based funding models that tie state funding to performance metrics (Dougherty and Reddy, 2013; Kelchen, 2018; McKeown-Moak, 2013; Rabovsky, 2012). Though widely implemented between the 1970s and 1990s, many were short lived and eliminated, and then revived post-Great Recession amidst state funding challenges and economic recovery efforts (Dougherty et al., 2012; Dougherty & Reddy, 2013). Enrollment is the largest single component of these formulas, although student retention and graduation rates have been widely included, reflecting a stronger focus on accountability in student outcomes (Miller, 2016; National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL), 2015). These models have been critiqued for upholding a particular model of higher education and negatively impacting nonflagship institutions (Ness et al., 2015), minority-serving institutions (Hillman & Corral, 2017), and less-selective and open-access institutions (Hagood, 2019; Li et al., 2018). Despite inclusion of some equity-based measures, these efforts have not significantly impacted student outcomes (Rutherford & Rabovsky, 2014; Tandberg & Hillman, 2013, 2014) and have instead resulted in unintended consequences, such as institutions adjusting selectivity rates to be able to perform better in accordance with the metrics, becoming more selective and less accessible for students of color (Umbricht et al., 2017; Zerquera & Ziskin, 2020). For instance, research has found institutions to increase selectivity in admissions (Dougherty et al., 2014, 2016; Umbricht et al., 2017) and divert or relinquish aspects of their institutional public-serving missions (Jones, 2016; Orphan, 2018; Zerquera et al., 2017) in response to performance-based funding mandates, undermining the public good mission of colleges and universities. The accountability movement has also informed philanthropy and philanthropy as advocacy. These efforts have shaped the direction of higher education, with a large proportion of these dollars in the past two decades going to funding efforts towards college completion as part of the broader accountability movement (Bernstein, 2014; Haddad, 2021; Haddad & Reckhow, 2018). These funds have largely gone to supporters of performance-based funding (Dougherty & Natow, 2015; Gandara et al., 2017; Miller & Morphew, 2017) and have moved less towards funding institutions directly and more so to policy advocacy and development organizations (Haddad, 2021). Thus, the pressures towards the completion agenda are multifaceted.

State Policy Reform and Additional Funding Mechanisms Further pressures from states include policy reform efforts that have implications for institutional behavior. Mission differentiation has long been embedded within many

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

287

state higher education policies, perhaps most notably exemplified through the California Master Plan of the 1960s. Some states have recently re-delineated the roles and functions of different higher education institutions within their systems (e.g., New York, Indiana), under the motivation to minimize costs and competition between state schools (Longanecker, 2008; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). These plans often result in assigning academic responsibilities to each sector of institutions, resulting in the cutting of various academic programs from some institutions, particularly developmental education programs (Bastedo & Gumport, 2003). The environment created by these policies favors institutions positioned to compete within a financially restrictive market, for example, selective, research-intensive universities with sought-after auxiliary services and commercially available research and other products (Eckel, 2008). These changes might be observed as a prestigeseeking-driven change in mission-fulfilling activity or might encourage taking on certain efforts to survive within this context that appear to be prestige driven. Additionally, restrictive funding environments have encouraged the implementation of incentive-based funding. The possibility of state or grant funding for research or institutional activity can shape or redirect institutional priorities. Some states have instituted incentive programs to encourage comprehensive universities to become more research focused. For instance, H.B. 51 in Texas passed in 2009 and identified seven “emerging research universities,” all of which served their regions, to develop plans on how to achieve research university status. In Florida in 2016, H.B. 7029 was revised to create the “Emerging Preeminent University program” which provides additional funding to institutions that meet a set of metrics that include top rankings, research spending, and incoming student SAT scores. These state incentive programs encourage specific behaviors that align with what the literature has captured as being prestige seeking and have been found, for example, to encourage comprehensive universities to become more research focused (Doran, 2015; Zerquera, 2019, 2021). Additionally, states’ pushing to expand the number of research universities likely come at the expense of equity efforts (Perna & Finney, 2014). Alongside demographic shifts in the nation and the US colleges and universities, the pursuit of funding through the Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions (DHSI) grant program can be attractive to institutions working to support their diverse student populations. The program favors institutions with broader established prestige and may lead colleges and universities to change to strengthen actions to serve students long disserved by the institution, or act in a performative way that draws in funds but works against the equity goals the DHSI program aims to achieve (Aguilar-Smith, 2021; Perdomo, 2019).

A Changing Demographic Landscape These suggested demographic shifts are also dominant in the sensemaking and planning of institutions with the pending “enrollment cliff,” defined as the large expected decline in the college-going aged population, and growth within this group by the Latinx community (Bransberger et al., 2020; Grawe, 2018, 2021). Between

288

D. D. Zerquera

2010 and 2020, the Latinx population in the USA increased 23% overall, while the general population grew by just 7% (Passel et al., 2022). College enrollment of this population has followed up until the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby communities of color were particularly impacted and pulled away from higher education to tend to pandemic- and economy-related concerns such as work, caregiving, and negative impacts on health and well-being (Brown, 2022; Douglas-Gabriel et al., 2021; Excelencia in Education, 2022). With the pending enrollment declines in the general population, many colleges are looking at how to enhance Latinx enrollment and must contend with the additional challenges and lasting impacts of the pandemic. These numerical measures of the shifting demographic are complemented by shifts in attitudes and expectations, particularly by marginalized and exploited populations. Student activism has long existed in higher education, shaping the direction of college and university programs, services, and policies (Rhoads, 2016). However, there has been a growing activist identity among college students (Eagan et al., 2015). Cole and Heinecke’s analysis of recent activism draws from data on movements across 82 institutions and concludes that “students are invested in their communities, and feel entitled to meaningful, respectful experiences and interactions on their campuses” (2020, p. 110). The pressures imposed by these student and other stakeholder demands have shifted higher education’s attention and encouraged an additional lens for understanding an institution’s value.

Situating Prestige in This Context Combined, these varying pressures may lead to engagement in activities that have been framed as being driven intrinsically by university motivations for prestige, but which may through another angle be understood as being shaped by pressures from the state, policy, and public environment. In turn, the complexity here may shift the blame – and hence, responsibility – of the negative implications of these activities away from institutions and onto the pressures from the environment. For instance, shifts in engagement in research activities can instead be understood as resourcedriven desires or need to capture additional funding from state incentive programs. Similarly, increased selectivity that has implications on restrictive access for students of color may reflect pressure to meet performance-based funding metrics, an adaptation to mission differentiation, or efforts to obtain incentive-based funding. The complexity of the higher education context illuminates a need for engagement in prestige-seeking research through lenses and approaches that capture this complexity of multiple coexisting pressures. Research must be able to capture both the desires for prestige innately held by colleges and universities while also capturing the implications of the neoliberal, performance-based new normal and how both shape what equity work looks like at these institutions. Further, there are tensions as we situate the challenges of prestige seeking within the explicit context of equity work of higher education institutions. Prestige, on its own, does not necessarily imply or contribute to inequity. However, prestige conflicts with equity to the extent that it is understood within a problematic framing of

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

289

what good is, how that understanding is shaped, and how these ideas are upheld or resisted. Further, many of the prestige-seeking levers defined in the previous section problematically contribute to inequitable outcomes for marginalized communities. Surely, there are counterexamples of institutions that enhance prestige levers in one area as a way of garnering resources that can then be allocated towards equity aims. Orphan’s (2018, 2020) research on regional institutions highlights these efforts particularly well, capturing how increased engagement in research in these institutional contexts has at times enhanced their mission to serve their local regions. Today’s context of higher education, with increased accountability and diminished state funds, does not easily allow for costly engagements in acts of prestigeseeking behavior. That is, at least not explicitly. But, performance-based funding, mission differentiation, and accreditation demands may work to advance prestigeseeking motives, masked as conforming to external demands. This is further complicated by the strategic navigational strategies of higher education institutions, particularly those seeking to leverage prestige resources to advance equity work. Thus, the study of prestige seeking must advance to account for these varying complexities of the current context of higher education. The following section examines prestige-seeking literature, emphasizing the body of work that has emerged since the publication of O’Meara’s (2007) chapter in the Handbook. It separates the literature into four categories and analyzes approaches taken within each. Taking into account the complexity of the higher education context, and through a framework centering critical and systems theory, I analyzed the literature to highlight how dominant theoretical lenses have been employed, institutional contexts that are emphasized, methodologies used, and how equity has been considered. In doing so, I seek to synthesize the extant research to capture how prestige seeking has been conceptualized and what the approach within different bodies of work has helped us understand. This then leads into a discussion of future directions for the field that will build on and extend these approaches to meet the challenges and complexity of our times.

Prestige as Examined in Higher Education Earlier in this chapter, I introduced prestige seeking to capture the key aspects of what prestige-seeking behavior looks like and how different aspects of prestige seeking have been examined in research. This approach provided an important start for situating these behaviors within the complexity of the higher education environment and capturing the dual nature of these various aspects of prestige seeking. The next section continues to engage in prestige-seeking literature through a different analytical approach. I consider how dominant theoretical lenses and methodological approaches have been employed, with attention to the strengths and limitations of these approaches and how they enable or inhibit the ability to center equity as part of this research. As advanced by O’Meara (2007), different types of institutions experience pressures for prestige differently. The compounding pressures from the higher education environment are not all experienced in the same

290

D. D. Zerquera

way by all institutions. Thus, this review highlights the institutional contexts that are emphasized within research on prestige seeking and raises questions about the student populations and stakeholder communities that are prioritized through this research. If and how issues of equity have been engaged is another area of consideration. I close each section with reflections on contributions and areas for growth, as we seek to strengthen the examination of prestige and equity in ideology and practice. With an emphasis on research published since 2007, I gathered literature via various academic database searches, using the different terms for prestige seeking outlined earlier in this chapter. Additional research publications were gathered via snowballing of reference lists and citations, capturing works that examine prestige more broadly. While literature capturing prestige outside of the US context was considered, it was only gleaned for contributions to broader understanding and not integrated into the analysis below. Literature was examined to capture the extent to which equity is or able to be centered within the research conducted on the basis of (1) theoretical lenses used, (2) methodological approaches employed, (3) institutional and community contexts captured, and (4) the explicit focus on issues of equity. Considering these criteria, I categorize the literature into four thematic areas: The Academic Snake Monolith, The Prestige Mosaic, Problematizing Prestige Seeking, and The Interplay of Prestige and Other Factors. Some of the manuscripts captured in this review overlap across categories, highlighting that these categorizations are not exclusive. These categories are intended to be guiding frames for research and not an exhaustive or an exclusive presentation of the work in this area. These categorizations help to group different approach prestige seeking scholarship in an effort to support future work in situating its own approaches and body of work it is situated within. Table 2 offers a summary of this section as a reference guide for researchers, capturing how prestige seeking is conceptualized, the theoretical lenses used, methodological approaches employed, contexts considered, how equity is engaged, and examples of studies within each area.

The Academic Snake Monolith The first broad category of scholarship in this area takes its namesake from some of the earliest work on prestige seeking. In the first of three essays that comprise his first book about education, Riesman’s Constraint and Variety in American Education (1956) offers a description and metaphor that has set an archetype for shaping the way higher education scholarship has largely examined prestige seeking. Speaking to the spread of “academic fashions,” he describes a trend of “institutional homogenization” (p. 1) and offers the metaphor of a “snake-like procession” (p. 14) across American higher education. The great snake, which has been described across prestige research (e.g., Harris & Ellis, 2020; O’Meara, 2007; O’Meara & Bloomgarden, 2011; Morphew, 2000; Stensaker et al., 2019), stresses the influence of elite institutions on one another, with tiers of less-prestigious institutions looking to those of greater prestige to shape how they make decisions about their own

Co-constructed through various perspectives across the institution

Defined by behaviors and activities

The Prestige Mosaic

Problematizing Prestige Seeking

The Academic Snake

Conceptualization of prestige seeking Imitation of institutions perceived to be prestigious

Institutional theory Resource dependency theory

Organizational theories (e.g., sensemaking, legitimacy) Critical perspectives Neoliberalism

Theoretical lenses used Population ecology Institutional theory

Table 2 Prestige as examined in higher education research

Quantitatively: inferential and longitudinal analysis

Qualitative: interviews and document analysis

Methodological approaches employed Quantitative, descriptive

Range of sectors Notable exclusion of community colleges

Faculty work

Contexts considered All of higher education Some exclusion of MSIs, community colleges

Emphasis on financial spending and changes in access for racially minoritized groups

Minoritized faculty considered Creation of knowledge Management of institutional equity missions amidst prestige seeking

How equity engaged Consideration of institutional options for students across different sectors of higher education

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . . (continued)

Examples of studies Birnbaum (1983) Morphew (2002, 2009) Harris and Ellis (2020) Gardner (2013) Gonzales (2012, 2013, 2014) O’Meara and Bloomgarden (2011) Orphan (2018) Zerquera et al. (2017) Kim (2018) McClure and Titus (2018) Warshaw et al. (2020, 2021, 2022) Zerquera (2019)

6 291

Interplay of Prestige and Other Factors

Conceptualization of prestige seeking One of many forces higher education institutions navigate

Table 2 (continued)

Theoretical lenses used Critical lenses Neoliberalism Organizational perspectives

Methodological approaches employed Qualitative and quantitative Contexts considered Emphasis on sectors that serve minoritized populations: regional universities, HSIs, and urban institutions

How equity engaged Populations served by institutional contexts are underserved in higher education overall

Examples of studies AguilarSmith (2021) Orphan (2020) Zerquera and Torres (2018) Zerquera and Ziskin (2020)

292 D. D. Zerquera

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

293

offerings, activities, and identity. He later expanded on this notion in The American Revolution, a series of essays coauthored with Christopher Jencks, and in this series underscores the phenomenon of the academic procession, but now emphasizing the role of the American research university as shaping higher education, warning that this influence will likely result in “a continuing trend towards meritocracy” (Jencks & Riesman, 1968, p. 27). This categorization implies the higher value of institutions categorized at the snake head – those typically captured within the Carnegie classification as having highest levels of research activity. Along with certain liberal arts colleges, these institutions tend to be highly selective and restrictive of access.

Contributions of Research Within This Area As much a commentary on change and innovation in higher education as setting a framework for how prestige is shaped and pursued, the influence of Riesman’s ideas has spanned generations of scholars (O’Meara, 2007). The emphasis within this area of research has been on understanding institutional diversity across varying sectors and how colleges/universities shift across these systems, taking the lens of prestige to help understand the motivations behind that shift. Much prestige research has been situated in this area (e.g., Birnbaum, 1983; Dill, 2006; Harris & Ellis, 2020; Hazelkorn, 2012; Kraatz & Zajac, 1996; Morphew, 2002, 2009; Morphew & Huisman, 2002). This work has mainly drawn from organizational theories that emphasize environmental conditions and competition for resources and the collective organizational adaptation processes in response to social rules, expectations, norms, and values (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Katz & Kahn, 1978; Scott, 2013). Birnbaum’s (1983) influential work in this area used population ecology theory (Hannan & Freeman, 1977, 1984), a theoretical lens that takes its key principles from the natural sciences. The theory focuses on the emergence and disappearance of organizational types as they compete for material resources and posits that organizations within the same field will become more homogenous over time as their environment selects the forms of organizations that are to survive (Hannan & Freeman, 1977, 1984; Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003). Birnbaum found that institutions became more homogeneous, arguing through a population ecology perspective that such trends are to be expected in response to similar environmental pressures. His application has been critiqued by other researchers who with similar replicating studies propose the use of institutional and adaptation-based theories instead (Kraatz & Zajac, 1996; Morphew, 2009). The dominant framework in this area of research, as with much prestige-seeking literature, is institutional theory, with particular attention to resource dependence and mimetic and normative isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983, 1991) and with some attention to strategic responses to these pressures (Oliver, 1991; Scott, 2013). Institutional theory insists on the importance of the wider context or environment as it constrains, shapes, and penetrates an organization (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991; Katz & Kahn, 1978; Scott, 1992). Though similar to the population ecology perspective in that it is concerned with environmental conditions and competition for resources, it opposes the idea that the environment chooses organizational types that will survive and instead emphasizes collective organizational adaptation processes in

294

D. D. Zerquera

response to social rules, expectations, norms, and values (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003). Drawing attention to the importance of the social and cultural environment through an emphasis on resources, rule systems, and knowledge (Scott, 1992), it allows for adaptation of organizations as opposed to organizational types being made completely obsolete (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003; Selznick, 1957). This research has set groundwork for understanding stratification as it occurs across the homogenization of higher education and largely used descriptive, quantitative approaches. Studies worth noting in this realm of research include the sequential and compounding studies by Birnbaum (1983), Morphew (2002, 2009), and most recently Harris and Ellis (2020) on institutional diversity which have captured changes in institutional types from 1960 to 1980, 1972 to 2002, and 1989 to 2014, respectively. Collectively, these studies have helped highlight how institutions and sectors have been threatened by pressures in the higher education environment, contributing to reduced diversity in institutional options for students seeking higher education. Taking snapshots of years of institutional data to create matrices of institution types, they examine changes across these ranges. While Birnbaum used population ecology to make meaning of institutional types that emerge and disappear, both Morphew and Harris and Ellis’ study use institutional theory to explain trends across these time periods and forces towards homogenization of fields. Though not directly a study of prestige, per se, these studies take an assumption of prestige seeking. The employment of an institutional frame in the latter studies underscores, at minimum, legitimacy-seeking intentions in the institutional field; the explicit invoking of the academic snake conveys an assumption of the intentions of homogenization found in their research. That all of these studies found decreased institutional diversity has been an important contribution to our collective work on prestige seeking in capturing the macro trends in the tangible outcomes of prestige seeking at the institutional structure level. By examining how institutions have changed in classification, this research has also posed important questions about organizational identity and concurrently, the missions and roles institutions have within higher education. This has laid important foundations for considering the varying missions higher education fulfills, particularly the upholding of access to education and knowledge, and how prestige pressures challenge the fulfillment of these roles. These contributions have not always been the focus of this area of prestige research, but could and should be emphasized in an effort to align these approaches to understanding prestige with an equity agenda.

Moving Beyond the Snake The snake metaphor may provide a useful lens for understanding prestige, yet it promotes a problematic viewing of higher education. Whereas the Carnegie classification did not intend to become the “dominant – arguably default” (McCormick & Zhao, 2005, p. 52) approach to understanding differences between institution types (Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1973), Riesman’s categorizations were intentionally pejorative for institutions he placed towards the tail of the snake. A key

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

295

example of this intention was his scathing commentary about historically black colleges and universities, calling them “academic disaster areas” and “ill-financed, ill-staffed caricature of white higher education” (Jencks & Riesman, 1967, p. 64), and applying similar elite labels to a handful of institutions that they called the “Negro Ivy League” (Jencks & Riesman, 1967, 1968). Though the general description of the ways higher education institutions shape their own goals and activities may hold some truth, the employment of the snake simile within the research on prestige seeking may unintendedly promote a hierarchical view of higher education that contributes to an overall diminishing of value for those institutions not situated within Riesman’s snake head. Notwithstanding, particularly as universities across the country close, merge, and are acquired, the ways institutions fulfill their purpose or shift towards different models of higher education is significant. However, it is important to shake the archetypical snake; not doing so perpetuates embedded values and beliefs that are harmful towards equity. It diminishes the understanding of contributions of those institutions that tend to provide the greatest levels of educational access and opportunity for marginalized communities; it can also support a limited understanding of institutional activity that may more so be a response to the challenging context of higher education rather than a succession that fails to fit its own aims, blinding researchers from capturing these behaviors in any other way. The quantitative methods that have been explored in this realm have helped show that important questions can be answered through simple approaches. At the same time, they reveal future areas for examining layers of complication that more sophisticated methods may be able to capture. For instance, returning to the institutional diversity studies above, while authors framed this through institutional theory and pursuit of legitimacy, the factors shaping these shifts are not captured and could help in interpreting the institutional motivations for these shifts. Additionally, limitations in consistency in measures were the rationale for Harris and Ellis’ (2020) exclusion of a measure of minority-serving institutions (MSIs). Particularly given the shifts in demographic landscapes, the pressures on MSIs of different types are a missed potential contribution to this work. Do particular sectors tend to experience greater levels of growth or loss across specific time periods of financial constraint, or specifically, during the COVID19 global pandemic? How do sectors that traditionally serve large proportions of students of color and low-income students fare across institutional diversity changes? Understanding these macro trends in how prestige seeking might manifest in changes in institutional structures across higher education is an important area of study. Doing so in ways that helps advance our understanding of how these trends impact and are shaped by inequity in higher education is necessary. Frameworks that go beyond just the emphasis on homogenization and financial resources and capture other areas of influence suggested by institutional theory would help, as would capturing and centering institution types that serve greater proportions of marginalized students. Some of this work has been addressed across the other areas of prestige-seeking research explored in this chapter.

296

D. D. Zerquera

The Prestige Mosaic: Experiences of Prestige Seeking Within the Institution In this category of prestige-seeking literature, researchers have contributed an illustration of prestige seeking that centers actors who shape and are shaped by prestige goals that are set by some other entity within the institution and/or contributed to by their own ways of understanding the world and doing their work. Through engagement in different contexts with different populations in the institution, this body of work creates a mosaic of prestige seeking that offers important insights into how prestige seeking is experienced, what drives it, and how some seek to resist it. The research here has largely been situated within colleges and universities deemed, in some way or another by the researcher, as being a prestige-seeking institution, or institutions subjective to prestige-seeking pressures. This discovery has been through exposure to prestige-seeking espousal through public statements or as captured in interviews for another study that the given research derives from, and/or by the institution of interest meeting indicators of prestige seeking. For example, in Gonzales’ studies exploring South Western University (2012, 2013), the designation was captured through her own personal observation of the president who shared explicit intentions to pursue “Tier One” research status in public statements, which led her to explore organizational documents that discussed these ambitions. Similarly, O’Meara and Bloomgarden’s (2011) study used institutional self-identification as a starting point. Their study first contextualized the pressures on liberal arts institutions that may lend to prestige seeking, then supported the selfidentification claims from faculty and administrators by data that showed alignment of indications of prestige seeking – increased selectivity, changes in rankings, hiring of research-oriented faculty, and discussions of increased research expectations for faculty. This work has largely leveraged a wide range of theoretical perspectives and analysis of data of experience from individuals within the institution to contribute to the broader story of experience of prestige seeking within the institution. This work has largely centered on the experiences of faculty and how they navigate shifting expectations and norms of faculty productivity and knowledge production as a result of prestige-seeking ambitions (e.g., Finnegan & Gamson, 1996; Gonzales, 2012, 2013, 2014; Gonzales et al., 2014; Martinez, 2019; O’Meara & Bloomgarden, 2011), with some having explicit focus on racially or gender-minoritized faculty (e.g., Gardner, 2013; Véliz & Gardner, 2019). Another segment of this research has explored the experiences of administrators as they justify, navigate, lead enactment of, and balance prestige ambitions with the mission and responsibility of the institution overall (e.g., Martinez & Henkle, n.d.; Orphan, 2018; Orphan & Miller, 2020; Tuchman, 2009; Zerquera et al., 2017). Contributions and future directions for this research are discussed below.

What the Mosaic Shows Us In creating a mosaic of experiences within prestige-seeking colleges and universities, this body of work sets groundwork for understanding the role of actors in shaping

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

297

prestige seeking and mechanisms used to advance prestige aims. Conceptually, this work has largely drawn from organizational theory to underscore the structural aspects of the college and university, and in much of this work, there has also been an integration of critical perspectives to draw out the structures of power and inequity, a focus that seems to drive much of this work. The use of lenses such as neoliberalism and academic capitalism has helped situate the experiences captured within the individual-level of experience within broader trends in higher education, without centering the resource-centered pressures engaged in other research on prestige seeking, discussed later. Reflecting the experience focus, much of this research engages interviews with individuals and draws from a constructivist perspective of the world. The diversity of approaches and lenses used in this body of work has contributed important insights into the complicated ways it is experienced. Several examples are presented here to help demonstrate these insights. From the body of work on faculty, many learnings have helped in understanding implications of prestige seeking on the work and meaning making of the academy for faculty. In her exploration of the departure of women faculty from a striving institution, Gardner (2013) uses gendered organizational theory from an assumption that prestige seeking comes from a gendered view of institutional hierarchy, shaping division of labor, interactions, symbols, and understanding of one’s role within the institution. This positioning of faculty work is important and helps drive out the layers of negative forces encountered by women faculty in a prestige-seeking context. Gonzales’ work on faculty experiences in striving institutions (2012, 2013, 2014; Gonzales et al., 2014; Gonzales & Ordu, 2013) engages various frameworks to understand faculty experiences with striving, how they enact agency, and how they make sense of their own work within these spaces, with a particular focus on scholarship production and focus within it. This collection of work is significant, as she and her colleagues give notable attention to what types of knowledge are prioritized at the studied Hispanic-Serving Institution, which serves communities along the southern border. Research capturing perspectives and experiences of administrators has been equally meaningful, capturing a complicated tension in resistance and navigation to prestige seeking while simultaneously sometimes being the shapers and drivers of prestige seeking across the institution. Orphan’s (2018) work advances an important narrative of resistance by institutions to prestige pressures, situating the experiences of administrators actively working to hold onto their regional-serving missions amidst neoliberal pressures. The neoliberal framing situates the tensions of marketdriven activities on the regional serving mission of her institutional contexts that serve large proportions of first-generation, rural, and low-income communities. In an additional example, Zerquera and colleagues (2018) explore how administrators within prestige-seeking contexts consider their equity-serving missions, highlighting navigational and sensemaking strategies these leaders employ. The organizational lens of sensemaking, coupled with colorblind racism and co-option in leadership, helps situate the significance of the institutional missions of the diverse, minorityserving institutions they center in their research and how they are caught in tension amidst prestige-seeking pressures. Exploring regional comprehensive universities,

298

D. D. Zerquera

institutions largely assumed to be susceptible to prestige seeking, Orphan and Miller (2020) find how administrators leveraged membership in organizations as a mechanism for prestige seeking, while some used membership to find ways of strengthening mission-centeredness. Martinez and Heckle (n.d.) make an important contribution capturing the experiences of presidents. Their lens of policy entrepreneurship is important in enabling the narratives to be examined for self-interests of these leaders and how they leveraged their capital within the institution to engage stakeholders to sustain prestige-seeking efforts. Not focusing as much on the economic pressures at play here, but more so the organizational, cultural impacts and drivers, this body of work sets important foundations for investigating the implications of prestige seeking at a broader scale. The deep engagement in how prestige seeking is understood and experienced by actors within the institution charged with carrying out the activities that make attainment of prestige possible has offered an important viewpoint into the resistance, compliance, and navigation strategies these individuals employ within this context. It also elevates and contributes important understanding of institutional contexts that have been centered in prestige seeking research but minimized within much of the rest of higher education scholarship – namely, regional, comprehensive, urban, and non-elite liberal arts colleges. These contexts are important in scholarship on equity of access in higher education, particularly as higher education becomes more stratified and more demographically diverse. The tensions on mission and types of scholarship produced amidst prestige seeking are important contributions to the broader discussion on equity and the public good role of the university.

Expanding the Mosaic In centering the experiences of individuals within the institution, this body of work has largely adopted an embedded assumption that the actors are subject to pressures resulting from prestige aspirations. This is an important starting point, yet may fall short of capturing the duality of prestige being something that actors are not just subject to, but also play a role in shaping and encouraging. This duality has been explored to some degree in the aforementioned scholarship; however, the paradoxical nature of this duality may serve as an opportunity for understanding the complexity involved in prestige seeking, as experienced in practice as a tension in leadership, and have takeaways for institutional strategy and navigation. Additionally, the voices of undergraduate students still remain absent within this work. O’Meara’s (2007) call for understanding students’ learning and experiences amidst striving still stands, as does a need to better understand experiences of other actors in these contexts, such as student affairs professionals who navigate the co-curricular complexities of prestige seeking. Research questions taken up in this area might include: How might shifting institutional goals for prestige shape expectations for student services and student program offerings? How do student affairs professionals navigate student expectations within a prestige-seeking institutional identity? How do admissions and outreach staff shape the incoming class of their prestige-seeking institutions while seeking to balance commitments to equity while serving students that might most enhance institutional prestige?

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

299

Further, with the exception of Martinez’s (2019) work on faculty within baccalaureate-granting community colleges, this and other prestige-seeking work has excluded community colleges and the experiences of actors within. Perhaps there is a dominant false sense that community colleges do not pursue prestige, or, to be fair, that the ways prestige is pursued within this sector looks different. Brewer et al. (2001) argue that community colleges are reputation driven instead; however, the broad pursuit of national awards like the Aspen Prize, the expansion of baccalaureate programs, and ranking systems for community colleges (e.g., Academic Influence rated top 50 community colleges in the USA for the first time in 2021) points to ways that prestige may influence this sector, and the experience of stakeholders amidst that pursuit needs to be better understood. Lastly, this work has centered on institutions identified as being prestige seeking, drawing from contexts researchers were familiar with or identified through personal experience. Scholarship can learn from these approaches to identifying these institutions based on experiences and elevate this approach to capturing prestige seeking at a macro level. What can we learn from experiences of individuals within preprestige-seeking phases or those who are wrapping up a phase of active prestige seeking? What are the experiences within those contexts, and how can they help us better understand equity enactment in colleges and universities? Answering these questions can help expand our understanding of the complications of prestige seeking and how it shapes life within the higher education context.

Problematizing Prestige Seeking: Centering Implications Another area of the research on prestige seeking provides a direct response to O’Meara’s (2007) calls for understanding the implications of prestige seeking on institutional outcomes and does so at scale across swaths of higher education institutions. This work largely uses observable behaviors and corresponding outcomes to define prestige seeking and capture the implications of these pursuits, examining these relationships quantitatively. Given an emphasis on resources within this work, institutional theory and, in particular, resource dependence is dominant here. This approach is often coupled with other lenses for understanding the management of higher education organizations. Research within this category of literature typically falls in two areas. The first is a focus on the cost of prestige pursuits, underscoring the tensions in the financial resources required to enhance institutional prestige (e.g., Bastedo & Bowman, 2011; Kim, 2018; McClure & Titus, 2018; Morphew & Baker, 2004). This work has identified institutions after prestige has presumably been pursued, captured by changes in institutional rankings and categorizations, a measure set by Morphew and Baker (2004) and later followed by others. For instance, Kim (2018) explores how changes in university rankings according to the U.S. News and World Report are associated with various areas of institutional spending, finding shifted resource allocation within instructional expenses but differing patterns across institution types. Similarly, McClure and Titus (2018) explored whether changes in rankings

300

D. D. Zerquera

influenced administrative spending, finding increased spending earlier on, with diminished effects over time. They capture prestige seeking as change in Carnegie classification towards research university status. Both of these studies emphasize mimetic isomorphism in institutional theory as a guiding lens to underscore the importance of looking to other, more prestigious, institutions for guidelines on behavior. This is reflective of the academic snake simile, yet is applied to examining relationships with these efforts and spending. The second focus within this area of research has explored implications of prestige seeking on access (e.g., Crisp et al., 2010; Warshaw et al., 2020, 2021, 2022; Zerquera, 2019). This area of the prestige-seeking literature has almost exclusively approached equity through an exploration of access defined through comparison of single racial/ethnic categories. For instance, Zerquera (2019) examines how varying levels of engagement in prestige seeking are associated with changes in access for Black and Latinx students at urban universities, defining access through representative measures of the student body with the surrounding region. She finds that some engagements in prestige seeking have stronger relationships with diminished access than others. Warshaw et al. (2021) explore this question within the context of public master’s institutions, categorizing those institutions with varying demonstrations of prestige-seeking behaviors, and the relationship of those engagements with racial diversity as compared to their peers. This centering of equity questions makes this strand of the research literature distinct amidst the rest of the prestige-seeking work, as it is explicit in its critique of prestige seeking as it impacts student outcomes in particular.

How Problematization Expands Our Understanding Using problematization of prestige seeking as an entry point into its analysis provides this area of the research a starting point that is not neutral. It foregrounds the tensions and complexity of prestige seeking and advances the notion that there is an inherent challenge here, whether that be a difficulty in whether valued institutional missions are upheld, or how institutional priorities are established through spending. This body of research provides a vital answer to the questions posed over time regarding the prickly nature of prestige seeking. Additionally, this body of work provides a set of objective measurable ways of capturing how and when prestige seeking occurs, either via the measure of outcomes of prestige seeking (e.g., changes in the U.S. News and World Report ranking, Carnegie classification) or through behaviors that reflect prestige desires. While a focus on outcome is a helpful indicator, emphasis on prestige-seeking behaviors contributes to understanding institutional outcomes associated with those engagements that may have been done in vain, without desired prestige benefits being achieved. This area of research also pushes the application of institutional theory. The current context of higher education limits financial resources to the extent that many institutions engage in deep questions of survival. Prestige seeking, with its necessary expenditures and resource reallocation, is somewhat antithetical within this context. Positioning behaviors as being reflective of dependence on resources helps reframe what behaviors are observed and holds institutions accountable.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

301

Further, the emphasis on mimetic isomorphism also underscores some of the lesstangible aspects of prestige to help capture the messiness of this research, setting important foundations for future work. This area of the research has two other important characteristics. First, it offers a broad view across sectors of higher education, while also bringing attention to distinct and specific institution types. It expands the monolith perspective of prestige seeking and helps to illuminate how prestige is pursued differently. Simultaneously, this work underscores the weight of the cost of prestige-seeking implications that are carried differently within different institution types. In so doing, this scholarship confirms O’Meara’s (2007) speculations about the expected implications of prestige seeking and pushes our collective understanding of how institutions may be resisting these pressures.

Deepening Problematization In offering a breadth of understanding prestige seeking, this work also provides opportunities for deepening. The noted trends in prestige seeking across sectors can be coupled with the experiences of prestige seeking captured within the literature discussed in this section. How do administrators make sense of the decisions made around prestige seeking? How do they explain these implications on spending, access, and resource allocation? Better understanding the frameworks used to make decisions that push beyond a resource-dependent rationale is needed to hold these actors accountable and help imagine different approaches to responding to these pressures. Resource dependency theory is helpful within our current context in higher education; however, its employment can limit our ability to capture other motivations driving prestige seeking and connections to other implications. Further, it may unintentionally minimize the agency of institutional actors captured within higher education research. Resource dependency theory has been critiqued as being too prescriptive and not sufficiently acknowledging the autonomy of collective actors (DiMaggio, 1988; Oliver, 1991; Scott, 1992). Kraatz and Zajac (1996) note the limitations of institutional theories in their analysis of private liberal arts colleges during a 15-year time period of increasing change. They suggest that adaption-based explanations might be better suited to explain the changes they observed, which went against what might be predicted by institutional theory. Similarly, Oliver (1988, 1991) argues that institutional theory does not need to assume organizations are passive and conforming entities, and that they may indeed accommodate active interest-seeking behavior, depending on the context of institutional pressures. She critiques institutional theorists for overemphasizing the effects of the institutional environment on isomorphism, emphasizing the potential of organizations for “resistance, awareness, proactiveness, influence, and self-interest” (Oliver, 1991, p. 151), and suggesting that some aspects of organizations may be more susceptible to institutional forces than others (1988). She proposes strategic response theory (SRT), which consists of a typology of strategic responses to institutional pressures and corresponding conditions. These responses fall into categories of compliance or resistance, for which the chosen strategy depends on “the degree to which the organization agrees with and values the intentions or objectives that institutional constituents are attempting

302

D. D. Zerquera

to achieve in pressuring the organization to be more socially or economically accountable” (Oliver, 1991, p. 153). SRT is one example of potential expansion of the application of the institutional lens. Engaging different frameworks for scholarship is important here and will be expanded upon later in this chapter. The emphasis on two sets of systems in particular, the U.S. News and World Report and the Carnegie Classification, is notable. These systems arguably offer a primary lens through which many colleges and universities understand prestige outcomes as they emphasize these metrics. This emphasis in the research raises questions, however, as to what prestige-seeking efforts may be missed and what institutions are left out by the use of these measures. Use of these indicators captures a very limited view of prestige seeking, as it only captures those institutions that pursued prestige and were successful as determined by changes within these systems. This approach may limit our capturing to the institutions that have the resources necessary to result in the changes in these system outcomes. Further, it may exclude institutions that pursued prestige, albeit perhaps unsuccessfully as determined by these system outcomes. Additionally, changes along these systems are related to a number of factors that may only be tangentially related to prestige seeking. Shifts in target communities, changes in political contexts, and other contextual forces discussed earlier in this chapter may impact rankings and Carnegie measures. Thus, categorizing any institution that has changed within these measures as a prestige-seeking institution may be limited and conflate the research being enacted. The more complicated measures of prestige seeking (e.g., capturing prestige-seeking behaviors) used by some studies address this limitation; analytical methods must be appropriately situated to capture the nuances here to capture change. A study that might engage with these questions could begin by identifying institutions that espoused prestige-seeking goals in the past decade, either through personal experience or through an effort at a replication study. One could revisit research studies conducted by Gonzales (2012, 2013) at South Western University/Border University or the work of O’Meara and Bloomgarden (2011) at Whayne College. These are institutions that were studied amidst self-identified periods of prestige seeking. What have been the results of these efforts? How has faculty life shifted, particularly for minoritized faculty members? How have we seen changes in access, diverse representation among the institutional community, spending on institutional activities that serve students, or types of research produced? Revisiting these institutional contexts a decade later, with an explicit focus on racial equity and other equity considerations, could provide important insights into the implications of prestige seeking even among institutions whose pursuits did not yield outcomes in prestige measures. Methodologically, this area of prestige research has creatively employed quantitative analyses to explore large data sets and capture relationships between outcomes and activities across the higher education system. The use of varying inferential, longitudinal, and quasi-experimental designs has helped capture these relationships with creativity and complexity. Using QuantCrit or critical quantitative approaches may help deepen the equity focus in the examination of connections between prestige seeking and equity. Applying a QuantCrit lens in this work would center

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

303

institutional responsibility for disparate student outcomes resulting from prestigeseeking efforts. Additionally, this research has looked at race along basic categorizations. A QuantCrit lens might encourage deeper examinations to explore intersectional categories of marginalized student experiences, more reflection on which aspect of the student population is captured (e.g., incoming students vs. all students vs. student population as compared to surrounding region demographics). As scholars who have worked or were trained in research-centered institutions and thus have earned certain layers of privilege, our positionality towards this work is significant. How we relate to prestige shapes how we approach these questions, yet much of this research fails to include reflections on these questions. Existing work scratches the surface on the impacts of prestige seeking on experience at a broad scale. Survey data from striving institutions may help offer a biggerpicture perspective of experiences of stakeholders within the institution amidst prestige-seeking efforts. Tools such as those executed by the National Survey of Student Engagement that center on students and faculty, or its community collegecentered counterpart, would capture a broad range of institutions who implement these survey tools over time. They gather information about student and faculty engagement that could offer important insights into how prestige seeking over time is related to changes in perceptions of student learning, development, and engagement.

The Interplay of Prestige and Other Factors Much of the research in the Interplay of Prestige and Other Factors captures how prestige interacts within other aspects of college and university activity. This research was largely encountered outside of the specific literature search but captured through snowballing and exploring additional threads within articles captured elsewhere. Prestige seeking was often not the central focal point of the research but a key element of the findings, embedded in the study’s research questions or addressed as part of the motivating driver for the work. The general theme in this last area of work centers the complexity of prestige seeking as it is situated within the higher education environment, exploring prestige seeking in conjunction with other higher education issues. It has its tracings within the areas of prestige-seeking research discussed earlier in this chapter; however, the notions advanced take their own shape as they interact with other pressures and contexts in the higher education environment, such as funding pressures or public accountability demands. Within this research, the institution types centered serve marginalized populations, either through explicit mission or as a result of stratifying forces. This body of work employs diverse theoretical frameworks, primarily drawing on critical lenses to highlight dimensions of racial inequity, neoliberalism’s influence, and the organizational environment that surrounds and interacts with colleges and universities. This area of the research literature is the most emerging and takes important considerations of prestige as it interacts with the enactment of equity within higher education.

304

D. D. Zerquera

Contributions of Prestige’s Interactions Given its de-emphasis on prestige seeking, this body of work has offered insight into different institutional contexts. The research is not just situated within distinct institutional contexts but draws from the distinct features of that institution type to drive the work. For instance, Aguilar-Smith’s (2021) research examines the ways prestige and legitimacy seeking interact with the institutional pursuit of HispanicServing Institution (HSI) Title V funding and how this is a backdrop for failing to serve Latinx students on these largely Latinx-enrolling campuses. Perdomo (2019) also explored prestige seeking as it interacts with institutional pursuit of HSI grant funding. Particularly in our current moment of demographic shifts in the USA and the rising numbers of institutions that meet enrollment minimum thresholds to be eligible for government funding, the ways prestige seeking and pursuit of this funding interact is important for understanding college and university behavior. This is a prime example of a key contribution in this area of work. In centering the complexities of navigating the HSI environment, pressures for funding, and demographic shifts, prestige and legitimacy seeking emerge as interacting with these multitude of forces, perhaps reflective of the reality of how institutions experience prestige seeking generally. Work in this area has also pushed thinking on what prestige seeking looks like, motivations driving these efforts, and encouraged more equity-centered understanding. Orphan’s (2018, 2020) work on regional universities has advocated for reconsideration of the prestige-seeking narrative within these contexts which have been positioned as being highly susceptible to pressures for prestige. Drawing from extensive analysis of institutional documents and interviews with stakeholders from across the institution, she highlights the deep commitment to the regionalserving mission and the navigational strategies these institutions have employed in an effort to uphold their missions of serving their communities through access, research, and programs. The focus on mission-centeredness in her work helps decenter the elitist prestige narrative that reflects the paradigm of prestige being defined in constricting ways and upholds the commitment of these institutions. In this way, she highlights how these institutions work to promote their own definition of excellence and prestige and enact it through accountability to their regions and missions. This act of resistance is an important contribution to prestige research and our shared understanding of higher education overall. She is also able to capture the pressure from neoliberal pressures on public-serving missions in nuanced ways that contribute to complicating what behaviors may typically be understood as prestige seeking but may in fact be survival strategies in response to forces from the broader environment instead. In another set of examples, my collaborative work with Zerquera & Ziskin (2020) and Zerquera & Torres (2018) on the interaction between prestige seeking and performance-based funding highlights the ways these varying pressures detract and encourage one another within institutions that have urban-serving, equity-driven missions. The performance-based policy environment is centralized intentionally so as to capture the interactions of shifting funding changes with institutional navigation, commitment to equity-serving missions, and balance with internally driven aspirations for funding and prestige. The use of critical frameworks with organizational ones helps

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

305

draw out the dimensions of power and interactions between the environment and organizational behaviors that are both reactive and proactive. Specifically, in the piece with Zerquera & Ziskin (2020), we employ neoliberalism as a framework in combination with organizational sensemaking to draw out how performance-based funding is shaping shared understanding of prestige in this context and how it is pursued by institutions. In the manuscript with Zerquera & Torres (2018), we create a framework that integrates interest convergence/divergence from CRT with institutional logics to make sense of how one institution aligned prestige-seeking ambitions with performance-based funding pressures at the expense of its equity-serving mission.

What Is Beyond? While this area of research has honed in on varying institution types, particularly those most charged with carrying out equity for higher education, some institutions remain noticeably absent. Though discussed a bit earlier, it is also worth mentioning here that community colleges, for instance, are often left out of prestige-seeking research. Yet, they do engage in prestige games, though it may look different given their openadmissions policies, limited engagements in research, and their outcomes in ranking systems looking very different than that of their 4-year institution counterparts. It may be worth examining ways community colleges pursue national recognitions mentioned earlier, such as the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, which awards community colleges for success in teaching and learning, certificate and degree completion, transfer and bachelor’s attainment, workforce success, and equity for students of color and students from low-income backgrounds. This would require recasting prestige seeking within this vital sector differently and, in turn, offer important lessons for how we consider prestige seeking across other sectors of higher education. Critical frameworks have shown promise in this area, particularly as they integrate with organizational ideas to advance a critical organizational lens. This responds to what Gonzales et al. (2018) call for in the study of higher education to better understand organizational behaviors and structures and situate organizational theory as a tool for examining inequity in higher education. They reimagine organizational theory through situating traditional notions within collective leadership, intersectionality, anti- and decoloniality, and Marxian perspectives of conflict and power. Further, the framework offered by Ray (2019) for racialized organizations and the recent application of decolonialism to HSIs (e.g., Garcia, 2018) are examples of this extension of ideas and would enhance the study of prestige seeking. Methodologically, the qualitative exploration of prestige questions amidst these complications has enabled the deep understanding within institutions. Extending these learnings across sectors of higher education is a next step, leveraging learning from past research about data measures and employing them through critical quantitative and QuantCrit approaches. Potential questions worth exploring: how does implementation of performance-based funding shift measures of prestige seeking across different sectors of higher education and impact measures of equity? How might this shift vary across varying political state contexts? And how might different institution types respond differently? This area of prestige research – Interplay of Prestige and Other Factors – is the most emerging and that which may best meet the demands of the current context of

306

D. D. Zerquera

higher education. Research should continue to explore and deepen a range of perspectives, methods, and institutional contexts to push this area of work forward. Doing so not only expands the capability of prestige-seeking scholarship to better address equity challenges but also supports making the work on prestige better situated in the experiences of institutions. Many colleges and universities intentionally engage in prestige seeking in ways we have captured, while for others, it is one of a host of different aspirations or forces they are engaging in, if intentionally at all. Centering this reality is an important paradigm shift particularly as we extend prestige seeking into other sectors beyond the traditional areas of research.

Prestige as Examined in Higher Education: Summarizing and Looking Ahead From my examination of the past decade of research on prestige seeking, I identified four broad categories of scholarship that engage in different sets of questions, frameworks, methods, and contexts. The derived categories – The Academic Snake Monolith, The Prestige Mosaic, Problematizing Prestige Seeking, and The Interplay of Prestige and Other Factors – each have contributed significantly to our understanding of prestige seeking as a scholarly concept and ideology, as well as how it is experienced and navigated within institutions. O’Meara offers the following caveat in her discussion of prestige-seeking implications: the effects of specific organizational behaviors aimed at striving are difficult, if not impossible to isolate. A specific striving behavior (such as recruiting students with higher entrance qualifications), will interact with a whole variety of other factors (striving related or not) to produce an outcome. This outcome, while influenced by the striving behavior, will also be related to other forces/factors at play in the institution. (O’Meara, 2007, p. 158)

Despite her tracings of prestige-seeking behavior to different organizational pressures, she identifies the complexity involved in trying to capture the implications of prestige seeking. O’Meara’s caveat provides an opportunity for research to expand. The goal is not isolation within the research, but expansion within the complexity of effects and causes, to capture these interactions and situate them, using them as a temporary landing point from which other research can continue. There is still space within each of these categories on prestige seeking where research can build and contribute. The following section of the chapter picks up on the threads presented throughout this analysis of the research literature and poses an agenda for future research on prestige seeking.

The Future of Prestige-Seeking Research This chapter has presented two sets of ways of thinking about prestige-seeking research. In the first, a way of categorizing prestige-seeking activities – as tangible and intangible – provides a framework for research to categorize which aspect(s) of

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

307

prestige seeking are and can be captured within a given study, with implications as to methods and theoretical approaches that align with a given aspect being considered. The second portion categorized the literature on prestige seeking into four topical areas, noting contributions and pointing to areas for expansion within each of these domains. Questions of how we engage with equity and the complexity of the higher education context are foregrounded and shape both sets of discussions. In the following section, I complement some of these threads and connect them as I outline how prestige-seeking research can move forward into the future in our current context. This chapter’s analysis of research on prestige seeking has highlighted the roles of environmental pressures in encouraging prestige seeking and the intrinsic motivations for prestige held and pursued by institutional actors. Holding these multiple truths is important, particularly as we situate the responsibility of colleges and universities for equitable outcomes of students and other stakeholders. Through the conclusions taken from the body of research examined in this chapter, I argue that a more complex positioning is needed to reframe prestige seeking as not a question of prestige seeking as either driven internally or externally, but rather being a result of both.

Furthering Institutional Lenses Theoretical lenses must be able to account for this multifacetedness. For instance, while the dominant institutional lenses that have been applied to prestige seeking may not fully allow for capturing this interaction of pressures, strategic response theory (Oliver, 1991) – encouraged by Morphew (2002) – to some extent does, though it situates organizational agency still as a reactive force instead of a proactive one. Institutional logics may provide a promising lens for prestige-seeking research. Drawing from the general tradition of institutional theory, it supports the analysis of interrelationships among institutions, individuals, and organizations; examines how organizational actors are influenced by situating within an interinstitutional system; and provides frames of reference that shape individuals’ choices for sensemaking, language, and sense of self and organizational identity (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012). As an organizational frame, institutional logics situate organizational actions as being reflective of broader rules and assumptions (Greenwood et al., 2008). Employing this lens may allow for a de-emphasis on direct reactions to environmental pressures, and more attention to the ways those pressures shape the sensemaking within colleges and universities. Many of the prestige-seeking studies might benefit from a reframing through an institutional logics focus. A study employing institutional logics as a framework may start with a question as to how logics within the higher education environment, such as xxx, shape institutional conceptualizations of prestige and encourage prestige seeking. Analysis might focus on public statements, planning documents, and interviews with individuals to analyze what broader system logics inform these understandings and how they might interact with internal commitments to the public

308

D. D. Zerquera

good, serving equity goals, and advancing equity missions. The findings from such a study could help in better understanding how understandings of prestige are co-constructed through the processing of logics from the higher education environment within the institutional context, providing space for devising strategies for navigation and resistance.

Expanding Theoretical Lenses and Traditions The lenses chosen in existing research offer different emphases and explanations for prestige seeking. The expansive use of institutional theory has its tracings to the archetypical snake procession, and as a result, research has largely focused on the isomorphic pressures that encourage prestige seeking. The neoliberal context of diminished resources for higher education has contributed to a reliance on resource dependence, which situates prestige seeking as a pursuit of financial resources and survival. What is emphasized in a selected guiding framework is what we will see and creates ways of not seeing other influences/implications. The sociological tradition that undergirds institutional theory has spoken to some of the processes that shape reality. The focus here has been on how those meanings translate into written and unwritten rules that structure how organizations interact and operate. For instance, the ideas surrounding how beliefs and values structure concepts such as legitimacy and prestige offered by Suchman (1995) and Meyer and colleagues (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Meyer & Scott, 1983) have provided an important foundation for many prestige researchers in education. A foray into the metaphysical may help get at some of the deeper human and existential processes that are at play in shaping prestige and be helpful as part of an effort to engage in its role in creating and perpetuating inequity. Philosophical tradition holds promise for prestige-seeking research. Philosophical inquiry is first and foremost an “endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimizing what is already known” (Foucault, 1985, p. 9). Organizational philosophy advances an approach to research that examines and critiques modes of thinking, researching, and justifying approaches used in the study of organizations (Tsoukas, 2019). Bringing this lens to higher education organizations more generally, and the area of prestige research in particular, can help in centering the lived experiences of actors and stakeholders within higher education and help us rethink organizational concepts that have taken a stronghold in thinking of prestige. Tsoukas (2005) advances three ways to incorporate philosophical reflection into organizational research: ontological (defining the nature of what we know), epistemological (examining how knowledge claims are known), and praxeological (analyzing how theory is related to praxis). In many ways, we could argue that this chapter and O’Meara’s (2007) are ontological and epistemological examinations of the nature of prestige seeking, seeking to understand what it is and reframe it in important ways. A study taking an organizational philosophical approach through a praxeological focus may center on the decisionmaking processes of institutional leaders in navigating prestige seeking, focusing on

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

309

the ideas of organizations that they utilize to navigate environmental pressures. This approach could help capture how prestige-seeking decisions are being made and what ideas about organizations and the environment are used and how, to inform how we better prepare future leaders and engage with existing leaders in supporting them to make more equitably sound decisions. Another area of philosophy that may be worth extending into research on prestige seeking is that of social categories (Ásta, 2018; Mason, 2021). Ásta’s work on the conferral of social categories and the status of those categories within society may support different ways of thinking about prestige categories assigned to different colleges and universities. Perceptions of such categories as top-tier, flagship, elite, Ivy-League are shaped by not just metrics and ranking systems, but existential categories of meaning. We need to think differently and entirely. Research has shown that conceptualizations of prestige, which background prestige seeking, are far more diverse in the organizational minds of higher education institutions. To be fair, large portions of higher education think of and pursue prestige in traditional ways. However, applying this framing to all institutions unilaterally may disserve and miscategorize institutional behavior. This layer of understanding can help us in imagining alternative approaches to categorizing higher education, encourages better recognition of the value and contributions of different sectors of higher education institutions, and support pushing for change in how prestige is defined and pursued.

Multi-Paradigmatic Inquiry Along these lines, Kezar and Dee’s (2011) call for multi-paradigmatic inquiry in the study of higher education organizations to address the complexities of studying them within today’s context resonates. Kezar and Dee argue for the use of multiple paradigms in the same study to inform choices in theoretical lenses, methods, and analysis. Drawing from examples used in prior research, they note the value of multiparadigmatic studies to illuminate contested views, power dynamics, relationships between perceptions and strategies, and complex understandings of organizations. As researchers are typically not trained to draw upon multiple diverse theoretical perspectives in one study, they warn of the difficulty of doing this work and state that the research question must lend itself to using multiple paradigms. Applying their ideas, we can see how a comprehensive study through positivistic, constructivist, and critical paradigms would strengthen the understanding of the complexity of prestige seeking. It would enable a more multidirectional perspective of influence and impact of policy and external pressures with intrinsically driven desires for prestige. Both rational and critical lenses could capture the influence of environmental pressures and the interest-convergent strategies employed to navigate them. A study might use the same data set, analyzed through these different lenses, then create a shared analysis that takes what is learned from these different approaches and push forward recommendations based on these learnings. This approach can help expand and complicate how we situate prestige at the intersection of compounding higher education forces and center equity questions and implications.

310

D. D. Zerquera

Methodological Expansions to Accommodate These Approaches Much of the research on prestige seeking has captured either tangible or intangible aspects separately. Taking these simultaneously is crucial for fully understanding the interactions of prestige-seeking pressures and motivations, and the implications on how equity is engaged. Case study and mixed methods approaches that leverage data such as institutional trend data examining changes in prestige-seeking measures over time, strategic planning documents, public statements, and experiences of stakeholders from within the institution can offer a more comprehensive understanding of prestige seeking and how it impacts the organization as a whole. Methodologically research must expand in ways that allow for various lenses and paradigms to interact. As presented earlier in this chapter, creativity and complexity in qualitative analyses have enabled capturing of whole institutions and systems. This work shows promise for what can be examined and captured in a single study. In quantitative analyses, the use of longitudinal causal inference approaches has been illuminating. Expanding the literature in this area through quasi-experimental methods, in ways that engage QuantCrit, will help to more strongly examine how prestige seeking operates at a complex level.

Measuring Prestige Outcomes Systems used to measure prestige outcomes should also be expanded. Much of the quantitative work in prestige seeking has used changes in basic Carnegie classification or the U.S. News and World Report rankings. The Carnegie classification was never intended to be used as a metric for prestige but imposing the academic snake simile helps enact it in this way. Although changes in research intensity may be a driving goal for many institutions, doing so requires an exorbitant amount of effort and resources that do not always result in these outcomes, masking the prestige seeking occurring at the ground level and restricting us to only capture it through the outcomes observed in this metric. For many institutions, seeking a higher research intensity is not a driving factor, yet they may still be seeking prestige in different, yet explicit, ways. The same can be said for changes in the U.S. News and World Report rankings which impose a “rival good” understanding of prestige whereby “one institution’s increase in prestige comes at the expense of others’ opportunity to build or maintain their prestige” because “prestige is based on relative, rather than absolute, measurement. . .[and] accumulating prestige is a zero-sum game” (Brewer et al., 2001, p. 30). This focus on outcomes limits how we can capture institutional behaviors that are motivated by the pursuit of prestige. Prestige-seeking research that takes a quantitative approach should center measures of the action of pursuing of prestige, not just a single indicator of whether or not prestige has been successfully sought. The tangible levers explained earlier in the chapter, such as research and athletics, provide helpful signals of the pursuit of prestige, yet also need to be situated in the context of the institution and the varying pressures institutions navigate so as to not capture false signals of prestige seeking.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

311

A QuantCrit approach may help in contextualizing the data captured in these studies to account for institutional motivations and the both/and argued for earlier in this chapter.

Capturing the Role of Equity in Prestige Systems The (fed) UpRisings of 2020 occurred after a decade of intense activism around the Black Lives Matter movement within our cities, communities, and on our college campuses. These movements resulted in a large response by higher education institutions, many who had already been called to task within the past decade by their own communities to respond to inequities students experienced on their campuses. Responses were layered, and as discussed earlier, performative diversity efforts have been criticized. Prestige systems in the form of rankings often work counter to equity, not just by including measures that ignore equity but by including measures that encourage behaviors known to have negative impacts on equity (Perna et al., 2021). However, other systems for pursuing prestige exist. While efforts to address equity/inequity may fall more so within what Brewer et al. (2001) categorize as the reputation of the institution – quick to build, quick to lose – the extent to which this may be informing how institutional pursuits, and perhaps even, helping to redefine what prestige is, how its pursued, is a question to be addressed. Are measures of equity just part of milieu of environmental forces or part of prestige measures themselves? Are there contexts where this is mattering at deeper levels, changing our prestige systems themselves? These broader questions around equity measures and perceptions of institutional engagements in equity with those of prestige and prestige seeking are an important area for further research. Some have sought to advance measures of prestige that can be pursued with equity outcomes included. Many performance-based funding formulas have been adapted to include equity outcome metrics in hope of rewarding institutions for serving students typically disserved by higher education. Research has found limited impact here (Gándara & Rutherford, 2017; Hillman, 2016; Hillman & Corral, 2017; Jones et al., 2017) perhaps because of an emphasis on outcomes over process. Other performance systems emphasize equity in the process. The Seal of Excelencia, for instance, offered by Excelencia in Education, includes emphasis on practices and leadership efforts in addition to outcomes for bestowing a mark of excellence on institutions that serve Latinx students.

Framework for Centering Equity in Prestige-Seeking Research Taking these notions into account helps inform a simplistic framework to guide how prestige-seeking research can more strongly address inequity in higher education. Centering equity in prestige-seeking research begs deep questions of who is being prioritized in the work, what aspects of experience are being captured, within where of their institutional contexts and geographical regions, during when of their

312

D. D. Zerquera

experience or the history of the institution, for why purpose is the work being conducted, and how the research is being engaged. Questions to help guide engagement in equity in the study of prestige seeking are summarized in Table 3. This framework provides direction for future research on prestige seeking, informing future questions to be answered. It is intended to be a reflective tool, Table 3 Framework for engaging equity in study of prestige seeking: reflective questions to inform research

Who

What

Where

When

Why

How

Questions to ask of your work as a researcher Who is being prioritized in the work? Which community’s interests are being served by this research? Who is negatively impacted by the negative impacts of prestige seeking? Who serves to benefit from these efforts? What aspects of experience are being captured in the research? Which experience amidst prestige seeking do we know least about? What aspects of the experiences of marginalized communities are potentially the most negatively impacted by prestige seeking? Is this an institutional sector that we know a lot about in terms of how prestige seeking interacts in this space? How well positioned is this institution within the prestige-arms race? In what ways might the state or regional context interact with prestige seeking for this study? Where is this institution at in terms of its prestige-seeking process? What other significant moments regarding equity and institutional identity matter to this institution, and how is this study positioned in relation to those moments? Why does my research matter for equity research? How will I communicate this research to make it useful for addressing inequity in higher education?

Is my work engaging socially just research practices? Where do these data come from and what are the inequities that structure these data?

Example of research study questions How do prestige-seeking efforts from universities shape stakeholder perceptions of accessibility for those stakeholders who come from minoritized communities? How are approaches to serving students of color during their first year in college shifting amidst an institution’s prestigeseeking aspirations?

How do understandings of and approaches to prestige seeking vary across institutional sectors?

Using a quasi-experimental design, how have college approaches to access shifted following a period of prestige seeking and what have been the impacts of those shifts on access for low-income students of color? In this participatory action research study, student affairs professionals within prestige-seeking institutions explore challenges in supporting students of color and develop a professional development series for other professionals in similar contexts. How might we operationalize prestigeseeking to capture indicators of prestigeseeking activities over prestige outcomes obtained?

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

313

offering questions for researchers to ask as they work to strengthen a study’s ability to engage in equity questions. No one point within the framework is necessarily more important than the other. Further, this is not intended to serve as an end all, be all for equity research on prestige seeking, nor a recipe for how to make your study be one that engages equity. But, as a reflective tool, it helps trigger critical reflexive practices that are integral in socially just research practices. For instance, starting with who is being prioritized in the work helps consider which populations have been given the most attention and whose experiences are not as well understood. Though there are dimensions of oppression and inequity in the professoriate, much prestige-seeking research has centered on the largely privileged group of tenured or tenure-track faculty and how they experience prestige-seeking contexts. Student experiences, particularly students of color and those from other marginalized communities, must be centered more strongly. Future research might consider how prestige-seeking efforts from universities shape stakeholder perceptions of accessibility for those stakeholders who come from minoritized communities. Considering the where of the institutional context and geographical region brings attention to the spaces that have been prioritized and thus shape our understanding of prestige seeking, as well as contexts we know less about. Gonzales’ (2012, 2013, 2014) work, heavily cited throughout this chapter, was situated within Texas during a time of the state’s prestige incentive policies, creating a particular narrative around prestige seeking for the regional institutions targeted by this policy. This has been countered by work of scholars like Orphan and McClure who focus on regional universities nationally, highlighting the very different contexts they operate in and how prestige interacts very distinctly within this sector. Questions of where might also drive us to consider institution types often left out of prestige research, like community colleges and minority-serving institutions as discussed earlier in this chapter. The recommendations presented in this section seek to expand on the ideas presented earlier in this chapter and help look towards the future of prestige-seeking research. The hope is that our collective work can more deeply integrate a focus on equity in both process and outcomes captured. Further, the goal here is to capture prestige seeking as it interacts with the complexities of the higher education environment and situate it appropriately for different institution types in the communities they serve. There is much to contribute in terms of methodological promise and theoretical expansion. How we take this forward as a field will shape the relevance of findings for future generations of scholars, administrators, and policymakers, as well as how our collective scholarship moves forward as part of the broader field of organizational study.

Concluding Thoughts This chapter sought to better situate the study of prestige setting within its role in inequity in higher education. I engaged existing research in various ways to provide comprehensive definitions and understandings of prestige seeking, couching this engagement within critical frameworks. The explicit centering of equity in this

314

D. D. Zerquera

chapter in an integrative way hopefully also provided an onomatopoeic example of how prestige-seeking research must proceed: inextricably undertaking equity within our work. Throughout my career, I have struggled with a simple question: is prestige seeking bad? The writing of this chapter provided a journey to reach an answer, which I will offer here as my closing reflections. I started my work on prestige seeking because I believed, and still do, that generally, the pursuit of prestige negatively impacts communities that can most benefit from colleges and universities that embrace their mission to serve the public good. However, prestige on its own is not bad. It is the way we collectively define, frame, and pursue prestige that contributes to inequity. It is important that kids in my hometown of Hialeah, Florida, grow up with a university like Florida International University (FIU) down the street, which has shifted from a small, urban university to a national leader in student achievement, research, and graduate programs across various fields. Equally important is that FIU remains an institution that we can access as students, community members, and potential employees, and that serves our community through its important work. To do so, the way institutions like FIU think about what being better means and how they navigate their work to be better amidst continuous challenges – funding, policy context, accountability demands, demographic shifts, pandemic responses, natural disasters, and community challenges – must be better supported by research and praxis. Our research on prestige seeking must account for the complexity in the higher education environment while centering equity to reflect the lived challenges higher education leaders face daily. How we study prestige seeking can help us discover new possibilities for the institutions and communities we serve through our work. This chapter offered a number of theoretical, methodological, and topical suggestions for how to do so, inviting the next generation of scholars to push these ideas forward as the past decade and a half of research has done.

References Adams, M. (2007). Pedagogical frameworks for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (pp. 15–33). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Aguilar-Smith, S. (2021). Seeking to serve or $erve? Hispanic-serving institutions’ race-evasive pursuit of racialized funding. AERA Open, 7(1), 233285842110570. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 23328584211057097 Arellano, L. (2022). Questioning the science: How quantitative methodologies perpetuate inequity in higher education. Education Sciences, 12(2), 116. Ásta. (2018). Categories we live by: The construction of sex, gender, race, and other social categories. Oxford University Press. Baez, B. (2007). Thinking critically about the “critical”: Quantitative research as social critique. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2007(133), 17–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.201 Bastedo M. N., & Bowman N. A. (2011). College rankings as an interorganizational dependency: Establishing the foundation for strategic and institutional accounts. Research in Higher Education, 52, 3–23.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

315

Bastedo M. N., & Gumport P. J. (2003). Access to what? Mission differentiation and academic stratification in U.S. public higher education. Higher Education, 46, 341–359. Bell, L. A. (2007). Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice. Routledge. Bensimon, E. M. (2007). The underestimated significance of practitioner knowledge in the scholarship on student success. The Review of Higher Education, 30(4), 441–469. Bensimon, E. M. (2018). Reclaiming racial justice in equity. Change, 50(3–4), 95–98. Bensimon, E. M., & Malcom, L. (2012). Confronting equity issues on campus: Implementing the equity scorecard in theory and practice. Stylus. Bernal, D. D. (2002). Critical Race Theory, Latino Critical Theory, and Critical Raced-Gendered Epistemologies: Recognizing Students of Color as Holders and Creators of Knowledge. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 105–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780040200800107 Bernal, D. D., & Villalpando, O. (2002). An Apartheid of Knowledge in Academia: The Struggle Over the “Legitimate” Knowledge of Faculty of Color. Equity & Excellence in Education, 35(2), 169–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/713845282 Bernstein, A. R. (2014). Funding the future: Philanthropy’s influence on American higher education. Rowman & Littlefield Education. Birnbaum, R. (1983). Maintaining institutional diversity in higher education. Jossey-Bass. Bloom, D. E., Hartley, M., & Rosovsky, H. (2007). Beyond private gain: The public benefits of higher education. In J. J. F. Forest & P. G. Altbach (Eds.), International handbook of higher education. Part one: Global themes and contemporary challenges (Vol. 18, pp. 293–308). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4012-2_15 Bonilla-Silva, E., & Peoples, C. E. (2022). Historically white colleges and universities: The unbearable whiteness of (most) colleges and universities in America. American Behavioral Scientist, 66, 1–15. Bowen, H. R. (1980). The Costs of Higher Education: How Much Do Colleges and Universities Spend per Student and How Much Should They Spend? Jossey-Bass Inc. Bowen, W. G., & Breneman, D. W. (1993). Student Aid: Price Discount or Educational Investment? Trusteeship, 1(3), 11–15. Bransberger, P., Falkenstern, C., & Lane, P. (2020). Knocking at the college door: Projections of high school graduates. Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Breault, D. A., & Callejo Perez, D. M. (2012). The Red Light in the Ivory Tower: Contexts and Implications of Entrepreneurial Education. Counterpoints: Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education. Volume 401. In Peter Lang New York. Peter Lang New York. Brenna, J., & Naidoo, R. (2008). Higher education and the achievement (and/or prevention) of equity and social justice. Higher Education, 56, 287–302. Brewer, D. J., Gates, S. M., & Goldman, C. A. (2001). In pursuit of prestige: Strategy and competition in U.S. higher education. Transaction Publishers. Brown, S. (2022, February). The missing Hispanic students: Higher ed’s future, and the economy, depends on their coming back to college. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/the-missing-hispanic-students?cid2¼gen_login_refresh&cid¼gen_ sign_in Budd, J. M. (2009). Higher education’s purpose: Intellectual and social progress. University Press of America. Byrd, W. C., Luney, L. T., Marie, J., & Sanders, K. N. (2021). Demanding attention: An exploration of institutional characteristics of recent student demands. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 14(1), 25–36. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000133 Cabrera, N. L., Franklin, J. D., & Watson, J. S. (2017). Whiteness in higher education: The invisible missing link in diversity and racial analyses (Association for the Study of Higher Education monograph series). Jossey-Bass. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. (1973). Priorities for action: Final report of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. McGraw-Hill.

316

D. D. Zerquera

Chambers, J. (2005). The special role of higher education in society. In A. J. Kezar, A. C. Chambers, & J. Burkhardt (Eds.), Higher education for the public good: Emerging voices from a national movement. Jossey-Bass. Cherwitz, R. A. (2005). A new social compact demands real change: Connecting the university to the community. Change, 37, 48–49. Cho, K. S. (2018). The perception of progress: Conceptualizing institutional response to student protests and activism. Thought & Action, 34, 81–95. Cole, R. M., & Heinecke, W. F. (2020). Higher education after neoliberalism: Student activism as a guiding light. Policy Futures in Education, 18(1), 90–116. Collins, F. L., & Park, G.-S. (2016). Ranking and the multiplication of reputation: Reflections from the frontier of globalizing higher education. Higher Education, 72, 115–129.https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10734-015-9941-3 Crisp, G., Horn, C., Dizzino, G., & Wang, D. (2010). Modeling the racial and ethnic implications of admissions policy changes in the pursuit of tier one status. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 3(2), 71. Davies, S. W., Putnam, H. M., Ainsworth, T., Baum, J. K., Bove, C. B., Crosby, S. C., et al. (2021). Promoting inclusive metrics of success and impact to dismantle a discriminatory reward system in science. PLoS Biology, 19(6), e3001282. Denzin, N. K. (2017). Critical qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(1), 8–16. Denzin, N. K. (2019). The Death of Data in Neoliberal Times. Qualitative Inquiry, 25(8), 721–724. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419847501 Dill, D. D. (2003). Allowing the Market to Rule: The Case of the United States. Higher Education Quarterly, 57(2), 136–157. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2273.00239 Dill, D. D. (2006). Convergence and diversity: The role and influence of university rankings. Keynote address presented at the Consortium of Higher Education Researcher 19th annual research conference. Retrieved from http://www.unc.edu/ppaq/docs/Kassel_Paper_Final_US.pdf DiMaggio, P. (1988) Interest and Agent in Institutional Theory. Institutional Patterns and Organizations, Cambridge University Press, 3–22. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. University of Chicago Press. Doran, E. E. (2015). Negotiating access and tier one aspirations: The historical evolution of a striving Hispanic-Serving Institution. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 14(4), 343–354. Dougherty, K., & Reddy, V. (2013). Performance Funding for Higher Education: What Are the Mechanisms? What Are the Impacts? ASHE Higher Education Report, 39 (2). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Dougherty, K. J., & Natow, R. S. (2015). The politics of performance funding for higher education: Origins, discontinuations, and transformations. Johns Hopkins University Press. Dougherty K. J., Natow R. S., Vega B. E. (2012). Popular but unstable: Explaining why state performance funding systems in the United States often do not persist. Teachers College Record, 114(3), 1–41. Dougherty, K. J., Jones, S. M., Lahr, H., Natow, R. S., Pheatt, L., & Reddy, V. (2014). Performance Funding for Higher Education: Forms, Origins, Impacts, and Futures. https://journals.sagepub. com/doi/10.1177/0002716214541042 Dougherty, K. J., Jones, S. M., Lahr, H., Natow, R. S., Pheatt, L., & Reddy, V. (2016). Looking Inside the Black Box of Performance Funding for Higher Education: Policy Instruments, Organizational Obstacles, and Intended and Unintended Impacts. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2(1), 147–173. https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2016.2.1.07 Douglas-Gabriel, D., Natanson, H., & Harden, J. D. (2021, January). A steady stream of Latino students was arriving on college campuses. Then the pandemic hit. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/01/31/latino-college-enroll ment-pandemic/

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

317

Dowd, A. C., & Bensimon, E. M. (2015). Engaging the “race question”: Accountability and equity in U.S. higher education. Teachers College Press. Eagan, K., Stolzenberg, B., Bates, A., Aragon, M., Suchard, M., & Rios-Aguilar, C. (2015). The American freshman: National norms Fall 2015. Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA. Available at: http://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/TheAmericanFreshman2015.pdf Eckel, P. (2008). Mission diversity and the tension between prestige and effectiveness: An overview of U.S. higher education. Higher Education Policy, 21, 175–192. Ehrenberg, R. G. (2003). Reaching for the Brass Ring: The “U.S. News & World Report” Rankings and Competition. Review of Higher Education, 26(2), 145–162. Espeland, W. N., & Sauder, M. (2007). Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measures Recreate Social Worlds. American Journal of Sociology, 113(1), 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1086/517897 Espenshade, T. J. (2009). No longer separate, not yet equal: Race and class in elite college admission and campus life /. Princeton University Press. Ewell, P. T. (2015). Transforming institutional accreditation in U.S. higher education. National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. Retrieved from http://nchems.org/ documents/GatesAccreditationWhitePaper.pdf Excelencia in Education. (2022). Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): 2020–21. Excelencia in Education. Farrugia, C. A., & Lane, J. E. (2013). Legitimacy in cross-border higher education: Identifying stakeholders in international branch campuses. Journal of Studies in International Education, 17(4), 414–432. Faulkner, L. (2008). The social compact of higher education and its public. In R. N. Katz (Ed.), The tower and the cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing (pp. 90–98). Educause. Finkelstein, M. J. (1984). The American academic profession: A synthesis of social scientific inquiry since World War II. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Finnegan, D. E., & Gamson, Z. F. (1996). Disciplinary adaptation to research culture in comprehensive institutions. Review of Higher Education, 19(2), 141–177. Fisher, B. (2009). Athletics success and institutional rankings. New Directions for Higher Education, 148, 45–53. Foucault, M. (1985). The use of pleasure: History of sexuality (Vol. 2). Vintage Books. Gandara, D., Rippner, J., & Ness, E. (2017). Exploring the “how” in policy diffusion: National intermediary organizations’ roles in facilitating the spread of performance-based funding policies in the states. Journal of Higher Education, 88(5), 701–725. Gándara, D. & Rutherford, A. (2017). Mitigating unintended impacts? The effects of premiums for underserved populations in performance-funding policies for higher education. Research in Higher Education. Garcia, G. A. (2018). Decolonizing Hispanic-serving institutions: A framework for organizing. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 17(2), 132–147. Garcia, N. M., López, N., & Vélez, V. N. (2018). QuantCrit: Rectifying quantitative methods through critical race theory. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 149–157. Gardner, S. (2010). Keeping Up with the Joneses: Socialization and Culture in Doctoral Education at One Striving Institution. The Journal of Higher Education, 81, 728–749. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2010.0013 Gardner, S. K. (2013). Women faculty departures from a striving institution: Between a rock and a hard place. Review of Higher Education, 36, 349–370. Geiger, R. L. (2004). Knowledge and money: Research universities and the paradox of the marketplace. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gillborn, D., Warmington, P., & Demack, S. (2018). QuantCrit: Education, policy, ‘Big Data’ and principles for a critical race theory of statistics. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 158–179. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2017.1377417 Giroux, H. A. (n.d.). Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education. Haymarketbooks.Org. Retrieved November 25, 2022, from https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1386-neoliberalism-s-waron-higher-education

318

D. D. Zerquera

Gonzales, L. D. (2012). Responding to mission creep: Faculty members as cosmopolitan agents. Higher Education, 64(3), 337–353. Gonzales, L. D. (2013). Faculty sensemaking and mission creep: Interrogating institutionalized ways of knowing and doing legitimacy. The Review of Higher Education, 36(2), 179–209. Gonzales, L. D. (2014). Framing faculty agency inside striving universities: An application of Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The Journal of Higher Education, 85(2), 193–218. Gonzales, L.D. & Pacheco, A. (2012). Leading change with slogans: Border University in transition. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 15(1), 50–65. Gonzales, L. D., Martinez, E., & Ordu, C. (2014). Exploring faculty experiences in a striving university through the lens of academic capitalism. Studies in Higher Education, 39(7), 1097– 1115. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.777401 Gonzales, L. D., Kanhai, D., & Hall, K. (2018). Reimagining organizational theory for the critical study of higher education. In M. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 33). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72490-4_11 Grawe, N. D. (2018). Demographics and the demand for higher education. John Hopkins University Press. Grawe, N. D. (2021). The agile college: How institutions successfully navigate demographic changes. John Hopkins University Press. Greenwood, R., Oliver, C., Sahlin-Andersson, K. and Suddaby, R. (2008). The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism. London: SAGE Publications. Gumport, P.J. & Sporn, B. (1999). Institutional Adaptation: Demands for Management Reform and University Administration. In J. Smart (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research (Vol. XIV). New York: Agathon. Haddad, N. (2021). Philanthropic Foundations and Higher Education: The Politics of Intermediary Organizations. Journal of Higher Education, 92(6), 897–926. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00221546.2021.1888635 Haddad, N., & Reckhow, S. (2018). The shifting role of higher education philanthropy: A network analysis of philanthropic policy strategies. Philanthropy & Education, 2(1), 25–52. Hagood, L. P. (2019). The Financial Benefits and Burdens of Performance Funding in Higher Education. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0162373719837318 Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1977). The Population Ecology of Organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 82(5), 929–964. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2777807 Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural Inertia and Organizational Change. American Sociological Review, 49(2), 149–164. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095567 Harper, S. R. (2009). N—s no more: A critical race counternarrative on Black male student achievement at predominantly white colleges and universities. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(6), 697–712. Harper, S. R., Patton, L. D., & Wooden, O. S. (2009). Access and Equity for African American Students in Higher Education: A Critical Race Historical Analysis of Policy Efforts. 28. Harris, M. S., & Ellis, M. K. (2020). Measuring changes in institutional diversity: The US context. The International Journal of Higher Education Research, 79(2), 345–360. Hazelkorn, E. (2012). Everyone wants to be like Harvard or do they?: Cherishing all missions equally. In A. Curaj et al. (Eds.), European higher education at the crossroads: Between the Bologna process and national reforms. Part 1. Springer. Hazelkorn, E. (2015). Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137446671 Hillman, N. W. (2016, May). Why Performance-Based College Funding Doesn’t Work. https://tcf. org/content/report/why-performance-based-college-funding-doesnt-work/ Hillman, N., & Corral, D. (2017). The Equity Implications of Paying for Performance in Higher Education. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(14), 1757–1772. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0002764217744834 Hoffman, G. D., & Mitchell, T. D. (2016). Making diversity “everyone’s business”: A discourse analysis of institutional responses to student activism for equity and inclusion. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3), 277–289. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000037

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

319

Hossler, D. (2000). The Role of Financial Aid in Enrollment Management. New Directions for Student Services, 2000(89), 77–90. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.8906 Hossler, D., & Kalsbeek, D. (2009). Admissions Testing & Institutional Admissions Processes. College and University, 84(4), 2–11. Immerwahr, J. (2003). Public attitudes on higher education: A trend analysis. National Center for Higher Education Policy. Jaquette, O., Curs, B. R., & Posselt, J. R. (2016). Tuition rich, mission poor: Nonresident enrollment growth and the socioeconomic and racial composition of public research universities. Journal of Higher Education, 87(5), 635–673. Jaschik, S. (2006, May 26). Momentum for Going SAT-Optional. Inside Higher Ed. https://www. insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/26/momentum-going-sat-optional Jencks, C., & Riesman, D. (1967). The American Negro college. Harvard Educational Review, 37(3), 451–468. Jencks, C., & Riesman, D. (1968). The academic revolution. University of Chicago Press. Jones T. (2016). A historical mission in the accountability era: A public HBCU and state performance funding. Educational Policy, 30(7), 999–1041. Jones T., Jones S., Elliott K., Owens L., Assalone A., Gándara D. (2017). Outcomes based funding and race in higher education. Palgrave Macmillan. Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations. New York: Wiley. Kelchen, R. (2018). Higher Education Accountability. In Johns Hopkins University Press. Johns Hopkins University Press. Kezar, A. (2005). Challenges for higher education in serving the public good. In A. J. Kezar, A. C. Chambers, & J. Burkhardt (Eds.), Higher education for the public good: Emerging voices from a national movement. Jossey-Bass. Kezar, A., & Dee, J. R. (2011). Conducting multi-paradigm inquiry in the study of higher education organization and governance: Transforming research perspectives on colleges and universities. In J. Smart & M. Paulsen (Eds.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, 26 (pp. 265-315). New York, NY: Springer. Kezar, A., & Posselt, J. (2019). Higher Education Administration for Social Justice and Equity: Critica. https://www.routledge.com/Higher-Education-Administration-for-Social-Justice-andEquity-Critical/Kezar-Posselt/p/book/9781138351684 Kezar, A., & Sam, C. (2013). Institutionalizing Equitable Policies and Practices for Contingent Faculty. Journal of Higher Education, 84(1), 56–87. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2013.0002 Kezar, A., Chambers, T., & Burkhardt, J. (Eds.). (2005). Higher education for the public good: Emerging voices from a national movement. Jossey-Bass. Kezar, A., Lester, J., Glenn, W., & Nokamato, J. (2008). Examining organizational contextual features that affect implementation of equity initiatives. The Journal of Higher Education, 79 (2), 125–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2008.11772089 Kincheloe, J. L., & McLaren, P. L. (1994). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 138–157). Sage Publications, Inc. Kim, J. (2018). The Functions and Dysfunctions of College Rankings: An Analysis of Institutional Expenditure. Research in Higher Education, 59(1), 54–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-0179455-1 Kraatz, M. S., & Zajac, E. J. (1996). Exploring the limits of the new institutionalism: The causes and consequences of illegitimate organizational change. American Sociological Review, 61(5), 812–836. Ladson-Billings, G. (2013). Critical race theory—What it is not! In M. Lynn & A. D. Dixson (Eds.), Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 34–47). Routledge. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146819509700104 Lafuente-Ruiz-de-Sabando, A., Zorrila, P., & Forcada, J. (2018). A review of higher education image and reputation literature: Knowledge gaps and a research agenda. European Research on Management and Business Economics, 24(1), 8–16. Lerma, V., Hamilton, L. T., & Nielsen, K. (2020). Racialized equity labor, university appropriation and student resistance. Social Problems, 67(2), 286–303. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz011

320

D. D. Zerquera

Li, A. Y., Gándara, D., & Assalone, A. (2018). Equity or Disparity: Do Performance Funding Policies Disadvantage 2-Year Minority-Serving Institutions? Community College Review, 46(3), 288–315. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552118778776 Longanecker D.A. (2008). Missions differentiation vs missions creep: Higher education battle between creation and evolution. National Conference of State Legislatures. The forum for America’s ideas. Martinez, E. (2019). “The Rules Change”: Exploring Faculty Experiences and Work Expectations Within a Drifting Community College Context. Community College Review, 47(2), 111–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552119835022 Martinez, M., & Henkle, J. (n.d.). University presidents as policy entrepreneurs: Evidence from U. S. universities engaged in prestige behaviour. Higher Education Quarterly, n/a(n/a). https://doi. org/10.1111/hequ.12395 Mason, R. (2021). Social kinds are essentially mind-dependent. Philosophical Studies, 178(12), 3975–3994. Massy, W. F., & Zemsky, R. (1994). Faculty Discretionary Time. The Journal of Higher Education, 65(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.1994.11778471 McClure, K. R., & Titus, M. A. (2018). Spending Up the Ranks? The Relationship Between Striving for Prestige and Administrative Expenditures at U.S. Public Research Universities. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(6), 961–987. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018. 1449079 McCormick, A. C., & Zhao, C. (2005). Rethinking and reframing the Carnegie Classification. Change, 37, 51–57. McKeown-Moak, M. P. (2013). The “New” Performance Funding in Higher Education. Educational Considerations, 40(2), 3–12. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340–363. Meyer, J. W., & Scott, W. R. (1983). Centralization and the legitimacy problems of local government. In J. W. Meyer & W. R. Scott (Eds.), Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality (pp. 199–215). Sage. Meyers, L., & Robe, J. (2009). College rankings: History, criticism and reform. Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Miller, T. (2016). Higher education outcomes-based funding models and academic quality (p. 18). Lumina Foundation for Education. Miller, G. N. S., & Morphew, C. C. (2017). Merchants of optimism: Agenda-setting organizations and the framing of performance-based funding for higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 88(5), 754–784. Miotto, G., Del-Castillo-Feito, C., & Blanco-Gonzalez, A. (2020). Reputation and legitimacy: Key factors for higher education institutions’ sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Business Research, 112, 342–353. Morphew, C. C. (2000). Institutional diversity, program acquisition and faculty members: Examining academic drift at a new level. Higher Education Policy, 13, 55–77. Morphew, C. C. (2002). A rose by any other name: Which colleges became universities. The Review of Higher Education, 25(2), 207–224. Morphew, C. (2009). Conceptualizing change in the institutional diversity of U.S. colleges and universities. Journal of Higher Education, 80(3), 243–269. Morphew, C. C., & Jenniskens, C. G. M. (1999). Assessing institutional change at the level of the faculty: Examining faculty motivators and new degree programs. In B. Jong, P. Bloed, P. Maassen, & G. Neave (Eds.), From the eye of the storm: Higher education’s changing institution (pp. 95–120). Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Morphew, C. C., & Baker, B. D. (2004). The cost of prestige: Do new research one universities incur increased administrative costs? Review of Higher Education, 27(3), 365–384. Morphew, C. C., & Huisman, J. (2002). Using institutional theory to reframe research on academic drift. Higher Education in Europe, 27(4), 491–506.

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

321

Museus, S. D., & LePeau, L. A. (2019). Navigating neoliberal organizational cultures: Implications for higher education leaders advancing social justice agendas. In A. Kezar & J. Posselt (Eds.), Higher education administration for social justice and equity: Critical perspectives for leadership. Routledge. National Conference of State Legislatures. (2015). Performance-based funding for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/performance-funding.aspx Ness E. C., Deupree M. M., Gándara D. (2015). Campus responses to outcomes-based funding in Tennessee: Robust, aligned, and contested. Tennessee Higher Education Commission. Ngo, F., Coyner, M., & Lough, N. (2022). The financial behaviors of chasing athletic prestige: Evidence from the NCAA cost of attendance policy. The Review of Higher Education, 45(3), 307. Oliver, C. (1988). The Collective Strategy Framework: An Application to Competing Predictions of Isomorphism. Administrative Science Quarterly, 33(4), 543–561. https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 2392643 Oliver, C. (1991). Strategic responses to institutional processes. Academy of Management Review, 16(1), 145–179. O’Meara, K. A. (2007). Striving for what? Exploring the pursuit of prestige. In J. D. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 22, pp. 121–179). Springer. O’Meara, K., & Bloomgarden, A. (2011). The Pursuit of Prestige: The Experience of Institutional Striving from a Faculty Perspective. 35. Orphan, C. M. (2018). Public purpose under pressure: Examining the effects of neoliberal public policy on the missions of regional comprehensive universities. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 22(2), 59–101. Orphan, C. M. (2020). Not all regional public universities strive for prestige: Examining and strengthening mission-centeredness within a vital sect. New Directions for Higher Education, 2020(190), 9–24. Orphan, C. M., & Miller, G. N. S. (2020). The company regional comprehensive universities desire to keep: Choosing institutional membership associations. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(2), 300–325. Parker, L. (2003). Critical Race Theory in Education: Possibilities and Problems. Counterpoints, 168, 184–198. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42977500 Parker, L. (2015). Critical Race Theory in Education and Qualitative Inquiry: What Each Has to Offer Each Other Now? Qualitative Inquiry, 21(3), 199–205. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10. 1177/1077800414557828 Parker, E. T., Tevis, T. L., Beatty, C. C., & Blockett, R. (2021, August). We’ve seen this movie before: The disingenuity of routine institutional responses to address anti-Black racism. ACPA Developments, 3. Retrieved from https://developments.myacpa.org/weve-seen-this-moviebefore-the-disingenuity-of-routine-institutional-responses-to-address-anti-black-racism-parkeriii-tevis-beatty-blockett/ Passel, J. S., Lopez, M. H., & Cohn, D. (2022). U.S. Hispanic population continues geographic spread in the 2010s. Pew Research Center. Patton, L. D. (2016). Disrupting postsecondary prose: Towards a critical race theory of higher education. Urban Education, 51(3), 315–342. Patton Davis, L., & Museus, S. D. (2019). What is deficit thinking? An analysis of conceptualizations of deficit thinking and implications for scholarly research. Currents, 1(1), 117–129. Patton Davis, L., Shahjahan, R. A., & Osei-Kofi, N. (2010). Introduction to the emergent approaches to social justice in higher education special issue. Equity & Excellence in Education, 43(3), 265–278. Perdomo, R. (2019). Hispanic serving institutions, funding, adn prestige: Who engages with the Title V grant? (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Georgia. Perna, L. W., & Finney, J. (2014). The attainment agenda: State policy leadership in higher education. Johns Hopkins University Press. Perna, L. W., Wright-Kim, J., & Brickfield, J. (2021). The implications of rankings for equity in higher education. In E. Hazelkorn & G. Mihut (Eds.), Research handbook on university

322

D. D. Zerquera

rankings: Theory, methodology, influence, and impact (pp. 295–306). Elgar Handbooks in Education. Pfeffer, J. and Salancik, G.R. (2003) The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. Stanford Business Books, Stanford. Plewa, C., Ho, J., Conduit, J., & Karpen, I. O. (2016). Reputation in higher education: A fuzzy set analysis of resource configurations. Journal of Business Research, 69(8), 3087–3095. Powell, B. A., Gilleland, D. S., & Pearson, L. C. (2012). Expenditures, efficiency, and effectiveness in U.S. undergraduate higher education: A national benchmark model. The Journal of Higher Education, 83(1), 102–127. Rabovsky, T. M. (2012). Accountability in Higher Education: Exploring Impacts on State Budgets and Institutional Spending Patterns. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22 (4), 675–700. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mur069 Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. Rhoads, R. A. (2016). Student activism, diversity, and the struggle for a just society. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3), 189–202. Riesman, D. (1956). Constraint and variety in American education. University of Nebraska Press. Rodriguez, A., & Camacho, S. (2022, July 13). Opinion: Why ‘test optional’ admissions are not a game-changer for equity after all. Hechinger Report. Retrieved from https://hechingerreport. org/opinion-why-test-optional-admissions-are-not-a-game-changer-for-equity-after-all/ Rutherford, A., & Rabovsky, T. (2014). Evaluating Impacts of Performance Funding Policies on Student Outcomes in Higher Education. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 655(1), 185–208. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214541048 Scott, W. R. (1992). Institutions and organizations. Sage Publications. Scott, W. R. (2013). Institutions and Organizations: Ideas, Interests, and Identities. SAGE Publications. Selznick, P. (1957) Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation. Harper & Row, New York, 62, 67–68. Slaughter, S., Slaughter, S. A., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education. JHU Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2009). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state and higher education. Johns Hopkins University Press. Solorzano, D. G. (1998). Critical race theory, race and gender microaggressions, and the experience of Chicana and Chicano scholars. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11 (1), 121–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/095183998236926 Solorzano, D., Ceja, M., & Yosso, T. (2000). Critical Race Theory, Racial Microaggressions, and Campus Racial Climate: The Experiences of African American College Students. The Journal of Negro Education, 69(1/2), 60–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2696265 Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002a). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. Solórzano, D. J., & Yosso, T. J. (2002b). A critical race counterstory of race, racism, and affirmative action. Equity & Excellence in Education, 35(2), 155–168. Sperber, M. (2000). Beer and circus: How big-time college sports is crippling undergraduate education. Henry Holt and Company. Stage, F. K. (2007). Answering critical questions using quantitative data. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2007(133), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.200 Stensaker, B., Lee, J. J., Rhoades, G., Ghosh, S., Castiello-Gutiérrez, S., Vance, H., Çalıkoğlu, A., Kramer, V., Liu, S., Marei, M. S., O’Toole, L., Pavlyutkin, I., & Peel, C. (2019). Stratified University Strategies: The Shaping of Institutional Legitimacy in a Global Perspective. The Journal of Higher Education, 90(4), 539–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1513306 Stocum, D. L. (2013). Killing Public Higher Education: The Arms Race for Research Prestige. Academic Press. Suchman, M. C. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. The Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 571–610. Sweitzer, K., Volkwein, J. F., & Kulikowich, J. M. (2009). Shifting reputations: Analyzing change over time in the U.S. News peer assessment rankings. Association for Institutional Research

6

Still Striving, and for What? Centering Equity in the Study of. . .

323

Forum, Atlanta, GA. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi= abb360d7bf040f3d5751bf0461eeb70ed36ec188 Tandberg, D., & Hillman, N. (2013). State performance funding for higher education: Silver bullet or red herring. WISCAPE Policy Brief, 18. Tandberg, D. A., & Hillman, N. W. (2014). State Higher Education Performance Funding: Data, Outcomes, and Policy Implications. Journal of Education Finance, 39(3), 222–243. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/23597610 Thelin, J. R. (2019). A History of American Higher Education. JHU Press. Thornton, P. H., & Ocasio, W. (2008). Institutional logics. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin, & R. Suddaby (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 99–129). SAGE Publishing. Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The Institutional logics Perspective: A new approach to culture, Structure, and Process (Vol. 15). Oxford University Press. https://www. cairn.info/revue-management-2012-5-page-583.htm Toma, J. D. (2003). Football U.: Spectator sports in the life of the American University. University of Michigan Press. Toma, J. D., & Cross, M. E. (1998). Intercollegiate athletics and student college choice: Exploring the impact of championship seasons on undergraduate applications. Research in Higher Education, 39, 633–661. Torres-Olave, B., Brown, A. M., Franco Carrera, L., & Ballinas, C. (2020). Not waving but striving: Research collaboration in the context of stratification, segmentation, and the quest for prestige. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(2), 275–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2019.1631074 Tsoukas, H. (2005). Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tsoukas, H. (2019). Philosophical organization theory. Oxford University Press. Tuchman, G. (2009). Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo6130399.html Umbricht, M. R., Fernandez, F., & Ortagus, J. C. (2017). An examination of the (un) intended consequences of performance funding in higher education. Educational Policy, 31(5), 643–673. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904815614398 UNESCO. (2015). Rethinking education: Towards a global common good? Author. Vargas, N. (2018). Racial expropriation in higher education: Are whiter Hispanic-Serving Institutions more likely to receive minority serving institution funds? Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 4, 1–12. Véliz, D., & Gardner, S. K. (2019). Generational perceptions of promotion and tenure expectations by faculty in a striving university: A quest for legitimacy? Higher Education Quarterly, 73(3), 359–373. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12195 Volkwein, J. F., & Sweitzer, K. V. (2006). Institutional Prestige and Reputation among Research Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges*. Research in Higher Education, 47(2), 129–148. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11162-005-8883-5 Warshaw, J. B., DeMonbrun, M., & McNaughtan, J. (2020). A field of striving or equity? Regional public universities and college access. New Directions for Higher Education, 2020(190), 25–39. Warshaw, J. B., McNaughtan, J., & DeMonbrun, M. (2021). Between two fields: US public master’s institutions – Striving for prestige or equity? Higher Education Policy, 34, 344–369. Warshaw, J. B., DeMonbrun, M., & McNaughtan, J. (2022). Suppressing racial diversity for prestige? The conflicting imperatives of public master’s institutions. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000394 Wells, R. S., & Stage, F. K. (2015). New scholarship in critical quantitative research–part 2: New populations, approaches, and challenges. New directions for institutional research (Vol. 2014, No. 163). Wiley & Sons. Winkle-Wagner, R., Sulé, V. T., & Maramba, D. C. (2018). Analyzing policy critically: Using critical race theory to analyze college admissions policy discourse. In R. Winkle-Wagner, J. Lee-Johnson, & A. N. Gaskey (Eds.), Critical theory and qualitative data analysis in education. Routledge.

324

D. D. Zerquera

Yosso, T. J., Parker, L., Solórzano, D. G., & Lynn, M. (2004). From Jim Crow to affirmative action and back again: A critical race discussion of racialized rationales and access to higher education. Review of Research in Education, 28(1), 1–25. Zajda, J., Majhanovich, S., & Rust, V. (Eds.). (2006). Education and social justice. Dordrecht. The Netherlands: Springer. Zemsky, R., Wegner, G. R., & Massy, W. F. (2005). Remaking the American university: Marketsmart and mission-centered | Request PDF. Rutgers University Press. https://www.researchgate. net/publication/291751595_Remaking_the_American_university_Market-smart_and_missioncentered Zerquera, D. (2016). Urban-serving research universities: Institutions for the public good. Higher Learning Research Communications, 6(2), 136–154. https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v6i2.320 Zerquera, D. (2018a). Prestige-seeking across urban-serving research universities. International Journal of Leadership and Change, 6(1), 5. Zerquera, D. (2018b, November). Towards greater complexity in how we engage in the study of prestige seeking. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Tampa, FL. Zerquera, D. (2019). The problem with the prestige pursuit: The effects of striving on access for Black and Latino students at Urban-Serving Research Universities. Review of Higher Education, 42(5), 393–424. Zerquera, D. (2021). Complicating the study of prestige seeking among broad access institutions. In G. Crisp, K. R. McClure, & C. M. Orphan (Eds.), Unlocking opportunity through broadly accessible institutions. Routledge. Zerquera, D., & Torres, V. (2018, November). Do performance-based funding policies promote prestige ambitions? An interest-convergence analysis. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Tampa, FL. Zerquera, D., & Ziskin, M. (2020). Implications of performance-based funding on equity-based missions in higher education. Higher Education Journal, 80, 1153. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10734-020-00535-0 Zerquera, D., Ballysingh, T. A., & Templeton, E. (2017). A critical look at perspectives of access and mission at diverse urban universities. Association of Mexican American Educators, 11(3), 199–222.

Desiree D. Zerquera is an Associate Professor in the Department of Leadership Studies in the School of Education at the University of San Francisco. Her research focuses on how inequities structure the experiences of disserved students in accessing and succeeding in higher education. Areas of scholarly expertise include organizational theory, public policy, Latinx students, and institutions that serve marginalized students. As an engaged scholar, she actively collaborates with colleges, universities, and higher education organizations to enact sound research in the practice of higher education. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she currently calls Oakland, California, home.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints of Institutional Structures, Individual Agency, and Social Systems David F. Feldon, Annie M. Wofford, and Jennifer M. Blaney

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guiding Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types of Faculty and Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nontenure Track Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tenure Track Positions and Variation by Institution Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Entering the Modern Era of Graduate Education Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Programmatic Effort to Change Doctoral Education: Preparing Future Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . Socialization as an Explanatory Framework for US Doctoral Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socialization Stages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current Conceptualizations of Socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mechanisms of Socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Empirical Challenges to Graduate Socialization Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evolution of Doctoral Career Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expanding Our Understanding of Ph.D. Career Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mechanisms of Faculty Preparation in Doctoral Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

327 327 329 330 331 332 334 337 338 339 341 344 345 346 346 352 358

Ann E. Austin was the Associate Editor for this chapter. D. F. Feldon (*) Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. M. Wofford Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. M. Blaney Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_4

325

326

D. F. Feldon et al.

Systems of Power, Agency, and the Inequity of Faculty Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graduate Admissions as a Gatekeeping Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Student Debt and Generational Wealth Impact Faculty Career Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Doctoral Advisors Uphold Imbalanced Power in Faculty Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Policies and Benchmark Assessments as Gatekeeping Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . Institutional Prestige and Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disciplinary Environments Impact on Faculty Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Labor Market Issues and Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Academic Capitalist Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Considering the Future of Ph.D. Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moving into the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications for Policy and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

360 360 362 364 366 368 369 370 371 372 376 381 382 386 390 390

Abstract

The mechanisms for preparing future faculty are of vital importance for the future of postsecondary education. Not only do the policies, practices, and procedures of doctoral education shape the development of prospective scholars, they also determine who is granted access to research training, who succeeds within their academic programs, and who ultimately aspires to and obtains a faculty position. The purpose of this chapter is to review existing knowledge about the role of graduate-level training in the development of college and university faculty in the USA, offering a critical examination of academic pathways and establishing future directions for research. We review this literature against a backdrop of structural inequity, academic capitalism, inequitable access to academic and social capital, and student agency. We point to larger forces and specific practices that contribute to social reproduction within the academy, as well as those that have potential to restructure training and scholarship within academic disciplines. This chapter identifies crosscutting themes that reflect ongoing challenges in understanding the convergence of institutional, disciplinary, and societal structures with the agency of individuals whose array of identities, motivations, goals, and needs are their own. Keywords

Doctoral education · Faculty development · Graduate socialization · Research training · Academic capitalism · Equity and access · Academic career pathways · Institutionalism · Student agency · Mentoring · Nontenure track faculty · Tenure track faculty · Preparing future faculty · Academic workforce · Graduate student mental health and well-being · Academic work-life balance · Inequity of faculty opportunity · Graduate admissions · Doctoral advisement · Postdoctoral research positions

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

327

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to review existing knowledge about the role of graduatelevel training in the development of college and university faculty in the USA, offering a critical examination of pathways into faculty roles and establishing future directions for research. While this scope spans many discrete topics, we identify a number of cross-cutting themes that reflect ongoing challenges in understanding the convergence of institutional, disciplinary, and societal structures with the agency of individuals whose array of identities, motivations, goals, and needs are their own. Following an explanation of our guiding framework below, the chapter addresses these issues across five sections: Entering the Modern Era of Graduate Education Research, Evolution of Doctoral Career Pathways, Systems of Power, Agency, and the Inequity of Faculty Opportunities, Labor Market Issues and Realities, and Future Directions. The first section provides an overview of the past 75 years of faculty preparation and career attainment, emphasizing the major transition in the labor market at the end of the 1960s, the emergence of doctoral education research that examined the processes and outcomes of graduate training through the lens of socialization, and programmatic responses to identified mismatches between standard doctoral training and the professional roles that Ph.D. recipients commonly assume. The second section examines the broad array of issues that impact Ph.D. recipients as they navigate the pathways to and preparation for the academic workforce, including issues of work-life balance, the diverse nature of faculty roles, and the development of skills needed to take on faculty responsibilities. The third section analyzes the array of structures, processes, and procedures that constrain and facilitate access to graduate training and subsequent faculty career opportunities. These include mechanisms of doctoral admissions, student debt, faculty supervision, benchmark assessments, impacts of institutional prestige, and normative environments within disciplines. The fourth section focuses on the interactions between the influence of academic capitalism within the academy and doctoral students as providers of academic labor. Lastly, the fifth section synthesizes overlapping themes among the previous four sections and offers recommendations for policy and directions for future research.

Guiding Framework To synthesize the diverse nature of relevant scholarship, we adopt an organizing framework of institutionalism, within which multiple structures constrain individuals’ choices and provide disparate opportunities (Archer, 1996; Blumer, 1969). In this structural context, individuals are able to exercise agency – defined here as the “capacity of individuals to act collectively or individually in a manner that either reinforces or undermines prevalent social relations and organizational structure” (Roscigno & Hodson, 2004, p. 18) – to navigate the pathways toward achieving

328

D. F. Feldon et al.

Fig. 1 Framework of institutionalism. (Source: Adapted from Archer (1996) and Blumer (1969))

their goals. For the purposes of examining the factors that shape and constrain these pathways and individuals’ approaches to navigating them (or not), we highlight four primary structural influences: institutional, economic, cultural, and disciplinary (see Fig. 1). Institutional and economic structures typically impact individuals’ external behaviors by establishing policies, procedures, resources, and constraints that require discrete actions on the part of individuals (e.g., taking courses to meet degree requirements and accepting a research assistantship that provides tuition and a stipend in exchange for meeting specific responsibilities). Cultural and disciplinary structures impact individuals’ internal states, such as their sense of personal or professional identity, the knowledge they possess or acquire, and the motivations that drive them to select and pursue goals. Although earlier versions of this framework (e.g., Carson, 2001; Sewell, 1999) considered culture to be separate from structure, more recent iterations have accommodated it through the differentiation of internal and external influences because, like other structures, culture imposes a set of rules, expectations, and processes for individuals to engage or resist. In keeping with the importance of individual agency, the institutionalism framework anticipates that both individual and collective action will shape the ways in which structures function (Tierney & Rhoads, 1993). While some structures change over time periods that exceed the span of graduate school pathways (e.g., societal patterns of racial privilege and oppression), individuals’ actions can shape the ways that these structures operate in local contexts, perhaps by using their power in discretionary spaces (Ball, 2018; O’Meara, 2021). Although discretionary power has often been discussed in terms of faculty members’ power, students can also hold discretionary power within the spaces they occupy in graduate education. For example, graduate students have shaped both institutional and economic structures through successful unionizing (Herbert et al., 2020) and other modes of campus engagement (e.g., Dunstan et al., 2018). Similarly, the formation of graduate student groups within disciplinary societies can shape opportunities for students to receive better quality and more systematic mentorship (Nyquist & Woodford, 2000).

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

329

In other instances, structures may require evolution over longer periods of time as, for example, disciplinary canons, boundaries, and methods evolve (Bechtel, 2012; Coccia, 2020). Graduate students and other early career researchers contribute to these structural shifts in myriad ways through their intellectual contributions. However, for structures themselves to shift, accumulations of critical mass may be necessary, which limits our ability to directly perceive the impacts of individual choices or actions. Further, it is notable that the conventions of training structures often remain intact (i.e., signature pedagogies; Shulman, 2005), even in the face of major intellectual shifts within disciplines. For example, laboratory rotations – in which first-year doctoral students typically spend several weeks at a time working in successive laboratories in search of a “match” with a research lab and faculty member who will serve as supervisor and formal advisor – are a hallmark of doctoral education in the biological sciences (Maher et al., 2019). Despite the dramatic changes in the biological sciences discipline over the past 50 years, this conventional training mechanism has remained a constant (Barker, 1998). By socializing students through the lab rotation process, students are typically required to locate a lab where they can “fit” or assimilate within the existing environment, rather than entering a laboratory where students are expected to exercise agency in shaping that environment. In many ways, the stagnation of such training mechanisms may hinder the development of new disciplinary knowledge and more inclusive environments, both of which are necessary if doctoral education hopes to rebuild academic structures that allow students from all identity groups and backgrounds to thrive. Taken together, using a framework of institutionalism allows our discussion to focus on the interplay between macro- and microlevel influences that shape doctoral students’ pathways toward faculty careers. Figure 1 provides an overview and examples of the four primary structural influences that we discuss, details about several facets that may compromise agency, and an illustration of the restructuring/ reinforcing process between these levels of influence.

Types of Faculty and Institutions As additional context in discussing the development of future faculty, it is important to understand the diversity of faculty positions that exist within the current academic market. Faculty positions vary widely by type of appointment and institutional context – with different positions having different expectations for how labor is distributed in the areas of research, teaching, and service. As Kezar et al. (2019) discuss in their aptly titled book, The Gig Academy, universities are increasingly relying on part-time and other contingent faculty to perform essential functions (e.g., advising and teaching). It is worth noting that part-time faculty make up the majority of the professoriate at many institutions, and that they face unique challenges and lack critical supports (e.g., office space to meet with students) necessary to do their jobs (Eagan et al., 2015). However, for the purposes of this chapter, we focus primarily on full-time positions, which themselves vary widely. In the sections that follow, we briefly review key considerations for full-time tenure and nontenure track positions which each can vary based on institution and institution

330

D. F. Feldon et al.

type. Importantly, other variation can emerge as a result of noninstitutional factors, including the state political context. For example, within states that have dedicated more funding to higher education, colleges and universities may be less reliant on parttime and nontenure track labor. Universities where faculty have successfully unionized may provide increased job security and benefits to nontenure track faculty and tenure track faculty alike (Kezar et al., 2019). Recognizing the ways in which faculty careers vary – by institution type, appointment type, and other factors – is important to ensure that doctoral programs are preparing a professoriate that is able to succeed within an increasingly diverse and complex academic labor market as well as the challenges that come with different faculty positions.

Nontenure Track Appointments Among full-time nontenure track (NTT) appointments, teaching/instructional faculty positions have received significant attention in the higher education literature (Bowden & Gonzalez, 2012; Kezar et al., 2019; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). As Kezar et al. (2019) explain, “decoupling teaching from the faculty role allows for a larger reserve of instructors to be cultivated without the need to provide job security, academic protections. . . [or other opportunities and supports]” (p. 43). These positions sometimes also include service and administrative duties, though NTT instructional faculty rarely have protected time for research. The individuals occupying these roles also may engage them in pursuit of different goals, with some pursuing long-term careers in an NTT role and others accepting NTT positions temporarily in pursuit of a more permanent tenure track position (frequently the case for individuals occupying “visiting professorships”). Another variable feature of NTT positions is whether NTT faculty are provided with annual or multiyear contracts, with multiyear contracts providing an additional level of job security. Finally, many universities offer opportunities for promotion of NTT faculty (e.g., promotion to assistant clinical professor or associate clinical professor), serving as additional evidence of how universities rely on NTT faculty to perform essential functions of the university (Kezar et al., 2019). However, institutions and individuals may treat NTT positions as temporary positions de facto, regardless of whether or not they are labeled as visiting positions. Less frequently studied, NTT positions also include full-time research faculty, who are typically characterized by a 100% commitment to research and a reliance on external grants or contracts (i.e., “soft money”) for some or all of their salary support. Similar to the dynamics surrounding teaching faculty, this decoupling of research from other aspects of the traditional tenure track faculty role allows universities to increase research capacity without investing significant funds or providing worker protections (Kezar et al., 2019). Indeed, because research faculty are typically expected to selffund their positions, such that their job security is dependent on their ability to bring in grants and contracts, research faculty may experience high levels of stress and burnout (Singh et al., 1998). Yet, this pressure may also contribute to increased research productivity for the university, again without significant financial investment. Ingrained within many NTT appointments is a sense of precarity. In addition to uncertainty around the permanence of the position, NTT positions typically offer

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

331

lower compensation than tenure track positions at the same rank. The expectation to relocate for temporary (or long-term but nonsecure) positions places additional burdens and stresses on NTT faculty. Further, visiting and other NTT faculty roles may come with a fungible commitment to consider people who occupy them for potential tenure track positions in the future, which may or may not ever come to fruition. Thus, NTT faculty are often placed in a position to be exploited. As is often the case within academia on many topics, access to knowledge about the potentially predatory nature of visiting and other NTT positions is not equally distributed, creating an additional stratifying mechanism within the academy.

Tenure Track Positions and Variation by Institution Type Among tenure track (TT) positions, variation exists primarily in terms of how faculty are expected to distribute their time across research, teaching, and service. TT positions at many research-intensive universities include more balanced distributions of time spent on research and teaching, while also determining a specific level of effort to be allocated to service. At elite research institutions, comparable positions often include a greater proportion of time dedicated exclusively to research activities. Still, TT positions at other institution types can look vastly different. For example, TT faculty at liberal arts colleges and other teaching-focused institutions may dedicate more than 50% of their time to teaching and be expected to teach three or more classes each term (Baker et al., 2017). Ultimately, these disparate institutional distributions of labor play a significant role in shaping the extent to which TT faculty have time and resources for specific contributions to the academy. Notably, within the context of constrained resources, research expectations are increasing across many institutions, including those previously dedicated to teaching, as evidenced by the emergence of the “striving” university. The concept of the striving university refers to institutions that are broadly seeking to improve their perceived prestige, and this notion often comes with the specific expectation that faculty increase their research productivity (O0 Meara, 2007). While research expectations may become increasingly similar across institution types, support for research and adjustments to teaching loads continue to vary, particularly at public universities where research expectations may increase without proportionate (or any) reduction in teaching load. In some cases, these increasing demands and limited resources can converge to fuel various modes of inequity as differential privilege and empowerment can lead to unequal allocation of both resources and specific responsibilities (Gardner, 2013). As a final note on institutional variation in faculty appointments, community college faculty warrant special consideration. Community colleges frequently rely on part-time or adjunct faculty (Wagoner, 2019). Yet, many community college systems employ high numbers of full-time NTT or TT faculty. Expectations for how community college faculty balance their time also vary widely, with many faculty expected to bring professional industry experience to their interactions with students (Wagoner et al., 2010). Indeed, exploring how community college faculty roles are interlaced with an array of social, political, and economic influences that

332

D. F. Feldon et al.

span beyond the institution has been a key topic in the conversation about community college operations and identity (Levin et al., 2006). To that end, Levin et al. (2006) discuss how community college faculty members’ roles and labor distribution has been subject to entrepreneurial modifications in the societal labor force, underscoring the professional identity of the “transient yet paradoxically permanent workforce” that are community college faculty (p. 3). Although this chapter does not focus on community college faculty, there is a significant need to better understand these individuals’ agency as well as the unique structural influences that shape their experiences in the community college context.

Entering the Modern Era of Graduate Education Research The traditional academic pipeline in the USA, from Ph.D. preparation and attainment to faculty member, has undergone many changes over the past 75 years. Yet, in many ways, it also remains fundamentally unchanged. Following World War II, the G.I. Bill facilitated unprecedented demand for postsecondary education, with the average number of colleges and universities founded per year jumping from 18 (1861–1943) to 39 (1944–1979) (Adams, 2000). Concurrently, policies stemming from the Cold War spurred extensive investment in universities as loci of research and development to bolster national competitiveness (Geiger, 2008; Hutcheson & Kidder, 2011). These factors jointly spurred rapid expansion of doctoral programs to prepare scholars as the next generation of university research faculty, though access to doctoral programs was predominantly limited to White men due to exclusionary federal, state, and institutional policies. Until about 1970, the pipeline from doctoral student to faculty member remained robust, and Ph.D. recipients had little difficulty securing a TT faculty position if one was desired. However, the ratio of new graduates to available academic jobs changed dramatically around that time. Roemer and Schnitz (1982) report that the academic job market went from a net shortfall of 1200 available Ph.D. recipients to fill all open faculty positions in 1967 to five times as many newly minted Ph.D. recipients as available academic positions in the USA in 1972. The imbalance between Ph.D. recipients and open faculty positions remains a crucial issue within the academic pipeline and, as such, is a key structural pressure discussed in this chapter. The relative scarcity of tenure-line positions has remained a fundamental reality of the academy for the past 50 years. However, other characteristics have changed: Nearly half of today’s Ph.D. recipients are women (45.8% in 2019 vs. 30.3% in 1980; National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates [SED], 2021), doctoral programs have become more racially diverse – though People of Color1 are still underrepresented in faculty positions (Griffin, 2020b), and more than half of those earning the doctorate do not attain faculty positions (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics [NCSES], 2021). In keeping with the very low odds of 1

In the present work, the term People of Color refers to those who identify as one or more of the following: American Indian/Alaska Native/Native American, Asian American, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latina/o/x, or Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

333

securing tenure-line employment, pressure to publish earlier and more frequently during graduate study has increased markedly (Nettles & Millett, 2006; Waaijer et al., 2016). Further, many students feel that the academic leanings of their supervising faculty render nonacademic careers a taboo topic of discussion (Nerad, 2015). Despite three decades of articulated concerns that the nature of doctoral preparation is no longer aligned with the realities of work both within and outside the academy, practices and structures within doctoral education have changed little. For example, the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Science, Engineering, and Policy (1995) argued that doctoral training was too narrow in scope and that Ph. D. students did not develop professional skills such as management, collaboration, and other skills demanded by industry. In recent years, this position has been reiterated by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (2017), the National Academies’ Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century report (National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2018), and the National Endowment for the Humanities and Council of Graduate Schools’ Promising Practices in Humanities Ph.D. Professional Development report (McCarthy, 2017) as Ph.D. recipients take jobs outside the academy in record numbers (e.g., 58.7% of recent doctorate recipients in STEM; NCSES, 2021). However, faculty rarely provide information about nonacademic and nonresearch career paths to doctoral students (Thiry et al., 2015), in part because their own career paths have been within the academy (Sauermann & Roach, 2012). Similarly, postsecondary institutions and doctoral students themselves have long raised concerns that despite teaching occupying a substantial portion of tenure-line faculty’s responsibilities, Ph.D. students receive little training or experience in pedagogy (Boice, 1992; Golde & Dore, 2001), leaving them ill-prepared to implement a key component of academic duties. Despite an increasing inclusion of formal structures to support the development of teaching skills – especially among graduate teaching assistants – current implementation assessments indicate that nearly all such training occurs in the form of brief workshops with little or no direct feedback for students regarding their teaching performance (Schussler et al., 2015). Even preparation to mentor future doctoral students through the signature pedagogy of cognitive apprenticeship (Austin, 2009; Walker et al., 2008) is largely absent; faculty consistently report that their strategies for mentoring graduate students are based wholly on intuition and personal reactions to their own student experiences rather than any form of direct training or reliance on practices supported by empirical evidence (Delamont et al., 1998; Lee, 2008; Stephens, 2014). The prevalence of mentors’ anecdotally based practices leaves significant room for growth in mentoring training and practice in doctoral education, including approaches intentionally developed to enhance equity and cultural responsiveness (e.g., Griffin, 2020a; House et al., 2018). As Golde and Dore (2001, p. 5) summarized two decades ago in the Pew Charitable Trust’s report, At Cross Purposes: What the Experiences of Today’s Doctoral Students Reveal about Doctoral Education: In today’s doctoral programs there is a three-way mismatch between student goals, training, and actual careers.. . . Doctoral students persist in pursuing careers as faculty members, and graduate programs persist in preparing them for careers at research universities, despite the well-

334

D. F. Feldon et al.

publicized paucity of academic jobs and efforts to diversify the options available to doctorateholders. The result: Students are not well prepared to assume the faculty positions that are available, nor do they have a clear concept of their suitability for work outside of research.

It seems that despite a variety of efforts since then, these issues persist as challenges for Ph.D. students and their pursuit of faculty positions. Yet, even in current reports calling for greater responsiveness to the diverse career interests and opportunities of graduate students, there remains a fundamental attachment to the traditional structure of the academic doctorate. For example, the National Academies’ Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century report (NASEM, 2018, p. 106; italics added for emphasis) states: While STEM Ph.D. education needs to respond to the changing needs and interests of graduate students, evolving methods of scientific research, and workforce needs, it is essential to maintain the core educational elements that define a Ph.D. degree for each specific discipline.

Clearly, despite sustained and acknowledged needs for changes in the context of doctoral education, structural influences constrain the scope and nature of training redesign. While the specific rationales for maintaining core elements of traditional Ph.D. training typically remain implicit, the pressures imposed by institutional oversight of program requirements and ongoing disciplinary norms are likely elements that reinforce longstanding practices.

A Programmatic Effort to Change Doctoral Education: Preparing Future Faculty In the 1990s, the Council of Graduate Schools and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) partnered to create the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program,2 motivated by the recognition that regardless of their research training, a majority of Ph.D. recipients would become faculty at institutions with a primary mission of teaching for which they would not be fully prepared (Winter et al., 2018). From 1993 through 2003, more than 45 universities with doctoral programs implemented targeted programs to enhance Ph.D. students’ teaching skills and knowledge of varied career options. Some of these programs faded away with time, while others were successfully institutionalized and continue (ClaytonPedersen et al., 2002). As such, PFF programs and their successors represent an

2 As noted by Weisbuch and Cassuto (2016), a number of additional initiatives to assess and improve the Ph.D. launched between 1990 and 2015, including the Mellon Foundation’s Graduate Education Initiative, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation’s Responsive Ph.D. and The Humanities at Work, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate. However, these efforts focused substantially on reshaping Ph.D. programs to prepare and facilitate access for students to obtain employment outside of faculty roles. Consequently, they are not discussed as discrete initiatives within the current chapter, though relevant scholarship stemming from these efforts is cited when relevant.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

335

important feature for discussion in understanding the current landscape of graduate education and faculty pathways. PFF programs are based on three primary features: content that addresses “the full scope of faculty roles and responsibilities” (i.e., teaching, research, and service across various institutional types), multiple mentors who provide feedback on student development across the three content areas, and engagement with clusters of collaborating institutions or departments (Preparing Future Faculty, n.d.). These elements manifest differently across institutional sites and disciplinary areas, but programs are typically comprised of a combination of courses for credit, certificate programs, seminars, workshops, and informal activities (Gaff et al., 2003; PruittLogan et al., 2002). Related programs have also expanded to provide continued professional development in the areas of teaching, research, and service to newly minted doctoral recipients and early career faculty (e.g., Preparing Critical Faculty for the Future; Clayton-Pedersen et al., 2016). Indeed, the Aspire Alliance is one ongoing effort that seeks to bring research and practice together for institutional, regional, and national change toward increasing the number and diversity of the future STEM faculty pool (Aspire, n.d.). With a unique collaboration among disciplinary and knowledge organizations, networks for two- and four-year colleges, as well as lead partner institutions, Aspire is well poised to support collective impact in the training of future STEM faculty members. PFF also emphasized a range of formalized mentoring objectives and structures. In addition to research mentorship from primary advisors, the program detailed a need for mentoring to support teaching and service. In support of this, it established a novel mentoring model through clusters of institutions to support graduate students’ ability to become faculty at a diverse range of institutions (Gaff et al., 2000). In contrast to the guidance students might receive from faculty supervisors within their home departments that focused narrowly on coursework, research, and pursuing employment at research universities (Sauermann & Roach, 2012), the goal of crossprogram and cross-institutional mentoring within the cluster was to ensure that students had ready access to mentorship in all aspects of academic responsibilities (i.e., research, teaching, and service). Further, multiple participating institutions developed mentorship trainings and reference materials to faculty adopting promising practices. To support and expand such mentorship, clusters were designed to include at least one of multiple institutional types: a research institution, a four-year institution with a more robust teaching and/or extension mission (e.g., comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges), and a community or technical college. Clusters were often formed within a specific geographic area to facilitate exchange and student access, which provided opportunities to learn about and experience teaching at different types of institutions and receive guidance from faculty across those institutions on how to pursue varied career options. The structure of activities within clusters typically included both programmatic and individualized elements (Gaff et al., 2000). Programmatic features consisted of formal group visits to each cluster institution in conjunction with “a welcoming talk by a senior academic administrator discussing the mission and distinctive features of the institution; a discussion of

336

D. F. Feldon et al.

roles, responsibilities, and rewards of faculty; a tour of the campus and visits to departments of special interest to the doctoral students; and ample opportunities for informal conversation with faculty members” (p. 22). Individual elements emerged from conversations with individual faculty and were sustainably encouraged and fostered through regular invitations to attend lectures and events at cluster institutions. Systematic evaluation of these efforts has been limited, but the data obtained reflected high value from PFF participants. An internal program evaluation survey of 171 participants across disciplines found that 73% of PFF participants indicated they would recommend participation to other students “without reservation” (PruittLogan et al., 1998). In a survey of 129 program alumni from multiple institutions, DeNeef (2002) found that the mentoring received was considered the most impactful aspect of the program. In part, this was attributed to a shift in mentoring conversations away from an exclusive focus on research to engage discussion more broadly about multiple career paths, planning, and necessary skills beyond research methodology and publication. Further, the mentorship available through interactions with faculty beyond the primary advisor or dissertation chair were valuable, because students were less concerned about encountering disagreement or pressure outside their primary supervisory relationship where power dynamics could hold substantial and durable consequences. Faculty participating in PFF clusters were also from multiple types of postsecondary institutions, offering a diversity of career paths and priorities. As a result of their PFF training, most respondents reported that they felt more prepared than their peers at the outset of their faculty careers to generate professional documents such as teaching philosophy statements. A separate study from one PFF site indicated that 95% of participants used or planned to use teaching philosophy statements developed as part of their participation in the program during their search for a faculty position as part of their application materials (Schram et al., 2017). Driven by a concern for enhancing preparation of Ph.D. students’ professional teaching opportunities, as well as interests in enhancing the quality of instruction received by undergraduates at the hands of graduate students, one of the most frequently occurring aspects of PFF programs over their history has been creditbearing coursework focused on pedagogy and evidence-based teaching practices (Connolly et al., 2018; Robinson et al., 2019). Examining PFF and similar teaching development programs, Connolly et al. (2018) found that participants reported significantly greater self-efficacy for multiple facets of postsecondary teaching two years after participation than nonparticipants. Further, those who participated in the credit-bearing course format were significantly more efficacious than those who received pedagogical training through other formats. Robinson et al. (2019) surveyed US and Canadian institutions about the availability and locus of pedagogy courses available to graduate students and found that nearly 100 responding institutions have such courses with 55% residing in disciplinary departments and 32% in university centers for teaching and learning, which suggests substantial institutionalization of at least one core component of PFF programs. While not every institution in the survey was a formal PFF participant, it does reflect the diffusion of program elements across spheres of practice.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

337

Finally, site-specific evaluations – especially from larger institutions – provide more diverse data about the efficacy of PFF. For example, in a quantitative comparison against a control group of PFF nonparticipants, Ph.D. recipients from a sociology program were significantly more likely to report feelings of competence within their first job following completion of the doctorate (Wurgler et al., 2013). Similarly, at another institution, Schram et al. (2017) compared the long-term outcomes of participants in a PFF-affiliated ten-session seminar across seven annually constructed cohorts (n ¼ 370) with those who applied but ultimately were not selected or were unable to participate due to a conflict (n ¼ 181). Participants reported consistently high value for various aspects of their PFF experiences. However, neither the likelihood of attaining an academic position nor the type of employing institution differed significantly as a function of PFF participation. Beyond the targeted scope of PFF evaluations, research on graduate education more broadly has likewise examined the efficacy of doctoral training experiences. As we define and discuss below, this research has primarily viewed graduate training through a lens of socialization (Gardner, 2009a).

Socialization as an Explanatory Framework for US Doctoral Education Scholarly investigation of graduate education in the USA most commonly applies a theoretical framework of socialization. Generally, socialization represents a stagebased theory that characterizes graduate student development as dual acculturation to both disciplinary and institutional norms that facilitate transitions into and through graduate study, ultimately carrying over into an identity and professional role within the academic labor force. Merton, Reader, and Kendall (1957, pp. 40–41) defined socialization as: The process by which people selectively acquire the values and attitudes, the interests, skills and knowledge—in short, the culture—current in the groups to which they are, or seek to become a member. It refers to the learning of the social roles.

Similarly, 50 years later, Austin and McDaniels (2006a, p. 400) offered the following definition: A process of internalizing the expectations, standards, and norms of a given society, which includes learning the relevant skills, knowledge, habits, attitudes, and values of the group that one is joining.

The commonalities between these two definitions point to the robust stability of the overall perspective offered by a socialization framework. While variations do exist, they focus on the definition of stages of socialization and the relative emphasis of elements within the model. To understand these definitions as well as other scholars’ adaptations of a socialization lens over time, we offer a brief review of key socialization stages and more current conceptualizations (and challenges) below.

338

D. F. Feldon et al.

Socialization Stages While the number and nature of identified stages of the model have changed over time, socialization has endured as a widely used model to examine issues within graduate education. Early work that explored individuals’ socialization into the academy recognized just two socialization stages: anticipatory and organizational (Tierney & Rhoads, 1993), where the anticipatory stage referred to the graduate training period, and the organizational stage referred to the period in which new faculty adjusted and navigated faculty life. In more recent decades, Weidman and colleagues’ (2001; Twale et al., 2016; Weidman & DeAngelo, 2020) work on socialization theory has expanded to recognize the more nuanced stages of graduate training processes, while also acknowledging that these stages are not necessarily linear in nature. In Weidman et al.’s (2001) model, the anticipatory stage refers to the period where prospective students begin to learn about graduate training. During this stage, prospective students adapt their preconceived notions of graduate study, which they bring with them to their programs. As students matriculate into graduate programs, they enter the formal stage of socialization, in which they acquire knowledge through coursework and other formalized training activities. At this time, graduate students determine the extent to which they “fit” in their discipline and begin to develop a sense of belonging to academe. Next, the informal stage represents the critical period in which graduate students further develop mentoring relationships and form early professional networks. They also informally learn about the expectations and norms for professionals within their discipline, many of which are influenced by disciplinary cultures with socially coded values that shape individuals’ development of an identity as a professional/scholar as opposed to a student. Finally, the personal stage of socialization into academia occurs as students develop an internalized personal scholarly identity, which may involve assimilation and integration of academic norms and expectations. Gardner (2008) has also identified socialization stages to articulate three structural phases of doctoral training. Like Weidman et al. (2001), Gardner’s identified stages begin with an anticipatory phase, which she defines as beginning with doctoral program application, continuing through the admissions process, and ending with the beginning of coursework. Gardner emphasizes the importance of this period as a time when students begin to understand doctoral training, meet new peers and faculty, and make critical decisions regarding admission and enrollment. As students begin coursework, they enter the integration phase, where they are socialized via courses, interactions with peers and faculty, research or teaching assistantships, and other such mechanisms. During this second phase, students begin to make the transition from student to independent scholar, which prepares them for the third and final phase: candidacy. Upon advancing to candidacy, students focus primarily on their own dissertation research (in contrast to research wholly or largely specified by their supervisor) and developing plans to enter the job market. Gardner highlights the importance of students developing an independent scholarly identity during the candidacy phase, likening this phase to what Weidman et al. (2001) would refer to as the final, personal stage of socialization.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

339

Current Conceptualizations of Socialization Although Weidman et al.’ (2001) socialization framework is pervasive, it is not free from substantive critique. For example, Tierney and Rhoads (1993) previously pointed out that the socialization model problematically assumes that it is both accurate and appropriate to conceptualize graduate students exclusively as recipients of an intact culture and set of values – a critique left largely unaddressed by Weidman et al. (2001). Tierney and Rhoads argued that this passive perspective strips agency from students and suggests that they lack power to influence academe through the application of their own perspectives. More specifically, Tierney and Rhoads emphasized the importance of socialization as a bidirectional process, where “colleges and universities must modify their structures to meet the needs of their diverse members” (p. 6). Studies of how students exercise agency within the graduate socialization process increasingly highlight how students engage in individual decision-making relative to the ways they make meaning of and restructure the environments around them (Hopwood, 2010; O’Meara et al., 2014; Thiry et al., 2015). Indeed, doctoral Students of Color often build relationships across their programs to combat the dominant culture and feelings of isolation, taking intentional actions to transform academia while they navigate pathways to the professoriate (Portnoi et al., 2015). Antony’s (2002) extension of Tierney and Rhoads’s (1993) critique goes beyond a basic recognition of agency’s relevance to highlight the “more unique, individualistic, and. . .diverse nature of more recent incumbents to academic and professional roles” (p. 350) as poorly captured by the homogenizing lens of stage-based theories. Based on the fundamental importance of individuals’ wide range of backgrounds and experiences, Antony argues that it is unlikely that students would engage uniform activities or manifest uniform patterns of development as a function of engagement with graduate programs. Building from these parallel arguments that neither individual agency nor individual identity and experience are effectively represented in socialization, other critical perspectives have noted that the original framework did not attend substantively to the roles that race, gender, and other forms of social positionality play as an extension of how cultural structures, privileges, and discrimination shape the socialization experience and its outcomes (e.g., Clarke & Antonio, 2012; Cole & Griffin, 2013; Felder et al., 2014; Sallee, 2011; Winkle-Wagner & McCoy, 2016). For example, in their study of STEM doctoral Students of Color, Jaeger et al. (2017) critiqued socialization theory for its placement of students in a “passive role of being socialized into an existing academic departmental and disciplinary community” while failing to “fully consider the unique cultural characteristics of graduate students of color” (p. 233). To engage these critiques, Weidman and his colleagues (Twale et al., 2016; Weidman & DeAngelo, 2020) have expanded socialization theory to recognize student agency as well as the explicit role of individuals’ social identities (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender identity, socioeconomic status, and nationality) as characteristics that students bring with them to their doctoral programs. Although Twale et al. (2016) argued that

340

D. F. Feldon et al.

such considerations were also present in the original 2001 model, they receive expanded and more explicit consideration in the newest iterations. Further, the updated model recognizes the ways in which the history and culture of higher education institutions present both need and opportunity for students to exercise agency that shapes their higher education training environments. As part of understanding how agency operates within this updated model of graduate socialization, Weidman and DeAngelo (2020) call upon Bourdieu’s (1986) concepts of cultural capital as “those accumulated via family socialization” (p. 319) and social capital as the valuable relationships and networks (both current and potential) that students accumulate within university, disciplinary, and family/personal communities. In combination, these forms of capital constitute an evolving habitus, or “constellation of dispositions that [students] bring to their overall career/ life cycle development” (Weidman & DeAngelo, 2020, p. 321). However, in the context of higher education’s history of racism, sexism, and classism (e.g., Garcia et al., 2020; González, 2006), the cultural and social capital marshalled by White men can yield privileged pathways through graduate study and into careers that instantiate cumulative advantages which fundamentally separate their socialization experiences, processes, and outcomes from others (e.g., Feldon et al., 2017a; Roksa et al., 2022; Wofford et al., 2021). Thus, despite these revisions, integration into program and disciplinary environments is still central within Weidman and DeAngelo’s (2020) socialization model, reflecting a limited reconceptualization of the primary mechanisms and assumptions illustrated in Fig. 2. Accordingly, it may not fully capture the tensions that exist between individual student agency and structural inequities. Specifically, in

Fig. 2 Iterations of Weidman and colleagues’ socialization framework. (Source: Adapted by permission from Springer Nature Switzerland AG: Socialization in Higher Education and the Early Career: Theory, Research and Application [Weidman & DeAngelo, 2020])

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

341

assessing their perceived fit with the academic environment, individuals may choose to engage with or withdraw from socialization opportunities and mechanisms (Maher et al., 2020). Students who perceive a poor fit within their training environment are likely to limit their engagement with opportunities to interact more extensively with faculty or peers. In these instances, socialization mechanisms hold limited ability to advance students’ development, depending on the extent to which they choose to withdraw from interaction with the norms and structures of the socializing environment. For example, Wofford and Blaney (2021) applied the most updated socialization model (Weidman & DeAngelo, 2020) alongside Burt’s (2019) theoretical model of engineering professorial intentions to understand how women in STEM doctoral programs exercised agency as they navigated laboratory rotations and their selection of a lab and faculty advisor (or principal investigator [PI]) with whom to complete their doctoral training. Using longitudinal qualitative data, Wofford and Blaney found that women consistently played an active role in shaping their own doctoral experiences, but the agency they exercised in the lab selection process did little to address larger structural inequities in doctoral training processes. Likewise, González (2006) found that Latinas actively resisted assimilative socialization into their Ph.D. programs as those processes exerted pressures to conform to characteristically White and masculine conventions of scholarship. Those who successfully resisted found empowerment through networks built with other Latinas that facilitated the development of strong academic voices and frequent adoption of activistscholar models. In contrast, those who were unsuccessful in resisting the socializing pressure to assimilate experienced isolation, lack of scholarly confidence, and diminishing aspirations for their academic careers (González, 2006).

Mechanisms of Socialization Cognitive Apprenticeship Across conceptualizations of graduate socialization, specific features of student experiences have been consistently highlighted as central mechanisms. From the earliest versions, the role of the primary supervising faculty member has been highlighted as a key socialization agent (e.g., Austin, 2009; Parry, 2007; Pearson & Brew, 2002; Walker et al., 2008) and “the signature pedagogy of doctoral education” (Golde et al., 2009, p. 54). Frequently, this role has been conceptualized as a cognitive apprenticeship, in which the faculty mentor models and explains the academic and scholarly skills and processes needed for a Ph.D. student to successfully take on a scholarly role (Collins et al., 1991). Specifically, Austin (2009) notes that “the modeling needs to reveal the procedures as well as the ‘tricks of the trade’ or techniques used in accomplishing the work. . . helping the student move to doing increasingly more difficult parts of the work” (p. 176). When such modeling is successful, students “master. . .tacit, indeterminate skills and knowledge, produce usable results, and become professional [scholars who] learn to write public accounts of their investigations which omit the uncertainties, contingencies, and personal craft

342

D. F. Feldon et al.

skills” (Delamont & Atkinson, 2001, p. 88). The success of cognitive apprenticeship is typically presumed to hinge on a mentor’s privileged insights into the developing knowledge and skills of the mentee, such that they can offer individualized guidance to optimally support scholarly development. However, evidence suggests that faculty mentors’ perceptions of their students’ abilities diverge both from students’ selfperceptions and independent evaluations of students’ scholarly work (Feldon et al., 2015). Further, students are likely to characterize the nature of the guidance they receive as exhortations to engage in trial-and-error learning with little explicit guidance (Maher et al., 2013b). While faculty modeling can shape doctoral students’ successful navigation of the academy in important ways (e.g., Paglis et al., 2006; Williams et al., 2018), a reliance on cognitive apprenticeship also leaves significant room for the hidden curriculum – or the informal sets of rules that guide success but are often inequitably or inconsistently explained to students – to persist in graduate education, with only a subset of students receiving formalized guidance about the “rules” within the hidden curriculum. Differential access to institutional knowledge begins far before graduate school, but these inequities are often maintained through cumulative advantage (i.e., the Matthew Effect; Feldon et al., 2016a; Gopaul, 2019) and academic structures of doctoral education such as faculty advisor relationships, codified “rules,” conventions with disparate value, and professional development activities (Gopaul, 2011, 2015, 2016; Wofford et al., 2021). In a recent study examining how first-generation students and continuing-generation students (i.e., students with college-educated parents) conceptualized the role of the faculty advisor/PI, Wofford et al. (2021) found that first-generation students ascribed different meanings to concepts than their continuing-generation peers, even when using similar language. Firstgeneration students expected direct and skill-based guidance from faculty advisors, whereas continuing-generation students expected independence, documenting how differential access to faculty support and institutional resources in doctoral education begins with students’ expectations. Across several studies, Gopaul (2011, 2015, 2016) also illuminated how embedded mechanisms (e.g., networking, rules, and norms) of doctoral training uphold inequality, often by leaving information about these mechanisms opaque and indiscernible. Without creating institutional structures that train faculty advisors to equitably illuminate the informal processes and knowledge that comprise the hidden curriculum, mechanisms of socialization will continue to reproduce unequal outcomes.

Scholarly Writing and Publication Another key aspect of socialization is participation in coauthoring of scholarly products (Kamler, 2010; Shulman, 2005), although the stage at which such opportunities occur varies substantially across individual experiences (Aitchison et al., 2012). In addition to the direct development of relevant skills and familiarity with disciplinary genres, Kamler (2008) argues that without this mode of mentorship, many doctoral students would fail to publish at all during their graduate training. Further, Feldon et al. (2016a, b) found that participation in student-faculty coauthoring accounted for greater growth in methodological research skills beyond

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

343

writing mechanics compared to students who did not have coauthoring opportunities. Despite the benefits of coauthorship, it remains a complex opportunity that is not equitably afforded to doctoral students. Economic and disciplinary structures of graduate education, for example, create disparate opportunities for doctoral students to access coauthorship opportunities that are dependent on research environments and academic funding (Perna & Hudgins, 1996), which may explain the documented relationship between doctoral assistantships and pathways to faculty careers (Fernandez, 2019). Further, even when coauthoring experiences are available, they may vary substantially due to dysfunctional power dynamics that often influence authorship order and scholarly credit (Gaughan & Bozeman, 2016). Accordingly, multiple structures may converge to shape inequitable access to and credit for research contributions. For example, Feldon and colleagues (2017a, b) found that women in their first year of doctoral training in the biological sciences were 15% less likely than men in their cohort to receive authorship credit for every 100 hours of time spent on research. Further, when surveyed about the influences on the ways in which they allocated time for their research assistantships, women only differed significantly from men on the basis of an increased importance for investing time based on the demands of the research project. Further, Roksa et al. (2022) found that, over a five-year period of graduate study, gaps in scholarly productivity widened on the basis of both race/ethnicity and gender. White men rapidly increased their numbers of both first- and coauthored publications over time relative to People of Color. Women attained coauthorship on publications at a rate equivalent to People of Color, but they demonstrated a smaller gap in first-authored publications. Such inequities may carry forward to career opportunities, as publication rates in graduate school are predictive of both future scholarly productivity and postgraduate hiring decisions (Ehrenberg et al., 2009; Lindahl et al., 2020; Paglis et al., 2006; Way et al., 2019).

Mentoring Networks Beyond the role of the primary faculty advisor or mentor, recent research has identified more complex mentoring structures that impact the socialization and development of doctoral students. These developmental networks include peers, other faculty (beyond the direct supervisor and advisor), administrators, family, and additional salient others (Higgins & Kram, 2001). The combination of these influential people and communities has often been explored through a reconceptualization of mentorship, in which developmental networks are “set[s] of people a protégé names as taking an active interest in and action to advance the protégé’s career by providing developmental assistance” (Higgins & Kram, 2001, p. 268). By emphasizing both the strength and diversity of graduate students’ mentoring relationships, developmental networks create opportunities for graduate students to access a variety of advice related to future careers, technical skills, and emotional or psychosocial support (Baker & Pifer, 2011; Sweitzer, 2009). Advancing the view that “mentoring is an endeavor of villages rather than individuals” is one crucial way that graduate education can promote a mentoring culture (Johnson et al., 2022, p. 3). Johnson and colleagues define a mentoring culture as a relational and communication-rich environment where mentees dynamically

344

D. F. Feldon et al.

experience “genuine welcome and deep care, accrue a web of significant developmental relationships, and find different members of the training community offering guidance, encouragement, coaching, role modeling, sponsorship, challenge, and support for achieving work-life integration” (p. 3). In turn, a mentoring culture may also cultivate greater equity in mentorship within graduate education (Griffin et al., 2018). In support of developmental networks as beneficial mentoring structures, Feldon et al. (2019) demonstrated that the role of the faculty mentor may be substantially less influential on skill development during doctoral training than senior peers such as more advanced graduate students and postdoctoral research associates. Specifically, the student-reported quality of mentorship they received from their faculty advisors/PIs did not predict the trajectory of their skill development over four years of doctoral study. Instead, when graduate students reported that senior doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in their laboratories were actively engaged in discussions within the lab, the students were four to five times more likely to demonstrate sustained positive development of their research skills. Developmental networks and receiving support from individuals including and beyond faculty advisors may be especially important in supporting racially minoritized graduate students, as Griffin et al. (2018) found that developers within these networks offered unique forms of identity-based support to graduate students holding racially minoritized identities in the sciences.

Empirical Challenges to Graduate Socialization Theory As discussed above, critiques and revisions of socialization have primarily focused on issues related to student agency and applicability to developmental processes for Students of Color (both collectively and with regard to specific racially minoritized groups). However, additional concerns about the theory have emerged as studies using quantitative approaches have failed to generate data consistent with its predictions (Feldon, 2020). The process of socializing into a given discipline is understood to contribute to multiple outcomes that include persistence within a doctoral degree program, research self-efficacy (i.e., confidence in one’s ability as a researcher), intent to pursue a faculty or research position, scholarly publications, and the development of specific research skills and other scholarly practices (Austin, 2002; Lovitts, 2001; Reybold, 2003; Weidman & Stein, 2003). Accordingly, multiple studies have examined the prospective relationships between the mechanisms of socialization and these outcomes to assess the extent to which socialization can account for growth on such indicators of scholarly development. Although socialization is inherently a longitudinal process, there are relatively few longitudinal studies of doctoral students’ development. Those that rely on qualitative perspectives (e.g., Holley, 2018; Wulff et al., 2004) utilize the socialization framework as an interpretive lens for understanding students’ experiences, but they have not examined change to discrete outcomes as a function of quality of socialization experiences. In contrast, outcome-focused studies find discrepant results in the face of extensive and positive socialization. For example, while Paglis

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

345

et al. (2006) reported that the quality of the mentoring support Ph.D. students received positively predicted future scholarly productivity and research self-efficacy, it did not predict subsequent commitment to pursuing a faculty or research career. Across multiple studies in STEM disciplines examining the role of faculty mentorship in the development of research skills over time, results indicated no association between mentorship quality or access and skill growth over time (Feldon et al., 2016a, b; Feldon et al., 2019). Further, Jeong et al. (2020) found that improving or diminishing quality of socialization experiences over time were not associated with increases or decreases in reported sense of belonging, intellectual development, or commitment to pursuing an academic career. These changes were also not associated with changes in scholarly productivity. Students who reported the highest levels of socialization did have slightly higher numbers of publications in the early part of their degree programs, but that effect did not hold in subsequent years and overall increase in publications over time did not differ. From these studies, it has become clear that understanding longitudinal outcomes of doctoral education through a socialization lens holds inherent challenges, some of which may be uniquely experienced for historically minoritized students in graduate education. Studies that have examined the relationships between socialization indicators and relevant outcomes across historically minoritized groups likewise find an absence of expected associations (Jeong et al., 2020). For example, although Asian international students reported the lowest levels of positive socialization experiences as a group, their scholarly productivity was greater than domestic students, including those identifying as Asian (Roksa et al., 2018b). Similarly, another study indicated that among first-generation college students, socialization experiences during doctoral study did not relate to their commitment to complete the doctoral degree (Roksa et al., 2018a). Given the varied conclusions that these longitudinal studies have reported about the outcomes of socialization and for whom these outcomes apply, there remains a clear need to increase our understanding of long-term doctoral student development if we are to better understand the constellation of factors that shape pathways to the professoriate. Further, failures to replicate the patterns observed in early studies of graduate socialization may point to the homogeneity that characterized the graduate student population in previous decades. As barriers to access decrease, new theoretical frameworks that do not rely on tacit assumptions disproportionately applicable to White men in higher education are likely needed (Arellano, 2022).

Summary The history of the development of research and practice in doctoral education has anchored largely on broad consensus agendas. In tandem, the socialization framework and the PFF agenda have distilled generalized frameworks that center students as exercising moderate levels of agency as they navigate the institutional, disciplinary, economic, and cultural structures of the academy. In doing so, they have facilitated extensive examination and interventions intended to empower students to achieve personal goals while developing a sense of belonging within overlapping

346

D. F. Feldon et al.

spheres of activity. However, much of the foundational work for these efforts was conceptualized with a population that largely reflected White men, in which consensus regarding values, goals, and salient structures may have been easier to distill. As the doctoral student population in the USA has continued to diversify at an increasing rate over the past four decades from ~70% White and ~ 70% male in 1980 to ~45% White and ~ 55% male in 2020 (per National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates [2021]; see also Okahana & Zhou, 2018), an increasing number of variations in both theoretical framing and practice to prepare future faculty have emerged – either under a titular heading of socialization (e.g., Garcia et al., 2020; Phelps-Ward, 2020; Winkle-Wagner et al., 2020) or engaging culturally responsive and critical theory frameworks (e.g., Gooden et al., 2020; Williams et al., 2018). In this context, longstanding understandings and frameworks warrant reassessment as the population and its needs and expectations shift. Specifically, amid the recent expansion of research that centers the perspectives and experiences of historically minoritized peoples within the academy, future scholarship may offer wholly new frameworks to bridge multiple levels of interacting structures and individual and collective agency. Research questions for future scholarship in this area may recommend further inquiry into the sufficiency of the socialization to account for trends in current graduate education (e.g., Feldon, 2020; Jeong et al., 2020), the extent to which power plays a role in shaping students’ experiences and how equity can be enhanced within that context (e.g., Bettencourt et al., 2021), and how practices intended to prepare doctoral students for careers both within and outside the academy may be more effective as economic structures continue to shift the dynamics of research endeavors (e.g., Helm et al., 2012; NASEM, 2018).

Evolution of Doctoral Career Pathways In the wake of the Pew Report (Golde & Dore, 2001), scholars of graduate education generated key empirical knowledge about Ph.D. students’ experiences entering and completing (or leaving; see Lovitts, 2001) their training in the “ivory tower” under the presumption that facilitating entry into academic careers was an optimal professional outcome (Nerad, 2004). However, as the landscape of academe has transformed, so too have the career pathways of Ph.D. students. In this section, we first provide an overview of how research on doctoral career pathways have evolved, especially for those aspiring to the professoriate. In this context, research has increasingly centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion as key foci in studies about graduate education and academic careers, which is perhaps a transition that has spurred increased critiques of the predominant socialization framework.

Expanding Our Understanding of Ph.D. Career Pathways In a presidential address at the 2001 Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) conference, Austin (2003) presciently noted structural-level and student-

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

347

level challenges that may impede the process of preparing doctoral students as future faculty. At the time, she noted multiple salient forces affecting US colleges and universities (i.e., public skepticism, institutional fiscal constraints, increased diversity among the student body, greater emphasis on learning outcomes, increased new technologies, changing nature of academic knowledge, and emerging institutional competition with online and for-profit programs). Specifically, Austin discussed structural features of the changing academic landscape in terms of how they would surely alter the nature of faculty work (e.g., increase in part-time and term faculty positions). Instead of turning away from these challenges, Austin charged the ASHE community of higher education scholars to confront them at departmental, college, and institutional levels – actions that might sway both institutional adaptations to changing pressures on faculty work and the ways doctoral students prepare for these pressures. However, in the next decade of scholarship on graduate education and professional outcomes, researchers began to unveil how some of these contextual and structural challenges may increasingly cause doctoral students to be avoidant of faculty careers in their entirety, perhaps due to the ways in which these challenges create stressors on individuals’ mental health and work-life balance. To fully understand the modern context for the preparation of the faculty workforce, it is necessary to examine the growing focus on well-being, work-life balance, and the factors that contribute to students choosing to pursue nonacademic careers.

Well-Being, Work-Life Balance, and Considerations of Career Choices While often absent from conversations about graduate education that use a socialization perspective, mental health and well-being represent another area of crucial, growing interest to scholars of graduate education. It is vital to recognize that doctoral education is far more than an academic experience, it is often immersive and deeply personal. While socialization does account for some personal features of doctoral students’ experiences when it comes to fostering a professional identity or having informal relationships, mental health and well-being have not been a key focus in prior literature. Given existing research about well-being-related topics (e.g., work-life balance) in the body of literature about faculty experiences, elevating our focus on mental health and well-being in graduate education and faculty pathways may help illuminate junctures of (mis)alignment between doctoral students’ aspirations for their future careers and how faculty careers are or are not constructed to support such desires. Mental health and well-being remain relatively new topics of interest in the graduate education literature, made more salient by recent national press (e.g., Evans et al., 2018; NASEM, 2021) and added stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic (Wasil et al., 2021). Near the turn of the century, few studies (e.g., Hyun et al., 2006; Turner & Berry, 2000; Wilson et al., 1997) acknowledged mental health and wellbeing as it relates to graduate student success and retention. However, the dearth of earlier research on mental health does not mirror the persistent concerns among graduate students, as nearly half of the graduate students included in Hyun et al.’ (2006) analysis (n ¼ 3121) reported having an emotional or stress-related problem over the course of the previous year. Mental health has garnered more empirical

348

D. F. Feldon et al.

attention over the last decade, with Evans et al. (2018) noting mental health to be a crisis in graduate education. To illuminate areas where mental health and well-being may be improved in graduate training, researchers have drawn attention to students’ symptoms and coping skills (El-Ghoroury et al., 2012; Park et al., 2017b; Satinsky et al., 2021) as well as the inequitable prevalence of mental health concerns for Black, Latina/o/x, and LGBTQ graduate students (Posselt, 2021a), especially Black and Latina women (Wilkins-Yel et al., 2022). Studies have also identified ways in which faculty mentors can better support graduate students’ well-being by normalizing challenges and failures in the academy (Posselt, 2018a). Collectively, these and other emerging studies increasingly point to a need for mental health and well-being to be prioritized at every stage of graduate training and for institutions to accept responsibility for promoting graduate student well-being (Posselt, 2021b). Further, while growing evidence documents the well-being challenges that postdocs and other early career scholars face as they pursue temporary and insecure academic positions (Van Benthem et al., 2020), there is a significant need to understand how mental health and well-being shape early career scholars’ decision-making processes about their potential future careers as faculty members. In the context of discussing pathways to faculty careers, concerns about faculty well-being become particularly relevant when considering the signals that doctoral students – as the pool of future faculty – may notice and use to guide their career decisions. Discourse about mental health, well-being, and academic careers in the professoriate has long reflected a range of concerns. Among these concerns, scholars have been invested in discussions about equity in work-life balance (e.g., Austin, 2003; Culpepper et al., 2020; Szelényi & Denson, 2019), exclusionary tenure and promotion processes (e.g., Arnold et al., 2016; Corneille et al., 2019; Guillaume & Apodaca, 2020), and disproportionate care work as well as workloads among women faculty, Faculty of Color, and especially Women of Color in faculty roles (e.g., Denson et al., 2018; Docka-Filipek & Stone, 2021; Navarro et al., 2013; Vakalahi & Starks, 2011). As Austin (2003) noted, graduate students may see these barriers impacting their faculty advisors’ realities in academic life – especially the lives of faculty holding gender and racially minoritized identities – and question, “Do I really want a life like that?” (p. 120). Thus, in addition to the structural transformation needed to better support mental health and well-being in graduate education, there is a distinct need to improve the institutional and societal conditions that shape such for faculty members. While scant literature has drawn specific attention to the ways that doctoral students’ perceptions of (im)balance in faculty lives shape academic career pursuits, it is plausible that the compounding issues across faculty and graduate student well-being are negatively shaping access into and diversity in the professoriate.

Contextualizing the Growth of Nonacademic Careers Faculty careers have long been presumed to be the intended career goal of Ph.D. students, perhaps because these assumptions often come from current faculty who often have little firsthand knowledge of other postdoctoral careers (Sauermann &

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

349

Roach, 2012). Research on graduate education and post-Ph.D. career outcomes increasingly began to problematize the notion of a “faculty pipeline” circa 2010. In light of the structural tensions that American higher education leaders faced at this time (Austin & McDaniels, 2006a; Day et al., 2012; Gibbs et al., 2016) and doctoral students’ increasing concerns about unclear expectations and problematic work-life balance within faculty careers (Austin, 2003; Cannady et al., 2014; Quinn & Litzler, 2009; Roach & Sauermann, 2017), many scholars made clear that doctoral education needed to expand its purview of training beyond a sole focus on preparation for faculty careers. Not only are doctoral students increasingly concerned about whether faculty careers will suit their career intentions, recent research has also illuminated system-level concerns about the competitiveness of the academic job market. For example, Larson et al. (2014) examined the Ph.D.-to-faculty “pipeline” from a systems-level perspective, offering a “birth rate” analogy about the exceedingly high reproduction rate that academia has for faculty positions. The study revealed that an average US professor in engineering graduates 7.8 new doctoral recipients during their career – implying that only 12.8% of Ph.D. graduates might attain an academic position based on the assumption that only one Ph.D. graduate would replace a given professor who vacated their position. In the biological sciences, a similar challenge exists, as illustrated by the National Institutes of Health’s launch of the Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) program. BEST provides institutional grants to develop training pathways for those earning a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences to enter careers outside of academic research (Brandt et al., 2021; Lenzi et al., 2020). Likewise, in the humanities, McCarthy’s (2017) report highlights practices to prepare Ph.D. recipients to enter nonacademic careers. The prominent tensions felt by institutions and doctoral students have resulted in a vast shift in career pathways for recent doctoral graduates. Looking to recent data from the National Science Foundation, there is a clear illustration that speaks to the ways in which doctoral students’ career trajectories have changed over time. Overall, the percentage of doctorate recipients (across all fields) committed to employment in academe decreased from 48.8% in 1999 to 41.3% in 2019, with some of the steepest declines in scientific fields (NCSES 2020). While this is not a universal trend and many Ph.D. students still retain their faculty aspirations throughout doctoral education, Etmanski (2019) found that students in physical and mathematical sciences were most likely to be “cooled out” of their aspirations for faculty careers. Indeed, in analyzing the career preferences of Ph.D. students and early career scientists, researchers have provided retrospective crosssectional and longitudinal evidence that document the ways in which STEM doctoral students’ career interests change throughout the course of their graduate training – most often away from academic careers (Fuhrmann et al., 2011; Gibbs & Griffin, 2013; Roach & Sauermann, 2017; Sauermann & Roach, 2012). Further, even if doctorate recipients still hold faculty aspirations at the conclusion of their degree, the availability of TT faculty positions offers a harsh reality of competition and precarity (which we discuss in sections “Labor Market Issues and Realities” and “Moving into the Future”).

350

D. F. Feldon et al.

It is, of course, essential that doctoral education programs continue to improve learning environments for those aspiring to faculty roles, particularly when considering how access to faculty roles has long been inequitable across disciplines (Griffin, 2020b). Such inequities are well documented, especially when it comes to racial disparities in who pursues faculty careers (e.g., Layton et al., 2016; Kamimura-Jimenez & Gonzalez, 2018). However, researchers have also asserted that it is important for doctoral programs to make information about the utility of a doctoral degree in other industries widely available in a career pathways perspective (Blaney et al., 2022; Fuhrmann et al., 2011; Gibbs & Griffin, 2013; Okahana & Kinoshita, 2018; Solem et al., 2013). Based on these and other empirical findings, graduate education has seen the recent emergence of partnerships between a variety of stakeholders (e.g., professional societies, foundations, and universities) to build capacity for research on broadened career pathways and to advocate for increased holistic professional development (see Bixenmann et al., 2020; St. Clair et al., 2017). As scholars move forward in examining the structures and outcomes of doctoral training, it will be essential to consider expanded career pathways beyond the professoriate.

Pathways to Faculty Positions At an individual level, career decision-making – and motivation to pursue a particular career – has long been understood through a social cognitive lens, informed by individual values, self-efficacy, and expected outcomes (Lent et al., 2002). Recent research documents how doctoral students’ commitment to a faculty career changes over time (Gibbs & Griffin, 2013; Blaney et al., 2022) as a result of variable programmatic support and larger contextual and life circumstances (Seo & Yeo, 2020). Experiences within and beyond the graduate program can continually inform and reshape students’ habitus and career objectives, as recognized by Weidman and DeAngelo’s (2020) newest iteration of graduate socialization theory. Further, as students navigate and observe the faculty job market and nature of academic careers, they exercise agency by revisiting their own career pathways (O’Meara et al., 2014). Supporting student agency in career decision-making is critical, as agency is associated with greater motivation and career placement outcomes, and prior research demonstrates how graduate programs can enhance student agency by providing resources and opportunities (O’Meara et al., 2014). More specifically, faculty can enhance student agency in their career pathways by legitimizing nonacademic careers, providing opportunities for students to develop confidence by allowing them to have autonomy to perform functions of faculty life, and facilitating networking and other mentoring opportunities; collectively, these and related practices can expand students’ understanding of their potential career options (St. Clair et al., 2017). In some ways, the mechanisms available to graduating doctoral students are specific to individual disciplines. For example, in some disciplines, a large number of graduates enter postdoctoral research positions as temporary employment to acquire additional training or bolster records of scholarly productivity prior to pursuing a faculty or industrial career (Gibbs & Griffin, 2013). Indeed, in

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

351

the biological sciences, nearly all new faculty entering tenure track positions at elite research institutions first complete postdoctoral appointments at 1 of only 20 laboratories in the USA (Sheltzer & Smith, 2014). However, postdoctoral appointments of this type may be highly unusual or altogether absent in other disciplines (Denton et al., 2022; McCarthy, 2017). It is also the case that in STEM disciplines, interest in pursuing a faculty career decreases substantially during postdoctoral appointments, especially for women and People of Color, leading to pursuit of employment outside the academy (Gibbs et al., 2014; Hayter & Parker, 2019). As obtaining a faculty career has become increasingly competitive, career decision-making processes have become more complex, both in terms of how students use their agency to navigate careers and the specific types of careers they choose to pursue. Lindholm (2004) found that professors who navigated the job market during especially competitive periods tended to have a weaker sense of agency over their careers. Using retrospective data from faculty across ranks, this study revealed that senior faculty who began their careers when faculty positions were abundant tended to report greater confidence and agency, having had the opportunity to choose the faculty job and institution that best aligned with their career goals. At the same time, early career faculty tended to report a more passive faculty search process, in which they were not able to be selective in terms of institutions that they perceived as a “fit” and were grateful to receive a single job offer. Still, in today’s job market, doctoral students may exercise agency by choosing to pursue a wider variety of careers beyond traditional tenure track positions. Indeed, in recent years, researchers have documented that doctoral students are increasingly considering a wider range of careers beyond academia (see Fuhrmann et al., 2011; Roach & Sauermann, 2017). Even among doctorates pursuing competitive faculty careers, individuals exercise agency in the form of taking strategic action to “overcome systemic challenges in order to pursue professional goals” (Campbell & O’Meara, 2014, p. 53). Another way that doctoral students exercise agency over their career pathways is by pushing back on larger structures meant to force Ph.D. students to compete for scarce academic opportunities (e.g., Larson et al., 2014; Speakman et al., 2018). Prior research illustrates how doctoral students take collective action to improve the academic climate in their training environments, which may be connected to their drive to continue toward an academic career (McAlpine & Amundsen, 2009). Further, doctoral students may subvert dominant training environments altogether by creating their own advancement opportunities, in the form of student-run academic journals, job market workshops, and other student-led spaces. Recognizing the larger structures that traditionally position faculty as gatekeepers to publishing and academic career opportunities, the act of organizing to create one’s own opportunities for career advancement can represent an act of resistance to dominant structures. Further, such student-created spaces may play a particularly important role for advancing doctoral Students of Color who disproportionately experience racism, other forms of discrimination, and restricted access within dominant and normative training environments.

352

D. F. Feldon et al.

Mechanisms of Faculty Preparation in Doctoral Education Through a foundational chapter to the literature on graduate education, Austin and McDaniels (2006a) offered an expanded synthesis of the known societal, institutional, and relational pressures that Austin (2003) conveyed. In this work, Austin and McDaniels first discussed existing theoretical perspectives about preparing faculty (focusing predominantly on socialization) before articulating the skills, abilities, and competencies that institutions should prioritize for doctoral student development to help them meet the changing needs of faculty careers. The chapter further articulated emerging empirical concerns about graduate student socialization for faculty roles (i.e., changing academic job market, experiences of historically minoritized individuals in the academy, role of technology, and increased need for interdisciplinary pedagogical dialogue), ultimately concluding with practical strategies that might serve as helpful adaptations to advance Ph.D. students’ pursuit of and preparation for faculty careers. Although much of the discussion raised nearly two decades ago remains highly relevant, our knowledge about several other elements of graduate education and faculty pathways has expanded. Here, we provide a brief discussion of recent scholarship on doctoral students’ preparation to conduct research, teach and mentor, and engage in university and field-level services – areas of knowledge and skills that Austin and McDaniels discussed as crucial to faculty preparation, and ones that vary widely depending on discipline of graduate study and students’ social identities (as well as the systems that create power and inequality linked to such identities).

Understanding of Research Processes Conducting and interpreting research are key functions of doctoral education (Austin, 2002; Austin & McDaniels, 2006b; Boyer, 1990), and recent work has provided new insights about how these processes may materialize in graduate environments. For one, the transition to independent research in doctoral education – a shared developmental stage across disciplines – has been a vital focus (e.g., Baker & Pifer, 2014; Barnard & Shultz, 2020; Boyce et al., 2019; Gardner, 2008; Lovitts, 2008). Studies have shown that the process of becoming an independent researcher is laced with complications, both for students negotiating their growth (Baker & Pifer, 2014; Baker et al., 2013; Wofford et al., 2021) and faculty advisors who may be facilitating or constraining opportunities for growth (Feldon et al., 2015; Gardner, 2009a; Posselt, 2018b). As one illustration, Gardner (2008) juxtaposed students’ doctoral experiences in history and chemistry to discuss the preparation of independent scholars, and most participants (across disciplines) felt unprepared for the lack of structure and need for self-direction in this process. Beyond scholars’ interest in the stages of doctoral students’ skill development, there has also been an uptick in studies about specific skills that one may develop (or not) during the Ph.D. Austin and McDaniels (2006a, 2006b) provided a crucial extension to our understanding of scholarly stages and research identity by centering on specific skills needed to understand research (i.e., framing questions, designing projects, collecting and analyzing data, presenting results, as well as giving and receiving

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

353

feedback). Doctoral students’ acquisition of these and other skills has since been well documented through structured experiences such as faculty-student coauthorship (Feldon et al. 2016a, b), journal clubs (Minerick, 2011; Newswander & Borrego, 2009), and writing groups or workshops (Mewburn et al., 2014; Sarnecka et al., 2022). For example, journal clubs serve as a mechanism to advance graduate students’ skills in identifying relevant literature, being critical consumers of research, and leading discussions about the applicability of literature (Feldon et al. 2017a, b; Minerick, 2011). Further, Sarnecka et al.’s (2022) recent study demonstrated the efficacy of a five-week faculty-led writing workshop intervention, in which doctoral students became more confident in their abilities as academic writers and increased the extent to which they enjoyed writing about, engaged in planning of, and more productively generated research products. Despite the utility of these and other findings about particular facets of skill development, much remains to be learned about how discrete skills and research identity can be (re)imagined in holistic ways that value doctoral students’ agency and existing strengths in research training. Despite the shared goal of doctoral education to prepare individuals who can produce original research (Golde & Walker, 2006), disciplinary and field-specific differences characterize important ways that doctoral students’ understandings of research processes, and thus their preparation to engage in research as a faculty member, diverge from one another. Early literature on doctoral education (Becher, 1981; Biglan, 1973) attended to distinctions in cultures, values, and norms within and among disciplines, conceptualized into four categories by Becher & Trowler (2001): pure sciences, humanities, technologies, and applied social sciences. Although interdisciplinarity has been a funded national priority for graduate education (see Carney et al., 2011), structural and conceptual disciplinary differences remain salient. Consequently, such differences set the stage for how doctoral students learn and engage in understanding the research process, which several studies have shed light on in the last decade. While our goal is not to summarize each study that has illustrated disciplinary differences in doctoral students’ research development, one key takeaway from these endeavors is that the setting of acquiring research skills and scholarly identity shapes how these processes unfold. That is, doctoral students’ understanding of research in laboratory settings (common in pure sciences) is reflective of the physical and social structures of the lab (Maher et al., 2020; Park et al., 2017a, b; Ynalvez et al., 2017). Offering an example in chemical engineering labs, Park and colleagues (2017a, b) emphasized that the lab structure and culture influenced how communication, collaboration, and individual learning occurred in research. Outside of the unique features of labs, other scholars have frequently examined doctoral students’ mastery of research processes within a community of practice (see Lave & Wenger, 1991), which has offered insight into how structured learning connections in graduate education settings shape doctoral students’ knowledge and identities as emerging academics (Coffman et al., 2016; Crede et al., 2010; Nerad, 2012). Across disciplines, such learning environments beget the question of how these structured settings of graduate education facilitate or hinder equity in doctoral students’ learning about research processes, particularly in consideration of the ways that

354

D. F. Feldon et al.

these environments might uphold policies or practices that minoritize certain students based on their social identities. Given the inequitable dynamics at play in graduate environments, we must consider how doctoral students’ development of research skills and scholarly identity are not devoid of influence from their social identities beyond the realm of their discipline. There has been a significant uptick in studies concerning how mastering knowledge about the research process is experienced uniquely for students who have been systemically excluded from doctoral education (e.g., Students of Color, poor and working-class students, women, queer, and trans* students). For one, ethnographic work on field culture has related the grueling work expectations of graduate education in the geosciences to the masculine, militaristic history of scientific fieldwork and expectations for “toughness,” and women are all too often expected to simply adopt these forms of knowledge production that misalign with their lived experiences (Posselt, 2020). Across a range of disciplines, researchers have also found that scholarly discourse in doctoral education reflects elitism and classism (Crumb et al., 2020; Gardner & Holley, 2011; Ramirez, 2017), resulting in workingclass and first-generation doctoral students (who may also be minoritized due to their race, gender, disability, sexuality, etc.) having “one foot in both worlds, while also feeling detached from both” (Gardner & Holley, 2011, p. 88). These and other recent studies have illustrated the challenges faced and resiliency displayed by doctoral students who are learning to understand research processes while confronting minoritizing learning environments; however, institutions have made seemingly little progress in transforming research structures in doctoral education to reconcile these tensions.

Understanding Approaches to Teaching and Mentoring While considered essential pieces of nearly all faculty positions, the vast majority of doctoral students are inadequately prepared with effective strategies for teaching and mentoring (e.g., Austin & McDaniels, 2006a; Gaff et al., 2003), leaving new faculty underprepared for a key component of their day-to-day life. Wulff and Austin (2004) advocated for prospective faculty to gain a better understanding of learning processes and instructional strategies in their doctoral preparation, so that strategies are systemically learned instead of reliant upon doctoral students’ observations of practices they wish to emulate or avoid (Austin, 2002). Despite the recommendations, changes to pedagogical training in doctoral education have remained scant. Using a sample of 122 political science Ph.D. programs, Ishiyama et al. (2010) found that attending an institutional offering of a graduate-level course on college teaching was inversely related to the research productivity of the department and that such courses were more likely to be offered at public institutions rather than private. However, multiple studies have found that teaching and research efforts are not inherently antagonistic within individuals (Hattie & Marsh, 1996; Marsh & Hattie, 2002; Shortlidge & Eddy, 2018). Indeed, Feldon et al. (2011) found that graduate students who engaged in teaching activities had greater research skill development than those who only engaged in research. Additionally, Connolly, Savoy, Lee, and Hill (2016) found that participants in teacher development training within STEM

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

355

disciplines (n ¼ 3060) did not have longer times to degree. Further, those participants who reported more than 55 hours of teaching development were significantly more likely to move into a faculty position within five years of completing the Ph.D., after controlling for other factors, including a postdoctoral appointment. One popular mechanism of pedagogical training in doctoral education has emerged through the establishment and growth of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), a network comprised of nearly 40 US and Canadian universities that seek “to enhance excellence in STEM undergraduate education through development of a national faculty committed to implementing and advancing evidence-based teaching practices for diverse learners” (CIRTL Network, n.d.). Principally, CIRTL was founded on and focuses on advancement of effective teaching practices in STEM fields by way of institutional-level program development (see Austin, 2010). However, participating institutions in the CIRTL network have recently begun to expand their offerings across disciplines (e.g., UCLA CIRTL, n.d.). While doctoral students’ participation in CIRTL is not required for any degree program, a small body of literature has been dedicated to examining the outcomes of CIRTL efforts in recent years (Austin, 2010; Hill et al., 2019a; Hill et al., 2019b; Mathieu et al., 2020). The three pillars of CIRTL (i.e., teaching-as-research, learning communities, and learning through diversity) have underscored the development of curricular opportunities for learning, especially through networks that connect CIRTL communities across institutions (Hill et al., 2019b) and internships for STEM doctoral students who aspire to become community college faculty members (Gillian-Daniel & Walz, 2016). As Mathieu et al. (2020) recently discussed, participating in CIRTL deepens individuals’ interest in and ability to create studentcentered teaching approaches (Schein et al., 2017) and enhances participants’ selfefficacy about teaching (Connolly et al., 2016, 2018). Together, these studies point to the value added through a robust institutional network with shared core ideas, as each institution can adapt their execution of CIRTL’s core ideas for their unique context. Further, and particularly relevant to the changing landscape of remote higher education in the era of COVID-19, McDaniels et al. (2016) illustrated that face-to-face learning experiences implemented through CIRTL could effectively be translated into a rich, rigorous online experience that elevated participants’ ability to connect with the nationwide network of CIRTL participants – a benefit to understanding a broader array of institutional and cultural differences in the practice of teaching. While the past two decades have witnessed the growth of systematic networks for teaching development in doctoral education, mentoring skill development has been far less structured and examined. However, recent studies show that this may be changing, as scholars have started to ask specific questions about the ways in which graduate students learn how to become mentors (Abbott-Anderson et al., 2016; Ahn & Cox, 2016; Dolan & Johnson, 2009; Wofford, 2021). Given that graduate students often play a key role in mentoring undergraduates – especially in research labs (Ahn & Cox, 2016; Dolan & Johnson, 2009) – and comprise the pool of future potential faculty, understanding the ways that they learn how to be mentors during Ph.D. training offers a key opportunity to reimagine preparation for the professoriate. As

356

D. F. Feldon et al.

previously discussed, most faculty are woefully underprepared to engage as mentors, especially when it comes to considering equity-minded mentoring practices (Griffin, 2020a; but see faculty mentorship training interventions, such as Pfund et al. [2014]). Thus, as illustrated by Wofford (2021), it is crucial to understand how graduate students’ mentoring practices with undergraduate students are reflective of and shaped by social identities as well as organizational power dynamics. By exploring how graduate students embody equity-mindedness in their mentoring approaches, institutions can construct opportunities to support equitable mentorship and structure opportunities for quality mentoring experiences.

Understanding Service and Service-Oriented Engagement The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate framed doctoral recipients as “stewards of the discipline,” in which three facets of responsibility were paramount: knowledge generation, knowledge conservation, and knowledge transformation (Golde & Walker, 2006). From this perspective, the Ph.D. as a research degree should equip individuals to conduct research and to teach. However, it should also convey “an ethical and moral dimension” of professional responsibility to “think broadly about the entire span of the discipline and understand how its constituent parts fit together” (p. 12). Accomplishing this final component often manifests under the service category of the faculty role. Faculty service can either reflect internal institutional activities or external activities that bring disciplinary expertise to other societal stakeholders. Ward (2003) noted that “many activities are classified as service, ranging from departmental committee work to private consulting to lending expertise for community causes,” which can “minimize the [perceived] importance of the service role of faculty work” (p. 2). However, scholars attending to the societal role of universities advocate for increased valuation of relevant external service (i.e., public engagement) as part of institutional missions – especially for public and land-grant universities (Finkelstein et al., 1998; Fitzgerald et al., 2012). The preparation of graduate students to undertake service responsibilities as faculty varies substantially across institutions and the type of service. Student access to internal service (i.e., governance) has a long history of contention. In 1969, the then vice president for graduate studies and research at the University of Maryland stated in an address to the annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools that “participation on university committees is valuable preparation for the same sort of contribution which we will ask them to make as faculty members. They have the opportunity to learn first-hand that decision or policy-making is an anguished intellectual activity. . .. [However,] any significant role of students in decisionmaking [should] be limited to such matters that will have short range effects” (Pelczar, 1969, p. 9). Fifty years later, the rights of graduate students to unionize on the basis of their labor contributions to the teaching and research missions of their universities continue to generate the same tensions and rationales, with faculty and administrators split on the appropriateness and educational impacts that direct participation in governance may have (Julius & Gumport, 2003; Rogers et al., 2013; Whitford, 2014). While data indicate that participation in unionization efforts

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

357

(successful or unsuccessful) do not erode the quality of student-faculty mentoring relationships, no research is available on the ways in which participation might better enable future faculty to participate in faculty governance (Tierney & Minor, 2003). In contrast, preparation of graduate students to engage in external service work – especially public engagement – has increased substantially in recent years (Morin et al., 2016). Especially within science disciplines, multiple initiatives offer training to facilitate more diverse and effective communication and interaction with the public around research (Burchell, 2015). For example, Michigan State University developed a competency-based certification in community engagement to support graduate students who intended to pursue communityengaged scholarship as tenure track faculty (Doberneck et al., 2017). Among the 18 competency areas targeted, emphases included initiating and sustaining community partnerships, evaluation and assessment, and effective communication with public audiences. Similarly, the neuroscience program at Georgetown University adopted a series of professional development foci into Ph.D. workshops and coursework to facilitate their preparation for disciplinary stewardship, focusing on skill development in leadership, communication, teaching, public outreach, ethics, collaboration, and mentorship. Evaluation of program impacts indicated that there was no impact on mean time to degree and positive but statistically nonsignificant improvements in the number of scholarly publications produced during graduate training as well as the proportion of students interested in pursuing an academic research and/or teaching position (Ullrich et al., 2014). Although relatively few studies of these efforts engage direct assessment of skills, professional development trainings that target effective communication with nonacademic audiences have found significant benefits (e.g., McCartney et al., 2018). Further, faculty in the biomedical sciences who reported receiving formal training in public communication also reported a greater range of public communication activities related to their scholarship (Dudo, 2012). Preparation of future faculty to engage in service may also impact issues of equity within the academy. Multiple studies have reported that women in the academy are significantly more likely than men to undertake internal service activities (Guarino & Borden, 2017; O’Meara et al., 2017), sometimes leading to an “ivory ceiling” effect where women’s career advancement is harmed (see Misra et al., 2011). Likewise, Squazzoni et al. (2021) found that women agreed to review more journal article submissions than men in most fields. This service discrepancy can result in differential time allocated to research and scholarly publication, impacting career profile (Hanasono et al., 2019). However, it is possible that a greater range of training and relevant experiences as graduate students may facilitate more equitable uptake of service responsibilities through enhancing men’s valuation of service or diminishing expectations that such activities are for others to perform (O’Meara, 2016). Likewise, women report valuing public engagement and research in the public interest more than White men in the academy (Demb & Wade, 2012). Thus, expanded training and sustained commitment of institutions and funding agencies to value and support such work may enhance the valuation of publicly engaged scholarship in tenure and promotion processes.

358

D. F. Feldon et al.

In sum, much remains unknown about graduate student and early career scholars’ engagement in various forms of service and the impact of service engagement on one’s career. Popular wisdom advises early career scholars to “do less” service, recognizing the ways in which high levels of service – particularly institutional service – can harm faculty careers and lead to heightened disadvantages for women and other historically minoritized groups within academia (e.g., Scholars of Color). More research is needed to understand the structures and policies that lead to inequitable distribution of service responsibilities, so that these inequities can be addressed in a more meaningful and structural way – as opposed to simply advising early career scholars to limit their service commitments, which may or may not be feasible (especially for women and Scholars of Color who occupy NTT positions or otherwise perceive precarity in their appointments). In addition to addressing inequities in workloads, there is pressure on universities to recognize contributions to service within tenure and promotion, as another approach to advancing equity by recognizing service contributions that tend to be inequitably distributed among faculty. While there may be some benefits of revising reward structures associated with service, such recommendations are also problematic for several reasons. For example, the notion that women’s disproportionate service commitments should be valued in tenure and promotion implies that the solution to inequitable work distributions can be solved by providing external rewards for women’s service. This logic fails to recognize that women scholars often report dissatisfaction when their research time is constricted by service activities (Callister et al., 2009). Rather than increasing external rewards for disproportionate contributions, addressing the underlying inequities that lead to inequitable workloads will be critical to improving job satisfaction, retention, and intrinsic motivation for women in academe. More broadly, more research is needed to understand how graduate students and other early career scholars are socialized into inequitable norms around academic service.

Summary We identify important gaps in the existing literature on the mechanisms of faculty preparation. While Austin and McDaniels (2006a) provide a foundational work for the study of doctoral program environments by providing a robust discussion of training mechanisms, more recent scholarship has largely focused on socialization experiences and short-term outcomes. As a result, much remains unknown about the training environments that might predict career outcomes. Some studies have explored faculty career attainment rates (e.g., Nerad et al., 2007), consistently noting a gap between faculty career aspirations among graduate students and actual attainment (e.g., Golde & Dore, 2001). Others have explored retrospective graduate training experiences among current faculty, suggesting the importance of faculty advisory career encouragement (e.g., Nerad & Cerny, 2003). Yet, studies directly linking specific training processes to career outcomes remain incredibly limited. Based on the studies that do exist, training quality and skill acquisition does not predict career attainment, with career outcomes seemingly being a product of the

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

359

privileges that students bring with them to their training environments. In fields that rely heavily on postdoctoral research experiences, for example, completing a postdoc is positively associated with attaining a faculty career (Sheltzer & Smith, 2014; Wang & Main, 2021). However, tenure track career attainment may also be largely shaped by one’s prior aspirations and intentions to pursue a tenure track position (Main et al., 2019). Similarly, core skills (e.g., research abilities) may similarly be a product of the skills and privileges that students bring with them to their Ph.D. program (Feldon et al. 2016a, b). Other studies point to how personal identities and family characteristics predict career outcomes; for example, women who were married at the time of Ph.D. completion less frequently obtain faculty careers than other groups (Main et al., 2019). Overall, existing research documents how faculty career attainment may be a product of identities, privileges, and broader contexts (e.g., family) more so than training experiences, documenting how access to academic careers remains inequitable. Given the dearth of studies that specifically consider relationships between training environments and career attainment outcomes, much more research is needed. Future studies should utilize longitudinal designs to link various graduate training environments and program characteristics with career outcomes. It will be important to consider diverse career pathways in such studies, given the limited availability of faculty careers relative to the number of graduate students with faculty career aspirations (Golde & Dore, 2001). Training approaches within doctoral programs are rarely differentiated by career objective, even as graduate student career aspirations become increasingly diverse. More specifically, training environments continue to emphasize research with an assumption that students will pursue pathways toward traditional tenure track positions at research-intensive institutions (see Golde & Dore, 2001; Main et al., 2019). Examining how graduate programs prepare faculty for varying types of faculty careers across institution types (e.g., research universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, etc.) will be an important area for future research. In future studies, it will be especially important to center the relationship between training environments and career outcomes specifically for students from historically minoritized groups in graduate training, given research documenting differential career outcomes (e.g., Main et al., 2019). Further, while research connecting training environments with faculty career attainment is very limited, emerging research provides preliminary insight into how inequities in training experiences may shape the nature of inequities within faculty careers. For example, gender and racial inequities in faculty service loads have been well documented (e.g., O’Meara et al., 2017; Misra et al., 2021; Stupnisky et al., 2015). Miller and Roksa’s (2020) recent study of lab service tasks document inequities in how work is distributed in Ph.D. programs, with Women of Color taking on disproportionate service tasks within labs. This suggests that inequitable academic work environments may begin in graduate programs, serving as a mechanism that socializes graduate students into these stratified working conditions as they transition into faculty careers. Thus, there is a need to consider broader career outcomes and reconsider how training environments could prepare early career scholars to shape more equitable academic environments.

360

D. F. Feldon et al.

Systems of Power, Agency, and the Inequity of Faculty Opportunities In addition to establishing a conversation about the historical context and evolution of graduate education and faculty trajectories, it is necessary to understand the affordances and constraints that systems of power place on pathways toward the professoriate. When discussing power, we adopt a multilevel approach that recognizes power in microlevel interpersonal relationships (e.g., doctoral student mentorship; Bettencourt et al., 2021), mesolevel disciplinary and institutional structures (e.g., racism in STEM fields, seeking institutional prestige; McGee, 2020), and macrolevel social and cultural systems (e.g., white supremacy, capitalism; Chu et al., 2022). As shown in Fig. 1, at the onset of our chapter, systems of power directly influence the structures (i.e., institutional, economic, disciplinary, and cultural) that shape graduate education and faculty pathways. The role of power on these various structures, however, is not experienced by individuals in identical ways. In fact, these different levels of power often work in tandem as mechanisms of gatekeeping that serve as a filter toward the professoriate, weeding out individuals who hold historically minoritized identities to maintain dominant ideologies of the academy. As such, it is vital to discuss how early career scholars activate their agency within these structures and navigate the inequity of faculty opportunities. In this section, we draw attention to several examples of the ways in which systems of power and agency interact to characterize inequity toward faculty opportunities.

Graduate Admissions as a Gatekeeping Mechanism As the ultimate point of access to graduate education, admissions policies and practices can serve as either a gateway toward or a gatekeeper of an individual’s opportunities to pursue graduate-level degrees. For many years, national educational societies (e.g., Council of Graduate Schools; Diminnie, 1992) and disciplinary societies (e.g., Association of American Medical Colleges, 1970) in the USA have demonstrated significant interest in improving graduate admissions procedures, often with the motivation to increase compositional diversity and create equitable admissions procedures. For example, a more recent report published by the Council of Graduate Schools supported holistic review in graduate admissions processes and outlined key priorities that admissions professionals may consider toward implementation, including the use of rubrics and alignment between faculty and recruitment officers’ priorities (Kent & McCarthy, 2016). However, it is also necessary to acknowledge that these holistic strategies intertwine – and are complicated by – state and federal decisions about affirmative action and admissions (e.g., 2003 Supreme Court rulings on Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger; 2013 and 2016 Supreme Court rulings on Fisher v. University of Texas; 1996 establishment of Proposition 209 in California). While affirmative action is not the primary topic of focus in this section, the reverberations from such rulings as well as related law and policy hold a

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

361

salient role in shaping discourse about and transformation of admissions in higher education, generally, and graduate admissions more specifically. Despite the longstanding dialogue surrounding improvements to graduate admissions, evaluation processes have overwhelmingly focused on undergraduate GPA and standardized test scores (Hackman et al., 1970; Merenda & Reilly, 1971; Michel et al., 2019). While professional graduate programs use different standardized metrics (e.g., Medical College Admission Test and Law School Admission Test), many academic doctoral programs have traditionally used the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) as one metric of evaluation for admission (Abraham & ElBassiouny, 2020). The GRE was conceptualized over 70 years ago “to have an objective lens through which all graduate applicants could be compared, regardless of their background” (Educational Testing Service [ETS], n.d.). Research on the GRE has dominated the landscape of scholarship on graduate admission (Posselt & Grodsky, 2017), and several recent studies demonstrate that the GRE holds very little predictive power on subsequent academic performance and doctoral degree completion (Feldon et al., 2021; Katz et al., 2009; Miller et al., 2019; Verostek et al., 2021). The mainstays of graduate admissions review – undergraduate GPA and standardized tests – are often considered mechanisms of gatekeeping for graduate education and have recently been challenged by rising interest in holistic review (Kent & McCarthy, 2016; Posselt, 2016). Holistic review presents an opportunity to shift the overreliance on academic metrics to one that values prospective doctoral students as whole people. Kent and McCarthy (2016) indicate holistic review to be “the consideration of a broad range of candidate qualities including ‘noncognitive’ or personal attributes” (p. iii) and point to the undue weight on quantitative measures (as well as the ways in which this hinders diversity) as well as universities’ increasing reliance on data-driven decision-making as two reasons for the upward tick in employing holistic review. The adoption of holistic review practices in graduate admissions, however, has been met with a variety of barriers and motivations (e.g., Scott & Zerwic, 2015; Wong et al., 2021), many of which reflect the high level of discretion that faculty hold in graduate admissions review processes (Posselt, 2016). Posselt’s (2016) foundational book on faculty gatekeeping in graduate admissions brought increased interest on how faculty discretion and evaluation shape structural inequities within disciplinary admissions processes. By focusing on academic evaluation in graduate admissions, Posselt “revealed faculty members’ nebulous, shifting ideals about student quality; how departmental, disciplinary, and personal priorities are woven into judgments of admissibility; and the implications of it all for equity and the health of the academy” (p. 2). Posselt’s book and additional empirical pieces about the gatekeeping behaviors among members of graduate admissions committees have illustrated how faculty members’ conceptualizations of merit often represent a moving target that is influenced by power structures of scholarly productivity (e.g., De Los Reyes & Uddin, 2021; Posselt, 2014, 2015, 2018c; Stassun et al., 2011). However, emerging evidence also points to crucial counternarratives among Faculty of Color, with Squire (2020) noting the ways in which Faculty of Color diverge from White faculty by considering diversity throughout doctoral admissions and disregarding standardized metrics of success.

362

D. F. Feldon et al.

In addition to studies that center faculty evaluation and discretion in graduate admissions, some scholarship has examined specific mechanisms within admissions processes that may uphold gatekeeping structures and inequity. While such mechanisms (e.g., letters of recommendation and personal statements) are still subject to faculty members’ discretionary power, it is important to understand nuance within each. Applicants’ approaches to varying components of their application materials may be heavily influenced by inequality in cultural and social capital (e.g., Garcia et al., 2021; Ramirez, 2011) as well as the maintenance of the hidden curriculum (Calarco, 2020). For example, in a study of 88 admissions committee chairs’ perspectives on “kisses of death” in psychology graduate admissions processes, Appleby and Appleby (2006) identified five categories that represented reasons to reject otherwise strong applicants, including “damaging personal statements, harmful letters of recommendation, lack of program information, poor writing skills, and misfired attempts to impress” (p. 19). However, applicants’ information on how to approach aspects, like personal statements or letter of recommendation requests, is unequal based on existing resources and privilege in academic structures. Faculty members’ evaluation of application components through the lens of “faults” or “lacks” also represents a deficit perspective that upholds traditional – and often oppressive – academic structures and individualism in the ivory tower (NewkirkTurner & Hudson, 2022). Instead, the components of graduate admission to the ivory tower itself must change, especially if diversity and equity within future faculty pathways are to follow suit.

Student Debt and Generational Wealth Impact Faculty Career Choices A theme throughout this chapter is that increased precarity for early career scholars perpetuates inequity in myriad ways. Prolonged job precarity (e.g., working in temporary positions while on the academic job market) is especially difficult for students who have student debt. Several recent studies have illuminated how student debt creates significant burden for individuals as they navigate graduate education (e.g., Bostick et al., 2022; Kim et al., 2022). In STEM doctoral education, Kim et al. (2022) noted that loans “can thus steer [doctoral students] to choose higher paying careers instead of dream jobs” (p. 6). This is not to say that faculty careers are emblematic of “dream” jobs for doctoral students, regardless of discipline, as there are many career opportunities that may be more appealing for an array of reasons. However, debt is a necessary structural force to take into account in tandem with student agency toward faculty careers. Indeed, examining the systemic financial constraints placed on doctoral students may illuminate opportunities to transform our thinking and practice around creating access to faculty pathways. Student debt has been widely studied at the undergraduate level, however, empirical investigations of debt in graduate education and later career choices remain relatively new (Bostick et al., 2022; Fernandez, 2019; Kim et al., 2022; Tyler et al., 2012). While loans are commonly not the only mechanism of funding for

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

363

graduate education, Baum et al. (2018) noted that 20% of doctoral degree recipients borrowed $100,000 or more to fund their graduate studies in the 2015–2016 academic year. In addition to loans, doctoral students may be funded through other mechanisms, such as research assistantships, fellowships, teaching assistantships, and personal/family support. Yet, debt is a salient force in long-term decisionmaking related to careers, and it is important to consider the pressures that debt may exert on individuals as they decide whether or not to pursue faculty positions (e.g., Fernandez, 2019). One recent study illustrated that 73% of STEM Ph.D. students with loans as their primary funding source planned to seek full-time employment outside of a postdoc/academic position directly after graduate school (Kim et al., 2022), and this is an especially concerning finding when coupled with the fact that postdoc positions are all but requisite for faculty careers in an increasing number of disciplines (Cantwell & Lee, 2010). Substantive debt may also pose geographic restrictions on doctoral students’ opportunities for faculty careers, as relocation – often expected in early career faculty members’ trajectories – is an expensive undertaking that is not always institutionally funded. In special education fields, for example, individuals willing to relocate after graduation are more likely to take a faculty position after degree completion than those who are not willing or able to relocate (Tyler et al., 2012). Taken together, funding mechanisms and complications with the geography of opportunity in faculty pathways are closely tied to the sweeping pressures of student debt – all of which paint a concerning picture about the ways in which student debt may perpetuate class stratification within the academy. Further, it is important to consider how student debt is one way that doctoral students experience the larger systems of capitalism and white supremacy in their day-to-day lives. In a recent report, Espinosa et al. (2019) documented that, on average, White doctoral recipients accrued $51,078 in student loan debt, Latina/o/x doctoral recipients accumulated $86,556, and Black doctoral recipients amassed $103,097. An increasingly large body of literature documents how student debt exacerbates racial disparities in pathways through graduate education and onto faculty careers, with scholarship consistently documenting the disproportionately large sums of student debt that Black students hold (Addo et al., 2016; Espinosa et al., 2019; Kim & Otts, 2010; Pyne & Grodsky, 2020; Southern Regional Education Board, 2021; Zeiser et al., 2013). Racial inequities in student debt and graduate school pathways interact to result in Black students completing doctorates with higher levels of debt and longer times to degree than their White counterparts (Scott-Clayton & Li, 2016), which potentially disempowers them to pursue academic employment – especially in tenure track positions at research universities – due to fiscal, family, and market pressures. Additionally, when compared to Black men and students identifying with all other racial and gender identities, Black women borrowed student loans at a significantly higher rate (Miller, 2017). Such disparities are prompted, first and foremost, by the historical legacies of racist policies and practices in the USA that have prevented Black individuals from creating generational wealth (Conley, 2001; Taylor & Meschede, 2018), coupled with the ways that interlocking systems of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, and

364

D. F. Feldon et al.

classism) create uniquely inequitable conditions for Black women in graduate education (Bostick et al., 2022). Looking to generational wealth may be a useful lens for future research, as student debt spans beyond the individual experience. In leveraging the perspective of generational wealth, and the ways in which systems have been racially organized to promote or prevent the creation of generational wealth (see Addo et al., 2016), scholars may be better able to examine efforts to enhance racial diversity in faculty careers within the scope of larger economic and social systems.

How Doctoral Advisors Uphold Imbalanced Power in Faculty Pathways Imbalances of power characterize student-advisor relationships within doctoral programs. Increasingly, scholars have recognized how power dynamics within institutions “reify dynamics of oppression and inequity daily” (Bettencourt et al., 2021, p. 238). While structural and institutional factors often uphold inequitable power dynamics, often faculty advisors/supervisors play a large role in shaping these dynamics, given how advisors’ sphere of influence is expansive and nearly unchecked in their interactions with their students. As Foucault (1980) writes, power is not absolute and fixed but rather imbued in everyday relations through community members that negotiate, uphold, or contest existing power structures. In doctoral education, faculty advisors often serve as the primary community members engaging in these processes. As arbiters of power who often perpetuate overly demanding workloads, competitive environments, and financial instability that have long plagued US doctoral students’ experiences (Golde & Dore, 2001), faculty advisors hold an elevated place in the hierarchy that gives them discretionary and authoritative power over doctoral students by (with)holding access to critical opportunities (e.g., academic writing; Cotterall, 2011). Thus, advisors play a pivotal role in shaping scholarly identity (Choi et al., 2021) and career pursuits among students (Nerad, 2015). Given the substantial power that faculty advisors yield in doctoral training structures, scholars have recently begun exploring power dynamics that characterize training environments (see Bettencourt et al., 2021). While Gardner (2008) did not explicitly consider power dynamics in her inquiry, she describes how graduate education is still often considered “a monolithic enterprise” where students are expected to “fit the mold,” rather than exercise agency in shaping their training experiences. Power dynamics play a large part in this when we think about how advisors often reproduce their own experiences when mentoring Ph.D. students (Fulgence, 2019). While researchers acknowledge that students – particularly those from groups historically excluded from the academy – can exercise agency in transforming normative training processes or developing counterspaces (Blockett et al., 2016), broader inequitable power structures cannot be ignored. Within the context of an increasingly competitive faculty job market, early career scholars rely

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

365

on their advisors for letters of recommendation and access to the social capital necessary to secure a faculty position, which places graduate students in uniquely vulnerable positions to be exploited by faculty. Recent research also documents the myriad ways that students respond to imbalanced power dynamics. Unfortunately, in some cases, these power dynamics – and resultant exploitation – may lead students to leave their programs altogether. For instance, when students experience strained relationships with advisors, hostile training environments, and/or explicit abuse from advisors, they may not see an option for continuing their training, as they view a positive advising relationship as necessary for future career success (Gardner, 2009b; Maher et al., 2020). In other cases, students – particularly students who hold multiple minoritized identities – may exercise agency to change their training environments by creating counterspaces (Butterfield et al., 2018), changing advisors or transferring programs (Gardner, 2009b; Maher et al., 2019, 2020), or taking steps to transform the dominant environment (Robinson, 2013; Yi & Ramos, 2022). For example, González (2006) explored Latina students’ experiences in doctoral programs, highlighting the ways in which these students often resist socialization by building community with other Latina scholars and creating communities where their academic work is validated. These student dynamics, in the context of larger power structures, represent an important area for future inquiry. In addition to student responses, it is also critical to examine how faculty and practitioners could respond to transform these imbalanced power dynamics. For example, Masta (2021) highlights how instructors in graduate education can build bridges that pedagogically connect Black and Brown students’ lived experiences with their in-class experiences and how instructors can reimagine their teaching approaches to create classroom counterspaces. Burt et al. (2021) documented how advisors can utilize a care-based and wholeness-promoting framework for graduate advising to improve student retention in academia. Additionally, Bettencourt et al. (2021) proposed a power-conscious framework for graduate mentorship, in which advisors work to (1) develop self-awareness; (2) recognize the historical context and oppressions within the field and training structure; (3) change mentoring behaviors to challenge the status quo; (4) call attention to implicit and explicit structures and oppressions; (5) interrogate power (im)balances; and (6) develop solidarity with students and others who are transforming graduate training structures. While Bettencourt and colleagues point to specific behavior changes among faculty advisors, they also emphasize the importance of larger systemic changes, which relates to other literature highlighting how institutional policies and practices may play an important role in moderating the impact of problematic Ph.D. supervisors on students (Cohen & Baruch, 2021). Taken together, current research emphasizes the importance of professional development and other faculty-targeted interventions to improve advisor practices, while also considering the larger structures, policies, and practices that contribute to both imbalanced power dynamics in graduate training, as well as the abuse of those power dynamics by individual faculty.

366

D. F. Feldon et al.

Institutional Policies and Benchmark Assessments as Gatekeeping Mechanisms Not only are gatekeeping practices of faculty opportunity upheld within structures of admission to graduate school and in faculty advisors’ power dynamics, but the gates are reified using benchmark assessments and a variety of institutional policies in graduate programs. Benchmark assessments in graduate education have presented many challenges in design and interpretation over the years, in part due to the individualized, decentralized, and often interdisciplinary nature of graduate programs (see Hoey 2008). Commonly employed benchmarks of graduate students’ “academic progress” include the completion and evaluation of writing samples, research study plans, and portfolios (Hoey 2008). Perhaps the most frequently used benchmarks across disciplines reflect the use of comprehensive (or qualifying) exams and the completion of a dissertation; however, faculty members hold great discretionary power in determining the advisement toward, assessment of, and progress determined from these and other forms of assessment in doctoral education (Guloy et al., 2020). If not supported by equity-minded training mechanisms and accountability structures, faculty members’ subjective evaluation of student assessments leaves significant room for these assessments to maintain structures of dominance (e.g., whiteness, masculinity, ableism, and heteronormativity) in graduate education and perpetually disenfranchise the lived knowledge that historically minoritized students hold (e.g., Koren & EvansEl, 2020). Comprehensive and qualifying exams represent one example of graduate-level benchmark assessments that are widely employed across disciplines. According to Stewart-Wells and Keenan (2020), comprehensive exams, or comps, are “a way for students to express their understanding of material, synthesize their learning, and apply that learning to their fields of study” (p. 84). For many programs, comps are viewed as a rite of passage where students are evaluated on their knowledge acquisition prior to beginning the dissertation. Indeed, comps are a doctoral programmatic assessment that has been widely studied across disciplines such as social work, composition and rhetoric, criminology, marketing, and computer science (Estrem & Lucas, 2003; Furstenberg & Nichols-Casebolt, 2001; Peterson et al., 1992; Ponder et al., 2004; Schafer & Giblin, 2008; Straub, 2014). However, faculty opinions about the purpose of these exams are not uniform across disciplines. In a recent survey administered by the Inclusive Graduate Education Network Research Hub, respondents from chemistry departments were significantly more likely to strongly agree that the candidacy examination can be a tool to screen out “underperforming or otherwise difficult students” than respondents in physics departments (Posselt & Liera, 2022, p. 3). Additionally, some scholars have leveraged more critical perspectives to argue that comps serve institutional interests, rather than doctoral student development (Hinchey & Kimmel, 2000; Katz & Hartnett, 1976). Given these challenges to the “traditional” benchmark of comps, more recent studies have unveiled both the individual stressors (e.g., discriminatory mental health and attrition) that result from comps (e.g., inequitable mental health concerns and attrition, Maher et al., 2020; Wilkins-Yel et al., 2022) as well as the organizational

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

367

structures of gatekeeping and racial discrimination that may be upheld through these metrics of “success” (Liera et al., 2021; Posselt & Liera, 2022). Collectively, if institutional interests and “traditional” knowledge bases are prioritized with comps and are done so at the expense of doctoral students’ progress and well-being, comprehensive exams serve as a structure of gatekeeping that may inhibit equitable structures of access and inclusion toward the professoriate. In addition to comps and their role as an institutional barometer of doctoral progress, dissertations are essential to discuss within gatekeeping to faculty pathways. The dissertation is the final pillar of doctoral education in the USA and entails a student’s original scholarly contribution (Yoels, 1974). Across disciplines, “dissertations reflect the training received, the technical skills, and the analytic and writing abilities developed in a doctoral program” (Lovitts, 2007), with several studies conceptualizing dissertation proposals and final defenses as part of the transition from dependence to independence (Baker & Pifer, 2011; Gardner, 2008; Lovitts, 2008). While some institutional strategies (e.g., writing groups; Maher et al., 2013a, b) have been shown to support dissertation success, doctoral attrition continues to hover between 40 and 60% and departure often occurs during the “all-butdissertation” (ABD) stage (Sowell et al., 2015). This suggests that many students do not finish because of complications with the dissertation and, thus, are filtered out of faculty pathways. Structurally, these complexities may include programmatic failure to provide writing support (Simpson, 2013) or inequities in funding support (Knight et al., 2018). Recent scholarship has also illustrated how racialized and gendered institutional expectations and priorities may delay degree completion for Black women at the ABD stage (Johnson & Scott, 2020). These and other elements of the structure and culture of dissertations serve as gatekeeping mechanisms, and they must be addressed by institutional leaders if we are to cultivate structures of equitable access to the professoriate. Further, dissertations are thought to be an emblematic structure to assess one’s individual scholarship, with one recent study showing that self-regulated learning predicts the time needed for degree completion (Kelley & Salisbury-Glennon, 2016). Yet, it is necessary to interrogate the level of student agency that is valued in dissertations. Xia (2013) documented how humanities doctoral students exerted significantly more agency in choosing their dissertation topic compared to doctoral students in social or natural sciences, characterized by the ways in which many humanities respondents selected their dissertation topic – fueled by their own interests – before their dissertation chair. On the other hand, students in natural and social sciences more often selected their chair before their topic (Xia, 2013), and thus may be subject to selecting topics that align with their chair’s interests or available data, rather than exercising their agency in topic selection. Dynamics between dissertation chairs and doctoral students may also be laced with dysfunctional notions of academic tradition and power, contributing to stifling environments for scholarly creativity (Brodin, 2018). Power dynamics may be even more complex in team-based supervision of dissertations (e.g., cochairing and highly involved committees) where students take “a passive role in team meetings while [their] supervisory panel slugs it out” (Guerin & Green, 2015, p. 324). Across these

368

D. F. Feldon et al.

dynamics, one aspect holds true – faculty hold immense power and discretion when it comes to directing students’ dissertation processes. When faculty foreground students’ interests in these practices, the dissertation could be a catalyst for students’ scholarly trajectory toward the professoriate – particularly considering the fact that dissertation research often unlocks significant potential for early publications (e.g., Bowen, 2010; Germano, 2014; Smaldone et al., 2019). But, when faculty view dissertations as a source of labor that benefits their own interests or research projects, this process could cause significant harm in doctoral students’ journeys and pathways to academic appointments.

Institutional Prestige and Productivity At the opening of our chapter, we introduced the importance of recognizing diversity in types of faculty appointments, acknowledging that faculty positions vary widely by appointment type (e.g., NTT vs. TT, etc.), institution type, and other political contexts (e.g., state investment in higher education). As colleges and universities increasingly rely on NTT, part-time, and other contingent labor to perform essential work functions (see Kezar et al., 2019), it is also increasingly important that we expand the scope of graduate education research to consider faculty pathways beyond the “most respected” or “top-ranked” institutions. Similarly, we must consider access and opportunities for individuals pursuing doctoral degrees across institution types. While doctoral degrees are offered at a variety of universities, many studies focus on what the Carnegie Classification system refers to as “very high research activity.” Given that only 100 of these universities in the USA have collectively received ~81% of available federal research dollars annually over the past 25 years (Feller, 2001; Owen-Smith, 2018), there is a direct interaction between the prestige of institutions and the resources available to conduct research. Further, Lanahan et al. (2016) found that higher levels of federal research funding led to concomitant increases in industry, nonprofit, and state/local research funding levels as well. While such stratification among institutions has likely always been a feature of the American higher education landscape (Graham & Diamond, 2004), the acceleration of consolidating research, combined with the contraction of hiring for tenure-line faculty positions, has amplified the extent to which prestige may in fact serve as a gatekeeping mechanism for limiting access to large-scale or high-impact and highvisibility research. Additionally, to the extent that research-intensive institutions often have lower teaching loads for faculty and that research funds may be used to further reduce teaching responsibilities in deference to time required for funded research projects, scholarly productivity can demonstrate discrepant benefits in the form of cumulative advantage. Further, specific topics of research are not inherently constrained to a subset of institutions; the history of science is replete with examples of high-visibility faculty at high-prestige institutions who received awards and accolades that were either out of scale to their contributions or misattributed to them entirely (Crane, 1965; Teixeira da Silva, 2021; Zuckerman, 1970). Similarly, institutional prestige elevates the diffusion of its discoveries to be more visible when

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

369

compared to work of similar quality produced at less prestigious institutions (Medoff, 2006; Morgan et al., 2018). In relation to hiring practices, it is notable that institutional prestige is the most influential factor in predicting successful applications for faculty positions (Way et al., 2019). Further, graduates of high-prestige doctoral programs are more likely to value prestige than salary when deciding whether or not to accept an offer of employment than their peers from lower-prestige programs (Morrison et al., 2011). Accordingly, it is likely that the valuation of institutional prestige is selfperpetuating, as those choosing to accept offers from high-prestige institutions place a higher value on prestige. A possible consequence of this process of cultural transmission is that patterns of inequitable graduate admissions practices may be sustained. To the extent that high-prestige institutions are less likely to hire or graduate women and People of Color (e.g., Sheltzer & Smith, 2014), the reinforcing patterns of valuing prestige and further enriching prestigious institutions may exacerbate the inequitable representation of those minoritized groups in tenure-line faculty and academic leadership positions (Kawa et al., 2019).

Disciplinary Environments Impact on Faculty Pathways Disciplinary contexts differ substantially from one another across multiple types of structure, and these differences are vital to bear in mind in a discussion of faculty career opportunities. Degree requirements and duration, availability of financial support mechanisms, and approaches to training and mentoring all can differ, which often leads to very high levels of departmental autonomy in the development and implementation of doctoral programs countenanced by centralized schools or divisions of graduate studies that impose only minimal guidelines intended to enhance institutional coherence to the extent that is possible (Hirt & Muffo, 1998). As discussed previously, this unit-level decision-making extends to graduate admissions as well, wherein processes play out that can robustly impact the diversity of those given the opportunity to pursue a Ph.D. on the basis of admissions tests which can disadvantage specific groups (Griffin et al., 2012) or ephemeral perceptions of departmental “fit” (De Los Reyes & Uddin, 2021; Posselt, 2016). The siloed nature of disciplines within the university context can lead to cycles of cultural reproduction that can prevent broader understanding of what doctoral training experiences, structures, and agency look like across disciplinary units. This circumstance may limit faculty exposure to alternate training practices common to one discipline that might benefit students in another (e.g., biology’s common practice of rotating first-year students among laboratories in their first year in anticipation of permanent placement in the following year, which is exceedingly rare in chemistry, despite similarities in a laboratory-based research structure). It may also lead scholars investigating mechanisms and experiences of graduate education from the perspective of their own disciplinary experience to aggregate participant samples across disciplines, sometimes only distinguishing between STEM and non-STEM fields (Gardner, 2008; but see examples of intradisciplinary work by

370

D. F. Feldon et al.

Ashby and Maher [2019; chemistry], Burt [2019; engineering], and Monk and colleagues [2012; geography], Spalter-Roth and colleagues [2013; sociology]). Disciplinary differences also impact the pathways that Ph.D. recipients take to attain faculty positions. For example, university-based postdoctoral research appointments are nearly universal in the biological sciences as a pathway to the professoriate (Sheltzer & Smith, 2014). Such appointments are comparatively less common in the humanities and social sciences, and they are substantially less predictive of subsequent attainment of tenure-line faculty positions (Main et al., 2019); however, postdoctoral appointment trends are changing in many disciplines, and we return to this topic in section “Labor Market Issues and Realities.” Similarly, the rates of attaining faculty positions overall differ by discipline, with over 50% of Ph.D. recipients reporting attainment of tenure-line faculty positions (Wood & Townsend, 2013) and no more than 17% reporting such attainment in STEM disciplines (Larson et al., 2014). The distinct cultures that arise within disciplinary contexts also may shape the pathways that graduate students take toward or away from faculty positions based on personal perceptions of fit. For example, Posselt and Nuñez (2022) highlight cultural values of geoscience that entail an emphasis on informality across levels of empowerment (including alcohol consumption) and mental and physical “toughness” associated with conducting fieldwork. Within this environment, students – especially women – may either acclimate to associated norms of interaction or reject and distance themselves from future research opportunities. Likewise, comparisons of disciplinary values and logics in the doctoral admissions processes identify differences in both the prioritized indicators of merit and preparedness (e.g., mathematical prowess vs. statements of purpose from applicants vs. relevant prior experience) and the pragmatic values that might signify prestige to colleagues outside the admitting institution (Posselt, 2015). Thus, disciplinary values and worldviews can constrain both access and opportunity for individuals whose perceived dispositions or personal values may not adhere to the worldviews endorsed by a field. Students’ understandings of how they do or do not fit into the norms of their disciplinary and physical scholarly environments frequently shape the ways in which they exercise agency while pursuing the Ph.D. Students may opt to persist within environments they perceive as problematic to ensure access to research and publishing opportunities or financial supports, but they may also elect to change supervisors or fields of study altogether in order to find modes of mentorship and collaboration that better meet their needs – often with unpredictable impacts on their subsequent professional trajectories (Maher et al., 2020). For Students of Color, such issues of compatibility are often amplified as they navigate complex intersections of identity and cultural difference that transcend those exclusive to discipline or training environment, which can limit their agency in both overt and subtle ways (Harris & Lee, 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2022).

Summary Across the full range of graduate school experiences, from admission through dissertation defense, the roles of institutional, economic, disciplinary, and cultural

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

371

structures impact the experiences and opportunities afforded to doctoral students. While students may connect to networks that better support their agency within this context (e.g., counterspaces), such exercises of student control often represent acts of resistance to the assimilative forces of socialization, rather than normative exercises of self-determination in finding a fit within varying activities and enacted values across disciplines, academic programs, and individual faculty. Further, the convergence of structural influences from within and outside the academy, such as racially linked discrepancies in wealth and related cultural and social capital, amplify the ways in which inequity can shape and hinder students’ pathways toward aspirational faculty positions. Disciplinary conceptions of “appropriate” and “productive” engagement play an equally influential role in shaping doctoral students’ experiences. Across disciplines, normative pathways to the professoriate differ with regard to expected norms of employment (e.g., influence of a postdoctoral research position) and the overall likelihood of ultimately attaining a faculty position. Further, the types of training practices, contexts, and modes of assessment that students experience as they navigate their training can likewise differ according to disciplinary norms, with such practices carrying their own benefits and risks for students as they attempt to secure access to scholarly resources and complete their degree programs. While these intersecting influences have clear impacts on students’ experiences, relatively little is known about the ways in which they converge to influence students’ overall chances of degree attainment and successful entry into the academy if that is their career goal. Across many studies, the ways in which power is brokered through structures is evident. However, it is only recent scholarship that has begun to highlight the full impact of those mechanisms (e.g., Bettencourt et al., 2021). Because successful research training and access to the scholarly productivity opportunities is often deemed necessary to signal readiness for faculty success, the levers by which current faculty, programs, and societal influences restrict or facilitate doctoral students’ access to research-related resources is a critical target of future inquiry. While inequitable availability of buffering mechanisms such as familial wealth is clearly documented, it remains unclear which policies and practices might mitigate the salience of such privileged resources. Similarly, research examining strategies for influencing disciplinary cultures and supervising faculty to adopt more equitable and apparent strategies for accessing available resources would support the development of evidence-based practices capable of enhancing student agency toward degree completion and subsequent employment.

Labor Market Issues and Realities As we consider the future of research on faculty preparation and pathways, we must explore how graduate training intersects with larger contexts and economic realities, including academic labor practices and faculty job market trends. In particular, doctoral students following faculty pathways must balance multiple professional roles, including both student and employee, while likely maintaining multiple personal roles and responsibilities. Accordingly, structural labor dynamics are

372

D. F. Feldon et al.

increasingly important within critical studies of doctoral student pathways and development (e.g., Mendoza, 2007). Yet, the majority of research on doctoral student training continues to explore graduate training as a process that is independent of larger contextual factors. As such, the relationships between graduate training and larger contexts remain undertheorized. In addition to considering labor and other financial realities as a contributing force in graduate student development and academic career trajectories, we argue that scholars must also explicitly consider how we can train graduate students to be prepared to handle changing labor conditions in the academy. Before discussing specific labor trends among graduate students and early career researchers, this section will provide background information on the larger forces shaping universities and the academy through the lens of academic capitalism.

The Academic Capitalist Regime The term “academic capitalism” gained popularity as a result of Slaughter and Leslie’s (1997) Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University. In 2004, Slaughter and Rhoades elaborated on the concept to explain how academic capitalism is not merely a result of external market forces, but also refers to: the internal embeddedness of profit-oriented activities as a point of reorganization (and new investment) by higher education institutions to develop their own capacity (and to hire new types of professionals) to market products created by faculty and develop commercializable products outside of (though connected to) conventional academic structures and individual faculty members. (▶ Chap. 1, “Academic Procession: Bringing the History of Higher Education to Life”)

Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) argued that shrinking state funding has led to increased emphasis on alternative mechanisms for generating revenue (e.g., college athletics) and has led universities to adopt for-profit behaviors. Since 2004, the concept of academic capitalism has only increased in relevance, informing all aspects of graduate training (e.g., Cantwell, 2015; Mendoza, 2007) and early career researcher experiences (e.g., Mendoza et al., 2012). Perhaps most notably, as funding structures for universities have changed (in part due to state funding decreasing at alarming rates; Kelchen, 2018; Mitchell et al., 2019), institutions have become increasingly reliant on NTT and part-time faculty. With institutions’ increasing employment of NTT and part-time faculty there is greater precarity for an estimated 73% of the faculty workforce (American Association of University Professors [AAUP], 2021) due to an absence of long-term job security, meager pay, and a lack of universal benefits (Kezar & Sam, 2010). This practice has also resulted in a scarcity of TT positions across many fields, which, in turn, has created an increasingly competitive faculty job market and higher expectations of productivity for early career scholars to be competitive for positions. Notably, these challenges often apply to both TT and NTT early career faculty, as individuals taking NTT faculty

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

373

roles after completing their doctoral degrees may wish to remain competitive for TT jobs. Below, we review resultant implications for faculty pathways, focusing closely on implications for academic labor among early career researchers and graduate students.

STEM Fields Valued Over Other Academic Disciplines One way in which students are weeded out of faculty career pathways is through whose knowledge is valued under academic capitalism. Cantwell (2015) explains how productivity pressures shape the type of research that gets done and the types of work students are able to do (e.g., research is concentrated around topics where funding is available). Similarly, institutions place greater value on fields that generate the most research funding, resulting in increased resources and support for scholars in STEM disciplines (where large grants tend to be readily available), while undervaluing fields within the humanities (where grants tend to be smaller in value). Like issues related to student debt (discussed in section “Systems of Power, Agency, and the Inequity of Faculty Opportunities”), the differential value placed on disciplines and research topics is not neutral. For example, fields with higher concentrations of men faculty tend to see higher salaries than those occupied by a greater proportion of women, which contributes to a larger gender pay gap among faculty (Johnson & Taylor, 2019). While national data are not as readily available to assess racial and ethnic pay gaps among faculty, researchers can infer that such a pay gap exists and is especially harmful to average salaries among Women of Color (see Colby & Fowler, 2020). While salary data provide important insight into the extent to which certain fields – and, by extension, groups of scholars – are valued, broader literature helps to contextualize larger disciplinary distinctions. For example, Briggs (2013) explores the threats facing gender and women’s studies, LGBT and sexuality studies, and ethnic studies programs within the neoliberal academy, with many such programs repeatedly challenged by limited resources, organizational restructuring, and the threat of being eliminated altogether. While these programs are arguably increasing in prevalence across US universities (Musial & Holmes, 2018), they often operate on limited material resources, unable to compete with STEM and other revenue-generating fields. The broader landscape of these disciplinary inequities and distinctions leads us to ask what this means for graduates of humanities and interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs and early career scholars with aspirations of pursuing research in these areas. With the resultant limited faculty lines, institutional support, and opportunity available to early career scholars in many fields, we posit that the academic capitalist regime constrains both the intellectual and demographic diversity of the professoriate in ways that may be impossible to measure. To extend Cantwell’s (2015) argument that current funding mechanisms limit the types of research that are done, we argue that current trends in higher education funding also systematically limit who participates in research; that is, when entire fields of study (or research topics) that are disproportionately occupied by women and Scholars of Color are devalued under academic capitalism, we limit opportunities for scholars from these groups at every point in the academic pipeline.

374

D. F. Feldon et al.

Exploitation of Academic Labor Particularly relevant to our understanding of faculty career pathways, universities have increasingly relied on research funding in recent years, while simultaneously limiting institutional supports (Chatterjee & Maira, 2014). Institutions’ reliance on research funding is applicable across all disciplines, as prestige, ranking, and competitiveness all depend on the amount of funding garnered among faculty (Stephan, 2012). Accordingly, the structures of academic capitalism play a large role in shaping the everyday lives of faculty members, especially the ways that today’s new faculty members experience institutional expectations and navigate their early career trajectories. Cantwell’s (2015) work on academic production has highlighted the ways in which new assistant professors are expected to produce research and “failing to secure grant money [can] mean the end of a career” even at teaching-focused universities (p. 493). Because faculty – especially early career researchers – are left in a state of precarity that is exploited to create a pressure to produce unlimited research products, the result is often a culture of academic labor exploitation and unethical practices. Further, the relative scarcity and high pressure to secure resources shift conceptions of prestige and markers of rigor to those associated with resource attainment (Hodge et al., 2020). Competition for these resources can constrain lines of scholarly inquiry through both self-silencing to avoid negative repercussions in terms of access and institutional pressures to limit controversial or politically fraught discourse (Chatterjee & Maira, 2014). We discuss this below, tracing the manifestations and impacts of exploitative practices for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and early career faculty. Graduate student labor implications. Under academic capitalism, graduate programs exist either to directly generate revenue (e.g., tuition generating master’s programs) or indirectly generate revenue through cheap labor (e.g., Ph.D. programs structurally supported through graduate assistantships). Particularly relevant to this chapter on faculty preparation and pathways, Ph.D. students have become part of a cycle where they provide cheap labor, on which faculty rely in order to produce work needed to receive more grant funding, which in turn creates a mechanism for funding more graduate students. The recognition that Ph.D. student labor is frequently exploited is not new. Ph.D. students – especially those with faculty aspirations – rely on their advisors for letters of recommendation and critical networking opportunities, creating complex power dynamics between students and faculty and placing students in a uniquely vulnerable position (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2017). Student labor exploitation takes many forms. On the extreme end of the spectrum, Ph.D. students have little recourse when they experience harassment and abuse from advisors and other faculty members. This may be especially true for Ph.D. students who are not able to join unionized efforts, as protections vary across the many roles that students hold (e.g., researcher and teaching assistant). Less extreme, exploitation of graduate student labor has become commonplace, especially in Ph.D. programs in which academic advisors double as employment supervisors. While such exploitation may be unintentional, the culture of academia, including the challenges students face in navigating multiples roles, can make it difficult for students to communicate labor concerns with advisors (Berglund et al., 2017).

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

375

While labor exploitation of graduate students has occurred for many years, the pressures and forces exacerbating negative working conditions for these students under academic capitalism may be increasing. Specifically, when faculty face increased tenure and promotion expectations for research productivity, that pressure directly impacts student experiences as a result of how faculty staff structure their research groups (see Cantwell, 2015). Even faculty who might otherwise prioritize equitable working and learning conditions for students may be pressured to adopt unethical practices (e.g., asking students to work many uncompensated hours or be constantly available, devaluing students’ authorship contributions, and fostering competition among students in an effort to maximize student productivity) or inadvertently exploit labor as a result of adopting common academic practices (e.g., paying students through stipends which have not kept up with inflation). Graduate student reactions to labor exploitation. As graduate students have been subjected to exploitative labor practices, they have also taken steps to resist and organize against academic labor exploitation. As a result, researchers have increasingly considered the significance of collective bargaining and unionization in graduate student experiences and development. Such studies document increasing prevalence of unionization efforts; while graduate student unions initially began at large research universities and elite universities (Julius & Gumport, 2003), unionizing efforts among graduate students have grown across institution types. Indeed, Berry and Savarese (2012) reported that over 64,000 graduate students were covered by collective bargaining contracts, and this number grew to more than 83,000 graduate student employees between 2013 and 2019 (Herbert et al., 2020). While students’ dual roles as employees and advisees have created unique challenges to unionization (Lee et al., 2004), scholars have documented several benefits that graduate students receive from unionization, above and beyond improved compensation and working conditions (e.g., collective bargaining involvement can clarify student roles, which in turn improves mentoring/advising relationships; Julius & Gumport, 2003; Rogers et al., 2013). For example, as unionization and collective bargaining agreements have become more commonplace for graduate students in the USA, researchers have explored whether such efforts positively or negatively shape student-faculty relationships. To date, several studies have documented – at least from graduate students’ perspectives – that unionizing efforts do not have a negative role in shaping their relationships with faculty mentors (Lee et al., 2004; Rogers et al., 2013), contradicting the 2004 argument from the National Labor Relations Board that collective bargaining would harm the quality of students’ relationships with their teachers (see Rogers et al., 2013). Especially relevant to our understanding of pathways to the professoriate, graduate students who involve themselves in collective bargaining gain new skills and knowledge of academic structures that can serve them into faculty careers (Julius & Gumport, 2003). This may also be true of postdoctoral scholars who engage in unionization movements, as Camacho and Rhoads (2015) found that unionizing allowed postdoctoral workers to challenge the hierarchical culture of academia, confront the ethos of “academic exceptionalism” (i.e., the commonly held belief that universities do not establish a similar labor environment to that of blue-collar workers; Bender & Kinkela, 2001), and garner

376

D. F. Feldon et al.

improved benefits and pay. We return to a discussion of postdoctoral labor precarity in the next section. However, as Cain (2017) noted in a recent report, the research about unionization and collective bargaining among graduate students (and postdoctoral scholars) has not kept pace with the vast growth of efforts on the ground. Despite graduate students’ resistance to neoliberal institutional cultures through collective unionization efforts, unethical working conditions often persist for numerous reasons. Among them, larger university and academic cultures can create pressure for Ph.D. students to accept and perpetuate common exploitative practices as “the way things are done.” In a 2011 volume edited by Tricia Bertram Gallant, Creating the Ethical Academy: A Systems Approach to Understanding Misconduct and Empowering Change, several prominent higher education scholars contributed to our understanding about why ethical misconduct happens in the academy and how issues such as corruption, integrity, and unethical governance may be addressed. For example, Harris and Bastedo (2011) interrogate how unethical behavior is a systemslevel failing, not just an individual one, that extends from unethical leadership in shaping institutional cultures. Extending this notion, we argue that such cultures of misconduct operate under the realm of academic capitalism; such cultures are both sustained and incentivized at the organizational level and, often, continue uninterrupted due to faculty members’ behaviors in the supervision of doctoral students and the vulnerable conditions that graduate students (and new faculty) work within. Faculty advisors who uphold toxic academic cultures often do so by way of dysfunctional power dynamics and institutional politics, and several studies have documented the ways that such behaviors reveal the dark side of academia and mentorship (Cohen & Baruch, 2021; Johnson & Huwe, 2002; Tuma et al., 2021). In an effort to conceptualize a remedy for this preponderance of unethical academic behavior, recent work has introduced a framework for ethical mindfulness that may help faculty explicitly discuss the ethics of decision-making and cultures as one way to question their socialization (Sam & Gupton, 2021); however, it remains to be seen whether this framework or other potential strategies can combat the exploitation that characterizes US graduate education and faculty careers.

Considering the Future of Ph.D. Labor Exploitation of Ph.D. student labor perpetuates myriad inequities within pathways to the professoriate. For example, students who have family and other demands on their time may be less likely to be able to endure exploitative practices, including pressures to work long and unpredictable schedules (Gibbs & Griffin, 2013; Gibbs et al., 2014; Martinez et al., 2013; Yusuf et al., 2020). Further, exploitative practices are likely to be most difficult on students who are already facing discrimination within academia. On the other hand, students from more privileged backgrounds may be able to tolerate challenging labor environments, particularly those who can rely on family financial support and do not have other work and family responsibilities.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

377

Postdoctoral Labor Precarity As faculty positions, particularly TT ones, have become increasingly rare and competitive, we have also seen a proliferation of postdoctoral positions (“postdocs”) as temporary training grounds for recent doctoral recipients. This is not to say that postdocs have not been part of the academic landscape for many years, especially in science, engineering, and health-related disciplines. Between 2002 and 2007, nearly half (45%) of all science, engineering, and health-related doctoral recipients in the USA went on to work as postdocs (Hoffer et al., 2008), with an even more marked increase of 25% between 2007 (n ¼ 50,840 postdocs) and 2010 (n ¼ 63,415 postdocs) according to the 2010 Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (Einaudi et al., 2013). However, in many other disciplines, it has become a rather new expectation that scholars complete postdoctoral positions to build their record before they are considered for faculty positions. In social science and psychology fields, for example, recent national data show that the number of Ph.D. recipients holding postdoc positions has grown from 24.1% to 39.2% between 1998 and 2018 (National Science Foundation [NSF], 2020). Scholars have recently attributed the rise of postdoc popularity in social sciences, as with other disciplines, to changes in the funding structure of academic research, detrimental conditions of the TT job market, and increasing matriculations across graduate-level programs (Wang & Main, 2021). In examining the increasing number of postdocs through a structural lens, postdocs’ position in precarious structures of academic research funding and faculty hiring may be intertwined. As several studies have shown, individuals who decide to pursue postdoc positions have a greater likelihood of pursuing and securing careers as TT faculty (Wang & Main, 2021; Yang & Webber, 2015). Wang and Main (2021), for example, found that having postdoc training is associated with a higher likelihood of obtaining TT positions in both social sciences and STEM-related fields, by 11% points and 14% points, respectively, compared to not having postdoc training. Without accounting for structural challenges of academic funding, this increase in postdoc employment may be seen as a positive trend for individuals’ academic transitions; however, taking systemic constraints into account, we can more critically examine the purpose for increasing postdoc employment. Given the ways that academic research structures have increasingly placed the onus for funding on individual faculty and labs as the “shop floor” in the knowledge economy (OwenSmith, 2001; Stephan, 2012) – and the university structures that celebrate external funding through faculty reward systems (O’Meara, 2011) – we argue that increased postdoc employment may not be a trend devised to benefit recent Ph.D. recipients, but rather a labor adjustment that corresponds to the decentralization and individualization of academic research funding in the academic capitalist knowledge regime. Indeed, given the important role postdocs play in developing Ph.D. students in lab-based settings (see Blaney et al., 2020; Feldon et al., 2019) and their role in staffing universities as TT positions shrink (see Stephan, 2013), the academic labor economy would face significantly greater challenges in upholding day-to-day operations without increasing postdoc employment across fields.

378

D. F. Feldon et al.

Postdoctoral appointments are typically understood as research positions, which serve as an opportunity to gain new research experience beyond that of Ph.D. programs. Yet, inconsistent definitions and structures of postdoc training have been a global concern (Åkerlind, 2005; Jaeger & Dinin, 2018). As postdocs become increasingly popular across fields, we are seeing a wider range of postdoc position types and quality within postdoc experiences. For one, while a greater proportion of scholarship about postdocs has attended to career outcomes, few scholars have focused on the daily lives of postdocs through their professional identity, supervisory mentoring relationships, and work-life balance (e.g., Hokanson & Goldberg, 2018; Hudson et al., 2018; Niang et al., 2021) – components which may vary depending on the work settings that postdocs occupy and the funding source for their positions (e.g., large grants in research teams and small grants with individual faculty). The proliferation of varied settings for and experiences within postdoc positions has created an inconsistent scope of work for postdocs, such that some postdoc positions allow for early career scholars to develop their individual research agendas, while other positions situate postdocs as part of a cog in the wheel of research conducted by an existing lab or group. Over recent decades, several postdoc programs have been developed by university systems to promote postdocs’ individual research development – some with additional goals of supporting Ph.D. recipients who hold racially, ethnically, or gender-minoritized identities, with the aim of supporting greater diversity in the professoriate. The University of California Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP), for example, is one competitive program that supports the individual development of recent doctoral recipients with historically minoritized identities (e.g., racial, ethnic, and gender). More specifically, the PPFP program requires postdoc applicants to outline a research project that they will undertake with a faculty mentor during their postdoctoral appointment and, if selected, attend professional development opportunities designed for faculty development (Roach, 2009). Conversely, postdocs that are hired into existing research labs, centers, or groups may not have capacity or support to develop their own line of inquiry, which consequentially may pose challenges for their agency and development as future faculty members. Further, the quality of postdoc experiences may vary significantly depending on the ways that societal, disciplinary, and cultural power structures (in)validate postdocs’ identities and agency. While evidence is still emerging, a small body of literature has discussed how motivations for, experiences within, and outcomes of postdoc appointments vary due to individuals’ race/ethnicity, gender, and whether they are born outside of the USA (Huang et al., 2016; McConnell et al., 2018; Mendez et al., 2021; Yadav et al., 2020). In a recent study using data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, Huang et al. (2016) found that foreign-born Asian scholars were more likely than their White peers born in the USA to accept a postdoc position because no other option was available – a finding that the authors explain through the concept of neo-racism, a form of discrimination that is rooted in one’s cultural background or national origin (e.g., Cantwell & Lee, 2010). In today’s context of an increasing number of international and foreign-born scholars taking postdoctoral positions, it is important to understand how structural racism is complicated by

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

379

immigration, culture, and nationality. Other researchers have also illustrated gender differences in postdoctoral experiences, such that – even after completing a Ph.D. – women postdoctoral scientists face discrimination due to societal definitions of gender roles and family responsibility (Helbing et al., 1998) and indicate less interest in research-focused academic jobs than men (McConnell et al., 2018), illustrating how gendered cultural norms may contribute to women leaving academic research during the assumed transition from postdoc to faculty (Martinez et al., 2007). Without attending to the role of societal and cultural inequities, postdoc opportunities may continually serve as a filtering and gatekeeping mechanism of further opportunities in academia. However, despite postdocs playing a crucial role in the structures and processes of academic labor as well as the day-to-day management of research and teaching processes, they remain widely regarded as “the invisible scholars,” occupying uncertain and underresearched academic roles, similar to that which part-time faculty occupied for decades (Jaeger & Dinin, 2018). Many fields are also seeing new expectations to complete longer postdoctoral positions spanning several years. Such “permadoc” positions prolong employment precarity and create more opportunity to lose talented scholars who are unable to continue in such a state of uncertainty. The increasing reliance on postdocs as academic labor and research staff has resulted in nearly 4000 of the 40,000 US postdocs in 2013 reporting that they had been in their positions for more than six years – a problem that is especially prevalent in STEM fields (Powell, 2015). Additionally, length of postdoc is not equally experienced across individuals in these roles. Examining the factors that contribute to the lengthening of postdoc appointments, Stephan and Ma (2005) theorized that individuals with human capital constraints (e.g., spouses, dependents, and older in age) are less likely to pursue postdoc positions, as the individual benefits of investing in human capital would not be able to show return on their investment as easily as those without external responsibilities and longer future career trajectories. In their quantitative analysis, Stephan and Ma (2005) found that the duration of one’s postdoc appointment was negatively associated with the number of dependents the postdoc reported, and they found that married individuals spent less time in their postdoc than those without spouses – both of which support their theorization about the constraints of human capital. In light of the increasing length of postdoc precarity that many early career scholars face, as well as the larger societal stressors associated with establishing security for oneself and/or one’s family in a capitalist system that has made it more difficult to establish social supports (e.g., childcare) and plan for retirement, these larger structures may be another reason that postdoc appointments could serve as an inequitable filtering mechanism if left unaddressed. It is also important to discuss postdocs beyond the traditional research appointments at universities. Today, postdocs exist across a variety of sectors, including industry and nonprofit positions. As Sivro (2015) noted, an industry-based postdoc may be ideal “for some PhDs who would like to experience working in the industry setting but keep the academia dream alive” (p. 58). While not all doctoral recipients may view industry postdocs as a way to straddle industry-related and academic opportunities, such opportunities can be a unique chance for recent doctoral

380

D. F. Feldon et al.

recipients to become familiar with the process of doing research in the private sector (Abu-Yousif et al., 2010; Sivro, 2015). Further, not all postdocs are research positions, with teaching-focused postdocs increasing in popularity. Some teachingfocused postdocs have been developed with the specific intention to provide pedagogical training to STEM doctoral recipients who may otherwise lack formal training in teaching and learning (Chen & Goller, 2019), which is particularly relevant in the preparation of future STEM faculty who cannot only do science but teach science, too. Other teaching-related postdocs claim to provide a pathway from research-centric Ph.D. programs to faculty careers at liberal arts and other teaching institutions. For example, colleges like Mt. Holyoke (2022) and Gettysburg College (2021) have created teaching-centric postdoctoral positions, which are positions that closely resemble those of a visiting assistant professor (see Mt. Holyoke, 2022; Gettysburg College, 2021). Similarly, many colleges and universities have created some form of a “diversity postdoc,” often as a strategy to address larger structural concerns related to faculty diversity at their institutions. Diverging from formalized and systematic programs such as the University of California PPFP, which also hold goals of increasing diversity within the professoriate, singular college-based programs that aim to hire “diversity postdocs” often lack the structural resources to make a substantive difference in terms of representation within faculty pathways. At the same time, postdocs play a critical role in developing students, with some research indicating that the presence of postdocs in one’s lab is the only significant positive predictor of skill development among doctoral students (Feldon et al., 2019).

Implications of Postdoctoral Trends on Faculty Pathways Changing expectations around postdoctoral positions create additional mechanisms to limit access to faculty pathways, as briefly introduced above. First, the precarity associated with temporary postdoctoral positions pose disproportionate challenges to scholars with family responsibilities, student debt, and other financial or geographic constraints (e.g., moving costs for temporary positions and financial stress associated with low compensation and uncertain future employment). This is especially true when considering the trends of postdoc appointments increasing in length (Stephan & Ma, 2005) and the persistence of gendered cultural norms in society (Martinez et al., 2007). As noted by Andrade et al. (2022), these and other hardships wrought by the precarity of postdoctoral appointments have been exacerbated during COVID-19 and, without significant institutional interventions, may disproportionately force Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women scientists to pursue positions outside of the academy. Second, inequities persist in terms of access to elite postdoctoral positions. More specifically, Sheltzer and Smith (2014) document how the inequities of postdoc hiring practices in top laboratories produce demographically skewed pools of future faculty in the biological sciences. Even for those who are able to pursue postdoc positions, several studies have documented the ways in which postdocs are displeased with their environments or particular aspects of their training (Gibbs et al., 2014; Miller & Feldman, 2015), which may deter postdocs from continuing on a faculty trajectory. Importantly, we argue that it is not

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

381

individual postdocs’ responsibility to create training environments where they will thrive, instead it is the responsibility of institutional leaders who manage postdoc settings to create structures and support mechanisms that will allow postdocs to thrive in their positions. When considering the direct complications that the postdoctoral landscape holds on faculty trajectories, it is vital to look to the emerging literature about disciplinary divergences among postdoc positions. For one, postdocs in social sciences and humanities disciplines are relatively newer and less common than postdocs in STEM fields. Yet, recent evidence shows that holding a postdoc position in humanities or humanistic social sciences is a positive predictor of the likelihood of a future academic appointment and a higher future salary (Main et al., 2019). Postdocs in social science–related disciplines are also more likely to be employed at researchintensive institutions (Wang & Main, 2021) – institutional context that points to high likelihood that these positions are driven by academic capitalism (not wholly unlike that which has been documented in the sciences; see Stephan, 2012). It is also important to note that, compared to other STEM disciplines, physical sciences and engineering postdocs are better paid and more likely to be outside of academic contexts, leading to a greater diversity of long-term career outcomes (Denton et al., 2022). Second, while the trend of the “permadoc,” as previously discussed, may be more common in STEM fields in today’s academic landscape, the dearth of tenure track faculty jobs more broadly raises concern that taking more than one postdoc position may be a trend that emerges across disciplines in the future. Looking to long-term career outcomes across several disciplines, Yang and Webber (2015) found that completing one postdoc position was beneficial for securing a tenure track faculty position; however, completing more than one postdoc held no advantage (Yang & Webber, 2015). In other words, the scarcity of secure faculty positions may keep recent doctorate recipients in precarious postdoc employment longer with no distinct advantage in career prospects – a reality that is untenable for many individuals with faculty career aspirations.

Summary As postdoc positions become more common across multiple settings (e.g., university research, industry, and nonprofits) and more frequently used as a stepping stone to TT faculty positions (Wang & Main, 2021), we must take a critical eye to the nature and quality of postdoc appointments – both from an individual lens and a structural one. For one, researchers have shown that individual postdoc experiences are highly dependent on the type of work, setting, and mentoring that postdocs receive (Hokanson & Goldberg, 2018; Hudson et al., 2018; Niang et al., 2021). Further, the structures of postdoc work are all but uniform, depending on aspects such as how postdoc funding is acquired and whether the postdoc position is situated within a larger program (e.g., PPFP). Given these trends, it is increasingly pressing to prioritize equity in the creation of, recruitment to, and support within postdoc positions. While postdoc positions may allow early career scholars to develop new

382

D. F. Feldon et al.

skillsets, it is important to problematize the ways in which they may serve as a filter for future faculty positions – both in terms of filtering out individuals with competing priorities (e.g., family responsibility) and individuals who cannot continue to work in precarious conditions. Researchers invested in understanding the nature of postdoc positions should investigate ways to gather longitudinal data, as real-time and retrospective views are essential in exploring the day-to-day lives of postdocs as well as how postdoc responsibilities may shift over time. It will also be important to shed increased light on access to postdoc positions, as postdocs are not always formally advertised and this practice may be leading to inequitable opportunity. Finally, knowing that individuals who hold a postdoc position have a higher likelihood of obtaining a TT appointment (Wang & Main, 2021), future research should critically examine how faculty hiring committees evaluate postdoc employment in TT search processes.

Moving into the Future In the previous section, we reviewed changing labor and academic market dynamics and financial realities that shape access to faculty career pathways. Now, we turn to emergent trends and predictions for the future of pathways to the professoriate, before presenting specific recommendations for policy and practice to conclude our chapter. As we present these, we engage a context of increasing evidence that we are in a time of growing economic and social inequality (see Murshed, 2022) and acknowledge the ways in which academia is connected to these larger trends within the more localized contexts of graduate education and faculty pathways. The mechanisms for preparing future faculty are of vital importance for the future of postsecondary education. Not only do the policies, practices, and procedures of doctoral education shape the development of prospective scholars, they also determine who is granted access to research training, who succeeds within their academic programs, and who ultimately aspires to and obtains a faculty position. Although the structures influencing doctoral training span larger institutional, economic, disciplinary, and societal origins, students hold significant agency that can inform their navigation of academic and career paths. The ways in which students exercise their agency may manifest in varied ways that reflect the extent to which existing structures constrain their options. When highly constrained, students may only be able to choose between persistence and attrition. However, under less restrictive conditions, students may engage their training in ways that either reinforce or restructure academic training and scholarship (e.g., Dunstan et al., 2018; Herbert et al., 2020). Because faculty are typically minimally trained in foundational aspects of doctoral pedagogy, including both mentorship and classroom teaching, their approaches to working with students are heavily influenced by the cultural and disciplinary norms to which they were socialized during their own student experiences and training (Delamont et al., 1998; Fulgence, 2019; Lee, 2008; Stephens, 2014). Further, elements of cultural reproduction can readily entrench structures that

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

383

privilege White men (Brunsma et al., 2017; Castagno, 2012; Miller & Roksa, 2020). Likewise, institutional and economic structures can heavily influence the ways in which doctoral student performance is evaluated in relation to programmatic benchmarks (e.g., comprehensive exams) and scholarly productivity (Koren & Evans-El, 2020). However, because doctoral students often play an intrinsic and vital role in supporting the scholarship of their supervising faculty, the pressures on faculty to increase their own productivity are unlikely to remain independent of the standards by which they evaluate their students. In this context, efforts to diversify and prepare future faculty through improved doctoral education practices (e.g., CIRTL, PFF programs, holistic admissions strategies, and evidence-based and culturally responsive pedagogy) can come into direct conflict with the influences of academic capitalism. Faculty diversification and preparation efforts often prioritize the autonomy of doctoral students from varied backgrounds and provide greater access and transparency to privileged resources, academic knowledge, and cultural capital. In turn, increased access to and transparency within resources can empower early career researchers to center their own values and unique insights in their research, teaching, and service. Conversely, academic capitalism has created copious structures of pressure and precarity in higher education, such that available tenure track faculty positions continue to decrease, even as senior faculty retire. These positions are replaced with NTT positions that offer lower salaries and reduced investment in maintaining stable environments for scholarship and teaching (Kezar et al., 2019). At the same time, expectations for scholarly productivity – even in institutions whose missions place high value on teaching – are perpetually increasing (e.g., “striving” institutions; Gonzales et al., 2014). Such attempts to increase institutional prestige are typically driven by pressures to enhance access to the external research funds concentrated in proportionately few universities. Further, the demand for greater prestige is reflected in faculty hiring decisions, which broadly value the perceived prestige of the institution from which an applicant received their Ph.D. over their scholarly record (Way et al., 2019) and tend to further restrict access for People of Color (Liera & Hernandez, 2021; Posselt, 2014). Although this landscape represents a rather bleak set of prospects for Ph.D. students who aspire to a faculty career – especially those whose identities have been historically minoritized in the academy – emerging trends in research on doctoral education provide a basis for positive change and hope for the future. First, increasing numbers of studies are centering the voices, experiences, and perspectives of doctoral Students of Color. Such scholarship increases the visibility of both the ways in which the academy needs to better support Students of Color and can provide equitable access to opportunities and resources, ultimately highlighting many effective strategies associated with creating structures for success and empowerment (e.g., Burt et al., 2021; González, 2006). It is also the case that scholars are more intentionally uplifting the voices of women, nonbinary students, disabled students, LGBTQ and trans* students, and students who are from low-income or working-class backgrounds in the graduate education literature, providing specific recommendations for how to reimagine doctoral training structures in ways that can

384

D. F. Feldon et al.

allow students with individual and multiple minoritized identities to thrive (e.g., Crumb, 2022; Goldberg & Kuvalanka, 2019; Karpicz, 2020; Means et al., 2017; Wofford & Blaney, 2021). Second, recent research has also identified specific pedagogical and structural elements of doctoral training that predict more robust scholarly development (e.g., Feldon et al., 2019; Sarnecka et al., 2022). These models of practice are based on empirical evidence of effectiveness rather than traditions of disciplinary institutional culture. Interventions supporting the development of both research and scholarly writing skills highlight the importance of both explicit instruction – from either faculty or senior peers (e.g., senior graduate students and postdocs) – and the creation of a supportive and inclusive community that fosters dialogue and the development of informal networks. Third, doctoral students themselves have effectively exercised agency in reshaping institutional policies and practices through unionization and collective action (e.g., Cain, 2017; Nyquist & Woodford, 2000; Rogers et al., 2013). In these situations, students have directly assumed roles of shared governance and service that ensure adequate resources and opportunities to support them while they develop and launch their early careers as scholars. Further, the fiscal security provided to doctoral students by suitable wages through setting terms of employment reduces the historic reliance on familial wealth and debt when obtaining their degrees. The active role that students can play in shaping the academy highlights the continuous nature of development among early career researchers (McAlpine et al., 2014). Beginning early in their graduate training, through degree completion and postdoctoral employment, and continuing into long-term employment, the preparation of faculty reflects more continuous and sustained development than a discrete focus on doctoral education itself can capture. Accordingly, future research should explore early career researcher experiences over time, including studies that focus specifically on transitions between degree and career stages and across contexts. Such work should connect training experiences to tangible career outcomes, while also contending with complexities in contemporary career trajectories for Ph.D. recipients. For example, completing multiyear postdoctoral research positions is increasingly a prerequisite to obtain a faculty position, yet existing research on postdoctoral experiences rarely account for the intricacies and inequitably distributed challenges of multiple postdoc positions or multiyear contingent contracts. Future research will need to utilize longitudinal designs to examine career outcomes over a longer span of time (e.g., five or more years after earning the Ph.D.). It will also be critical to explore stratification and inequities emerging from recent trends that leave early career researchers in a prolonged state of precarity (e.g., by expecting scholars to accept temporary research positions). Further, while traditional faculty career models operated under the assumption that faculty rarely move institutions, there is now an expectation that faculty may move between institutions, even prior to earning tenure, which represents another important area of inquiry. Again, it will be important to understand how early career researchers move between institutions and regions in pursuit of more permanent tenure track positions, centering impacts for scholars who have been historically excluded from the academy. This

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

385

contemporary landscape increases the complexity of conducting research on early career researcher pathways and outcomes, which are more diverse than ever before. Studies of Ph.D. outcomes over time should also consider outcomes beyond career attainment to capture early career researchers’ confidence and ability to navigate increasingly complex faculty roles. This will be important in light of ongoing assaults on academic freedom, which will inevitably impact early career researcher experiences and outcomes. Traditional faculty development interventions often fall short of meeting the needs of new and incoming faculty, who represent a more diverse group of scholars than those in senior faculty roles. Additionally, new faculty members include a group of highly productive scholars who have successfully navigated an incredibly competitive job market, but these scholars will now face unique challenges in their years as early career researchers due to the changing nature of academic work. Throughout this chapter, we have discussed how academic capitalism shapes the academic job market, the nature of faculty work, and every other aspect of academic labor. Future research should contend with these forces, as they relate specifically to untenured faculty, particularly those who are women, People of Color, or from other groups that have been historically excluded from the professoriate. To that end, research on collective bargaining will be especially important, as will research on how faculty, postdocs, and others successfully resist capitalist forces that shape academic labor. While the increasingly competitive academic job market has recently gained attention within empirical research, we see a need to continue to expand this area of inquiry. Understanding the changing academic market – including policies that can lead to more equitable practices – will be especially important within efforts to disrupt cultural reproduction in the academy. Such studies should recognize the possibilities and limitations when it comes to using faculty hiring as a mechanism for change. While hiring processes have facilitated the slow progress of faculty diversification, larger structures in academe continue to stifle change. New faculty positions reflect the values and needs identified by a professoriate that continues to be predominantly occupied by White men, and biases toward these values are embedded within every aspect of the hiring process, beginning from the point at which positions are developed and throughout the committee decision-making process (see Liera, 2020; White-Lewis, 2021). Thus, a third area in need of further exploration involves illuminating how changing the processes toward faculty pathways might open opportunities for the next generation of academic stewards to redefine what is “valued” in faculty life. As scholars contend with ways to explore this (re)authorship of faculty roles, it will be important to remember that the disruption of existing norms for early career researchers must not solely rely on the efforts of those for whom we are trying to create greater accessibility. Black women and other Women of Color in faculty roles are too often relied upon to carry the torch of care labor and service (e.g., Griffin & Reddick, 2011). Instead, White faculty and administrators must “lead in dousing the flames of polite white supremacy” (Freeman, 2022). Further, collective action, collective restoration, and solidarity will be integral for creating systemic changes

386

D. F. Feldon et al.

in the nature and values of academic work (e.g., hooks, 1994; Mountz et al., 2015; Na et al., 2022). Facilitating systemic change in faculty pathways and centering voices that have been minoritized in the academy requires acknowledging “that the education most of us had received. . .was not and is never politically neutral” (hooks, 1994, p. 30). Indeed, systems of oppression and power inform teaching, research, and practice within and beyond the classroom (e.g., Gorski, 2012; hooks, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 2006). Bringing this notion into a conversation about faculty pathways, it is crucial that individuals currently occupying positions of power in the training of graduate students and hiring of new faculty do not shy away from the political nature of the academy (Liera & Hernandez, 2021; Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017). While the political valuation of academia may seem abstract in nature, creating cultural shifts can have tangible impacts on the ways in which critical research is valued. Existing academic practices and policies (e.g., peer-reviewed publication, grant writing, tenure, and promotion) can be reimagined for the equity-based transformation of graduate education. Together, these cultural shifts can make inroads toward a new future for the academy – one that can shape the landscape that new faculty will enter and carry forward.

Implications for Policy and Practice Across the existing scholarship on doctoral education and faculty pathways, many implications for policy and practice center on empowerment of Ph.D. students to utilize agency more effectively in their scholarly pursuits and be less restrained by the external behavioral influences of economic and institutional structures. To this end, it is incumbent upon institutions to ensure graduate student funding mechanisms actively reduce economic inequality by providing a living wage for the labor doctoral students in supporting both the research and teaching missions of their institutions. Further, the provision of increased fiscal support would help ensure that early career scholars who must relocate for their Ph.D. or have financially cumbersome caretaking responsibilities are not hindered in their access to key developmental resources and opportunities by lack of familial wealth or departure from the tacit norms associated with being a “traditional student.” Similarly, expanded financial support from both disciplinary societies and universities to facilitate student attendance at scholarly conferences can support the development of social and academic capital, both of which are advantageous for developing scholarly networks that can expand access to career opportunities and professional collaboration. Efforts to build, support, and expand diverse and inclusive spaces of near-peer mentors (senior peer mentoring networks) are likewise essential for supporting Ph.D. students from all backgrounds as they develop scholarly skills and identities. Such mentorship networks enhance access to knowledge and professional opportunities, as well as establish diverse, shared cultural and intellectual spaces that enhance a sense of belonging through inclusion. In addition, facilitating the development of mentoring structures that include near-peer communities can build positive

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

387

mentoring cultures within doctoral programs and bolster mechanisms of collective knowledge and support, all of which can supplement the structures of traditional socialization typically envisioned by faculty (Johnson et al., 2022). Beyond the support structures that near-peer mentorship may offer Ph.D. students, there is a dire need to create better mechanisms of support for graduate students’ mental health and well-being. As discussed, doctoral students’ challenges with mental health and well-being are copious (Evans et al., 2018; NASEM, 2021). Given how academic capitalism has progressed, doctoral students face immense pressure for productivity as one trickle-down effect of competition and scarcity in faculty pathways. Additionally, and especially relevant with our hope for increasing diversity in graduate education, doctoral students continue to face toxic training environments that were built upon norms steeped in whiteness, masculinity, heteronormativity, elitism, and other value structures that anchor social hegemony. Existing reviews of interventions for well-being in higher education point to several ways that interventions vary in terms of delivery and effectiveness for different populations (e.g., Conley et al., 2017; Davies et al., 2014), with online communities such as PhD Balance3 emerging as shared spaces for graduate students to discuss their struggles with and resources for mental and emotional health. However, we argue that – beyond student-level interventions for mental health – there is a great need for interventions that target institutional practices and policies. Institutional interventions for doctoral students’ well-being could potentially occur by: (1) examining current training structures for opportunities to disrupt how such structures amplify pressure on graduate students and (2) cultivating new mechanisms to proactively create training environments that are rooted in ethics of care. As outlined by the National Academies (NASEM, 2021), the institution – and their faculty and staff – must take responsibility for interrogating their entire culture to form learning environments where all graduate students can thrive. For example, we concur with Posselt’s (2021a) suggestions to address racial discrimination through racial literacy training (see Harper, 2016; Twine, 2004) that could reduce racist harm, and thus reduce depression and anxiety, among graduate Students of Color. In examining institutional practices and policies to create a culture of thriving, ethics of care may also hold great promise. Ethics of care may be infused in many ways including, but not limited to, revising professional development opportunities to include faculty training on care-based advising (Burt et al., 2021) or practicing radical empathy (Cooke et al., 2020). Policy wise, graduate student well-being could be prioritized by ensuring that Ph.D. students have their basic needs met. For one, financial support should not be solely tied to one’s faculty advisor, which can lead to dysfunctional faculty power dynamics that can endanger graduate students’ financial stability. These and other efforts may advance our ability to create holistic structures of learning that prioritize well-being in graduate education. While faculty mentors remain a central fixture of doctoral education, evolving research and perspectives on the role mentors play in student development have

3

More information is available at https://www.phdbalance.com/

388

D. F. Feldon et al.

substantial implications for practice. Because the perceived quality of faculty mentors does not predict research skill development but does predict scholarly productivity and access to professional networks (Feldon et al., 2019; Paglis et al., 2006), it may be productive to shift our conception of the mentoring role from one of cognitive apprenticeship to one of broker or facilitator of access to resources and opportunities (Bettencourt et al., 2021). Through this lens, the mentor’s primary responsibility to students is to support students’ development of a marketable track record to facilitate entry into the scholarly workforce – either within or outside the academy. Such an approach entails a commitment to supporting equitable access to opportunities and resources, as well as aligning these forms of capital with the goals held by students rather than the goals of the faculty member. This shift will require training and a realignment of institutional policies for faculty, as the institutional incentives in the status quo reward extraction of maximal productivity from students in ways that advance the faculty member’s agenda independent of what may best advance the early career researcher’s objectives. For example, faculty could be held accountable to institutional standards of practice ensuring that mentorship activities can be directly traced to the needs and goals of students, including transparent discussion of the ways in which graduate student labor contributes to faculty successes and how they do or do not align with students’ career prospects and likelihood of successful attainment of faculty and other positions. As future faculty, Ph.D. students must be able to participate in shared governance, challenge academic capitalism, defend academic freedom, and foster more equitable higher education environments. Further, graduate student union and collective bargaining efforts demonstrate how graduate students are already taking their development into their own hands to actively shape their training environments and working conditions. We call on institutions and programs to include graduate students in shared governance activities and otherwise center their voices in decision-making processes (e.g., include graduate student representatives on critical committees and ensure that student voices are valued in committee discussions; offer protection to students who lead collective bargaining efforts; listen to and support messaging from graduate student unions; etc.). Such practices represent a first step in disrupting existing power dynamics and centering student agency in the reimagining of training environments. Further, including students in shared governance and supporting students’ labor organizing efforts would create valuable developmental opportunities, which may go a long way in preparing a future faculty that is ready to navigate institutional policies and procedures, participate in shared governance, defend academic freedom, and have fulfilling careers in an increasingly demanding and complex academic landscape. To further facilitate the successful transition of Ph.D. students into faculty careers, institutions can also take steps to broaden access for historically minoritized groups within the academy. Emerging scholarship continues to move toward the identification of systematically effective strategies (see O’Meara et al., 2020). Such prospective strategies include cluster hires that intentionally recruit new faculty from historically minoritized groups, which offer the advantages of a mutually supportive cohort of peers navigating the academic system and the potential to establish a “critical mass” which can further reduce stress related to being the only member of

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

389

an identity group on the faculty (Mervis, 2020; Muñoz et al., 2017). In addition to planning for diversification within hiring strategies, universities should also offer policy guidance and training to reduce not only racial, ethnic, and gender bias, but also bias favoring candidates from elite institutions independent of demonstrated scholarly records (which can further constrain the number of candidate early career Faculty of Color). This extends to avoiding overreliance on prospective faculty members’ existing professional networks, which may manifest in terms of name recognition for the authors of letters of recommendation above the content and specificity of those letters (Bhalla, 2019; Clauset et al., 2015). While hiring efforts to expand faculty career access attend to one critical issue within inequitable faculty pathways, greater efforts in policy and practice must also be directed toward the valuation of diverse types of and approaches to creating new scholarship. For many years, research structures have been situated within academic capitalist and neoliberal logics, where early career scholars face many pressures to conduct research at a fast pace (e.g., “publish or perish”), within the scope of research that is seen as professionally “legitimate” within the academy, and with large amounts of external funding – a rising pressure that can be partially attributed to the rapid decline of federal and state funding in higher education. Such pressures play a large role in the ethos that quantity of publications is of utmost importance (e.g., Martins et al., 2020), in the ways that women and racially minoritized early career faculty conceptualize professional legitimacy (e.g., O’Meara et al., 2018) and in the large amounts of burnout that early career academics experience (e.g., Vostal, 2015). Collectively, it is unsustainable for academics to continue working under such conditions, and university leaders must combat the current academic reward system that encourages overproduction and prestige-seeking behavior while discouraging creativity. In changing these trends for the future of academia, current faculty can combat these neoliberal tendencies in several practical ways. First, faculty can establish discourse on creativity and creative scholarship in doctoral education (see Brodin, 2018), as neoliberal logics have often stifled creativity for new ways of thinking and knowing. Second, faculty would do well to model the benefits of slowing down to doctoral students – resulting in both the creation of better scholarship and practicing feminist politics of resistance (Mountz et al., 2015). Third, faculty should consider ways to (re)commit to values like communalism (i.e., common ownership of thoughts), the free flow of knowledge (i.e., disseminating information across the field), and other public good principles of knowledge creation, as such values have been largely abandoned by faculty in a time of patents, copyrights, and corporate demands (Park, 2011). Many doctoral students choose to pursue a Ph.D. for their love of subject matter (e.g., Gibbs & Griffin, 2013), and modeling communal values in knowledge creation may create more humanizing and fulfilling training environments. These changes must also be reflected structurally, which may occur through changes to tenure and promotion, for example, as current guidelines often reproduce harmful neoliberal logics that disproportionately affect Faculty of Color and especially Women of Color faculty (Navarro, 2017; Osei-Kofi, 2012). By engaging in structural and individual resistance to neoliberalism, graduate students as well as new and current faculty may thwart the shift away from academic citizenship (Beatson et al., 2021) and reestablish a collegial culture for new knowledge to emerge within.

390

D. F. Feldon et al.

Conclusion We have synthesized literature on graduate training and faculty preparation, organizing our review around a guiding framework of institutionalism (see Fig. 1), which centers individual agency, institutional policies, economic structures, disciplinary contexts, and cultural structures (e.g., academic and social capital). We argue that broader economic and funding structures provide a critical backdrop for understanding faculty preparation and doctoral training mechanisms. More specifically, cuts to higher education funding and academic capitalism inform institutional policy and every other aspect of doctoral training environments. For example, under academic capitalism, institutions and disciplines rely on PhD students and postdoctoral scholar labor, which necessarily constrains the training environments that are possible. At the same time, graduate students continually shape and reshape their training environments through individual and collective agency. Yet, the nature of how early career scholars exercise agency remains constrained by inequitable power dynamics that characterize graduate training. Today’s doctoral students must navigate incredibly competitive faculty job markets, which further places early career scholars in vulnerable positions (e.g., by relying on supervisors to gain access to the academy). Once individuals obtain faculty positions, they face continued precarity in numerous ways and must be prepared to navigate increasing assaults on academic freedom and continued labor exploitation. Access to academic and social capital is critical to how individuals are able to persist through these challenges, and opportunities for success are shaped by the privilege and power that scholars brought with them to their graduate programs. These inequities further contribute to social reproduction in the academy and must be interrogated and disrupted. We also discuss extant research on doctoral training and faculty preparation, which has primarily utilized a socialization framework; in doing so, we recognize the limitations of socialization as an explanatory framework that fully recognizes the complexities of training environments and the nature of student agency. Thus, we call on future research to utilize a wider range of theoretical frameworks to examine doctoral training experiences and faculty preparation. Both research and practice should consider issues related to graduate student labor, power dynamics that characterize graduate training, and how we can prepare a future professoriate that is able to challenge capitalist structures, defend academic freedom, and create more equitable higher education environments.

References Abbott-Anderson, K., Gilmore-Bykovskyi, A., & Lyles, A. A. (2016). The value of preparing PhD students as research mentors: Application of Kram’s temporal mentoring model. Journal of Professional Nursing, 32(6), 421–429. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2016.02.004 Abraham, N., & ElBassiouny, A. (2020). Educational ability testing (GRE/MAT/MCAT/LSAT). In B. J. Carducci & C. S. Nave (Eds.), The Wiley encyclopedia of personality and individual differences (Volume II): Measurement and assessment (pp. 509–511). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

391

Abu-Yousif, A. O., Hett, E. C., Skoczenski, A. M., & Hasan, T. (2010). The ABC’s of industry: A postdoc program provides a sneak peek into industry careers. Nature Biotechnology, 28, 625–626. Adams, J. A. (2000, November 16–19). The G.I. Bill and the changing place of U.S. higher education after World War II [Paper presentation]. Association for the Study of Higher Education Annual Meeting. Sacramento. Addo, F. R., Houle, J. N., & Simon, D. (2016). Young, black, and (still) in the red: Parental wealth, race, and student loan debt. Race and Social Problems, 8(1), 64–76. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12552-016-9162-0 Ahn, B., & Cox, M. F. (2016). Knowledge, skills, and attributes of graduate student and postdoctoral mentors in undergraduate research settings. Journal of Engineering Education, 105(4), 605–629. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20129 Aitchison, C., Catterall, J., Ross, P., & Burgin, S. (2012). ‘Tough love and tears’: Learning doctoral writing in the sciences. Higher Education Research & Development, 31, 435–447. Åkerlind, G. (2005). Postdoctoral researchers: Roles, functions and career prospects. Higher Education Research & Development, 24(1), 21–40. American Association of University Professors. (2021). The annual report on the economic status of the profession, 2020–21. Washington, DC: AAUP. Andrade, B., Medina-Munoz, H. C., Montaño, E. T., Roa, J. N., Sánchez, R. G., Tat, J., Hurst, S., Mouchka, M. E., Trejo, J., & Ramirez, M. L. G. (2022). COVID-19 threatens faculty diversity: Postdoctoral scholars call for action. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 33(3), 1–4. https://doi.org/ 10.1091/mbc.E21-10-0507 Antony, J. S. (2002). Reexamining doctoral student socialization and professional development: Moving beyond the congruence and assimilation orientation. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 17, pp. 349–380). Springer. Appleby, D. C., & Appleby, K. M. (2006). Kisses of death in the graduate school application process. Teaching of Psychology, 33(1), 19–24. Archer, M. (1996). Social integration and system integration: Developing the distinction. Sociology, 30(4), 679–699. Arellano, L. (2022). Questioning the science: How quantitative methodologies perpetuate inequity in higher education. Education Sciences, 12(2), 116. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12020116 Arnold, N. W., Crawford, E. R., & Khalifa, M. (2016). Psychological heuristics and faculty of color: Racial battle fatigue and tenure/promotion. The Journal of Higher Education, 87(6), 890–919. Ashby, M., & Maher, M. (2019). Consensus, division, and the future of graduate education in the chemical sciences. Journal of Chemical Education, 96, 196–202. Aspire: The national alliance for inclusive and diverse STEM faculty. (n.d.). https://www. aspirealliance.org/aspire-home Association of American Medical Colleges. (1970). Report of the Association of American Medical Colleges task force to the inter-association committee on expanding educational opportunities in medicine for blacks and other minority students. https://eric.ed.gov/?id¼ED042401 Austin, A. E. (2002). Preparing the next generation of faculty: Graduate school as socialization to the academic career. The Journal of Higher Education, 73(1), 94–122. Austin, A. E. (2003). Creating a bridge to the future: Preparing new faculty to face changing expectations in a shifting context. The Review of Higher Education, 26(2), 119–144. Austin, A. E. (2009). Cognitive apprenticeship theory and its implications for doctoral education: A case example from a doctoral program in higher and adult education. International Journal of Academic Development, 14, 173–183. Austin, A. E. (2010). Reform efforts in STEM doctoral education: Strengthening preparation for scholarly careers. In W. G. Tierney (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 25, pp. 91–128). Springer. Austin, A. E., & McDaniels, M. (2006a). Preparing the professoriate of the future: Graduate student socialization for faculty roles. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 21, pp. 397–456). Springer.

392

D. F. Feldon et al.

Austin, A. E., & McDaniels, M. (2006b). Using doctoral education to prepare faculty to work within Boyer’s four domains of scholarship. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2006(129), 51–65. Baker, V. L., & Pifer, M. J. (2011). The role of relationships in the transition from doctoral student to independent scholar. Studies in Continuing Education, 33(1), 5–17. Baker, V. L., & Pifer, M. J. (2014). Preparing for practice: Parallel processes of identity development in stage 3 of doctoral education. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 9, 137–154. http://ijds.org/Volume9/IJDSv9p137-154Baker0623.pdf Baker, V. L., Pifer, M. J., & Flemion, B. (2013). Process challenges and learning-based interactions in stage 2 of doctoral education: Implications from two applied social science fields. The Journal of Higher Education, 84(4), 449–476. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2013.0024 Baker, V., Lunsford, L., & Pifer, M. (2017). Developing faculty in liberal arts colleges: Aligning individual needs and organizational goals. Rutgers University Press. Ball, D. L. (2018, July 16). (What) does practice-based teacher education have to do with disrupting racism and oppression? AERA Presidential Talk. Barker, K. (1998). At the bench: A laboratory navigator. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Barnard, R. A., & Shultz, G. V. (2020). “Most important is that they figure out how to solve the problem”: How do advisors conceptualize and develop research autonomy in chemistry doctoral students? Higher Education, 79(6), 981–999. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-01900451-y Baum, S., Ma, J., Pender, M., & Libassi, C. J. (2018). Trends in student aid 2018. The College Board. https://research.collegeboard.org/pdf/trends-student-aid-2018-full-report.pdf Beatson, N. J., Tharapos, M., O’Connell, B. T., de Lange, P., Carr, S., & Copeland, S. (2021). The gradual retreat from academic citizenship. Higher Education Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/ hequ.12341 Becher, T. (1981). Towards a definition of disciplinary cultures. Studies in Higher Education, 6, 109–122. Becher, T., & Trowler, P. R. (2001). Academic tribes and territories (2nd ed.). Open University Press. Bechtel, W. (Ed.). (2012). Science and philosophy: Integrating scientific disciplines. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Bender, D. E., & Kinkela, D. (2001). Thirty years of academic labor: The language of antiunionism. Radical History Review, 79, 7–13. Berglund, L., Erickson, E., & Sarmiento, H. (2017). Reflections on the Ph.D. student experience: Calling for a dialogue on diversity, labor practices, and the future of social justice scholarship. Critical Planning, 23(0), 293–301. https://doi.org/10.5070/CP8231038151 Berry, J., & Savarese, M. (2012). Directory of U.S. faculty contracts and bargaining agents in institutions of higher education. National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, Hunter College of the City University of New York. Bettencourt, G. M., Friedensen, R. E., & Bartlett, M. L. (2021). Re-envisioning doctoral mentorship in the United States: A power-conscious review of the literature. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 16, 237–252. https://doi.org/10.28945/4735 Bhalla, N. (2019). Strategies to improve equity in faculty hiring. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 30, 2744–2749. Biglan, A. (1973). The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 195–203. Bixenmann, R., Natalizio, B. J., Hussain, Y., & Fuhrmann, C. N. (2020). Enhancing dissemination of evidence-based models for STEM PhD career development: A stakeholder workshop report. Professional Development Hub, University of Massachusetts Medical School. https://doi.org/ 10.13028/79a5-ym66 Blaney, J. M., Kang, J., Wofford, A. M., & Feldon, D. F. (2020). Mentoring relationships between doctoral students and postdocs in the lab sciences. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 11(3), 263–279. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-08-2019-0071

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

393

Blaney, J. M., Wofford, A. M., Jeong, S., Kang, J., & Feldon, D. F. (2022). Autonomy and privilege in doctoral education: An analysis of STEM students’ academic and professional trajectories. The Journal of Higher Education, 93, 1037–1063. Blockett, R. A., Felder, P. P., Parrish, W., III, & Collier, J. (2016). Pathways to the professoriate: Exploring Black doctoral student socialization and the pipeline to the academic profession. Western Journal of Black Studies, 40(2), 95–110. Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism. Prentice-Hall. Boice, R. (1992). The new faculty member: Supporting and fostering professional development. Jossey-Bass. Bostick, D. N., Henry, C. M., & Brown, L. C. (2022). Exploring Black graduate women’s perceptions of student loan debt. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(1), 73–85. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000341 Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press. Bowden, R., & Gonzalez, L. P. (2012). The rise of contingent faculty: Its impact on the professoriate and higher education. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 4, 5–22. Bowen, G. A. (2010). From qualitative dissertation to quality articles: Seven lessons learned. Qualitative Report, 15(4), 864–879. Boyce, B. A., Lund, J. L., Napper-Owen, G., & Almarode, D. (2019). Doctoral students’ perspectives on their training as researchers in higher education. Quest, 71(3), 277–288. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/00336297.2019.1618065 Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Brandt, P., Varvayanis, S., Baas, T., Bolgioni, A., Alder, J., et al. (2021). A cross-institutional analysis of the effects of broadening trainee professional development on research productivity. PLoS Biology, 19(7), e3000956. Briggs, L. (2013). Whither feminism in higher education in the current crisis? Feminist Studies, 39(2), 502–506. Brodin, E. M. (2018). The stifling silence around scholarly creativity in doctoral education: Experiences of students and supervisors in four disciplines. Higher Education, 75(4), 655–673. Brunsma, D. L., Embrick, D. G., & Shin, J. H. (2017). Graduate students of color: Race, racism, and mentoring in the white waters of academia. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 3(1), 1–13. Burchell, K. (2015). Factors affecting public engagement by researchers: Literature review. Policy Studies Institute. Burt, B. A. (2019). Toward a theory of engineering professorial intentions: The role of research group experiences. American Educational Research Journal, 56(2), 289–332. Burt, B. A., McCallum, C. M., Wallace, J. D., Roberson, J. J., Bonanno, A., & Boerman, E. (2021). Moving toward stronger advising practices: How Black males’ experiences at HPWIs advance a more caring and wholeness-promoting framework for graduate advising. Teachers College Record, 123(10). Butterfield, A. E., McCormick, A., & Farrell, S. (2018). Building LGBTQ-inclusive chemical engineering classrooms and departments. Chemical Engineering Education, 52(2), 107–113. Cain, T. R. (2017). Campus unions: Organized faculty and graduate students in US higher education. In K. Ward & L. Wolf-Wendel (Eds.). ASHE Higher Education Report, 43(3), 1–176. Calarco, J. M. (2020). A field guide to grad school: Uncovering the hidden curriculum. Princeton University Press. Callister, R. R., Minnotte, K. L., & Sullivan, K. A. (2009). Understanding gender differences in job dissatisfaction among science and engineering faculty. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 15(3), 223–243. Camacho, S., & Rhoads, R. A. (2015). Breaking the silence: The unionization of postdoctoral workers at the University of California. The Journal of Higher Education, 86(2), 295–325. Campbell, C. M., & O’Meara, K. (2014). Faculty agency: Departmental contexts that matter in faculty careers. Research in Higher Education, 55(1), 49–74.

394

D. F. Feldon et al.

Cannady, M. A., Greenwald, E., & Harris, K. N. (2014). Problematizing the STEM pipeline metaphor: Is the STEM pipeline metaphor serving our students and the STEM workforce? Science Education, 98(3), 443–460. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21108 Cantwell, B. (2015). Laboratory management, academic production, and the building blocks of academic capitalism. Higher Education, 70(3), 487–502. Cantwell, B., & Lee, J. J. (2010). Unseen workers in the academic factory: Perceptions of neo-racism among international postdocs in the US and UK. Harvard Educational Review, 80(4), 490–516. Carney, J., Martinez, A., Dreier, J., Neishi, K., & Parsad, A. (2011, February). Evaluation of the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT): Follow-Up Study of IGERT Graduates [Final Report]. Abt Associates, Inc. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED546123.pdf Carson, M. (2001). From the people’s home to the market: Paradigm shift to system shift in the Swedish welfare state. Institute for Housing and Urban Research. Castagno, A. E. (2012). Moments of suspension and other instances of whiteness in the academy. In K. L. Dace (Ed.), Unlikely allies in the academy: Women of color and white women in conversation (pp. 112–123). Routledge. Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning. (n.d.). About CIRTL. https://www. cirtl.net/about Chatterjee, P., & Maira, S. (Eds.). (2014). The imperial university: Academic repression and scholarly dissent. University of Minnesota Press. Chen, S. H., & Goller, C. C. (2019). Shifting faculty approaches to pedagogy through structured teaching postdoc experiences. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 20(2), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v20i2.1789 Choi, Y. H., Brunner, M., & Traini, H. (2021). Partial, (in)authentic, and masked: An exploration of power in doctoral students’ identity development as scholars through collaborative autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2021.1891320 Chu, W., Hart, M. J., Kirchner, K. N., Paton, M. J., & Black, C. J. (2022). Addressing race and diversity in graduate education: Practices from student activism. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(1), 7–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000380 Clarke, C., & Antonio, A. (2012). Rethinking research on the impact of racial diversity in higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 36, 25–50. Clauset, A., Arbesman, S., & Larremore, D. (2015). Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks. Science Advances, 1, e1400005. Clayton-Pedersen, A., Ferren, A., & Gaff, J. (2002). Will reforms survive? Strategies for sustaining Preparing Future Faculty programs. Liberal Education, 88(3), 14–21. Clayton-Pedersen, A. R., Rhodes, T., Lowrie, P. M., & Blaney, J. M. (2016). Preparing critical faculty for the future: Enlisting the voices of STEM women faculty of color. Association of American Colleges and Universities. Coccia, M. (2020). The evolution of scientific disciplines in applied sciences: Dynamics and empirical properties of experimental physics. Scientometrics, 124, 451–487. Coffman, K., Putman, P., Adkisson, A., Kriner, B., & Monaghan, C. (2016). Waiting for the expert to arrive: Using a community of practice to develop the scholarly identity of doctoral students. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 28(1), 30–37. Cohen, A., & Baruch, Y. (2021). Abuse and exploitation of doctoral students: A conceptual model for traversing a long and winding road to academia. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10551-021-04905-1 Colby, G., & Fowler, C. (2000). Data snapshot: IPEDS data on full-time women faculty and faculty of color. American Association of University Professors. https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/ files/Dec-2020_Data_Snapshot_Women_and_Faculty_of_Color.pdf

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

395

Cole, D., & Griffin, K. A. (2013). Advancing the study of student-faculty interaction: A focus on diverse students and faculty. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 28, pp. 561–611). Springer. Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American Educator, 15(3), 6–11. Conley, D. (2001). Capital for college: Parental assets and postsecondary schooling. Sociology of Education, 59–72. Conley, C., Shapiro, J., Kirsch, A., & Durlak, J. (2017). A meta-analysis of indicated mental health prevention programs for at-risk higher education students. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 64(2), 121–140. Connolly, M., Savoy, J., Lee, Y.-G., & Hill, L. (2016). Building a better future STEM faculty: How doctoral teaching programs can improve undergraduate education. Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Connolly, M., Lee, Y., & Savoy, J. (2018). The effects of doctoral teaching development on earlycareer STEM scholars’ college teaching self-efficacy. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 17, Article 15. Cooke, N. A., Warren, K. E., Brown, M., & Jackson, A. (2020). It starts at home: Infusing radical empathy into graduate education. Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, 3. https:// journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/123 Corneille, M., Lee, A., Allen, S., Cannady, J., & Guess, A. (2019). Barriers to the advancement of women of color faculty in STEM: The need for promoting equity using an intersectional framework. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 38(3), 328–348. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0199 Cotterall, S. (2011). Doctoral students writing: Where’s the pedagogy? Teaching in Higher Education, 16(4), 413–425. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2011.560381 Crane, D. (1965). Scientists at major and minor universities: A study of productivity and recognition. American Sociological Review, 699–714. Crede, E. D., Borrego, M., & McNair, L. D. (2010). Application of community of practice theory to the preparation of engineering graduate students for faculty careers. Advances in Engineering Education, 2(2), Article 2. Crumb, L. (2022). Fostering the success of working-class Latina doctoral students at predominantly white institutions. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 17, 25–38. https://doi.org/10. 28945/4886 Crumb, L., Haskins, N., Dean, L., & Harris, J. A. (2020). Illuminating social-class identity: The persistence of working-class African American women doctoral students. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 13(3), 215–227. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000109 Culpepper, D., Lennartz, C., O’Meara, K., & Kuvaeva, A. (2020). Who gets to have a life? Agency in work-life balance for single faculty. Equity & Excellence in Education, 53(4), 531–550. Davies, E. B., Morriss, R., & Glazebrook, C. (2014). Computer-delivered and web-based interventions to improve depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being of university students: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(5), Article e130. Day, K., Becerra, V., Ruiz, V. L., & Powe, M. (2012). New ways of learning, knowing, and working: Diversifying graduate student career options through community engagement. In A. Gilvin, G. M. Roberts, & C. Martin (Eds.), Collaborative futures: Critical reflections on publicly active graduate education (pp. 163–182). The Graduate School Press of Syracuse University. De Los Reyes, A., & Uddin, L. Q. (2021). Revising evaluation metrics for graduate admissions and faculty advancement to dismantle privilege. Nature Neuroscience, 24(6), 755–758. Delamont, S., & Atkinson, P. (2001). Doctoring uncertainty: Mastering craft knowledge. Social Studies of Science, 31(1), 87–107. Delamont, S., Parry, O., & Atkinson, P. (1998). Creating a delicate balance: The doctoral supervisor’s dilemmas. Teaching in Higher Education, 3, 157–172.

396

D. F. Feldon et al.

Demb, A., & Wade, A. (2012). Reality check: Faculty involvement in outreach & engagement. The Journal of Higher Education, 83(3), 337–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2012.11777247 DeNeef, A. L. (2002). The Preparing Future Faculty program: What difference does it make. Association of American Colleges & Universities. Denson, N., Szelényi, K., & Bresonis, K. (2018). Correlates of work-life balance for faculty across racial/ethnic groups. Research in Higher Education, 59(2), 226–247. Denton, M., Borrego, M., & Knight, D. (2022). U.S. postdoctoral careers in life science, physical sciences and engineering: Government, industry, and academic. PLoS One, 17(2), Article e0263185. Diminnie, C. B. (1992). An essential guide to graduate admissions: A policy statement. Council of Graduate Schools. https://eric.ed.gov/?id¼ED354844 Doberneck, D., Bargerstock, B., McNall, M., Van Egernen, L., & Zientek, R. (2017). Community engagement competencies for graduate and professional students: Michigan State University’s approach to professional development. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 24, 122–142. Docka-Filipek, D., & Stone, L. B. (2021). Twice a “housewife”: On academic precarity, “hysterical” women, faculty mental health, and service as gendered care work for the “university family” in pandemic times. Gender, Work and Organization, 28(6), 2158–2179. Dolan, E., & Johnson, D. (2009). Toward a holistic view of undergraduate research experiences: An exploratory study of impact on graduate/postdoctoral mentors. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18(6), 487–500. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-009-9165-3 Dudo, A. (2012). Toward a model of scientists’ public communication activity: The case of biomedical researchers. Science Communication, 35(4), 476–501. Dunstan, S. B., Eads, A., Jaeger, A. J., & Wolfram, W. (2018). The importance of graduate student engagement in a campus language diversity initiative. Journal of English Linguistics, 46(3), 215–228. Eagan, M. K., Jr., Jaeger, A. J., & Grantham, A. (2015). Supporting the academic majority: Policies and practices related to part-time faculty’s job satisfaction. The Journal of Higher Education, 86(3), 448–483. Educational Testing Service. (n.d.). About the GRE tests. https://www.ets.org/gre/institutions/about/ Ehrenberg, R., Zuckerman, H., Groen, J., & Brucker, S. (2009). Changing the education of scholars. In R. G. Ehrenberg & C. V. Kuh (Eds.), Doctoral education and the faculty of the future (pp. 15–34). Cornell University Press. Einaudi, P., Heuer, R., & Green, P. (2013, September). Counts of postdoctoral appointees in science, engineering, and health rise with reporting improvements. [Report No. 13–334]. National Science Foundation. https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13334/ El-Ghoroury, N. H., Galper, D. I., Sawaqdeh, A., & Bufka, L. F. (2012). Stress, coping, and barriers to wellness among psychology graduate students. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 6(2), 122–134. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028768 Espinosa, L. L., Turk, J. M., Taylor, M., & Chessman, H. M. (2019). Race and ethnicity in higher education. American Council on Education & The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. https:// www.equityinhighered.org/resources/report-downloads/ Estrem, H., & Lucas, B. E. (2003). Embedded traditions, uneven reform: The place of the comprehensive exam in composition and rhetoric PhD programs. Rhetoric Review, 22, 396–416. Etmanski, B. (2019). The prospective shift away from academic career aspirations. Higher Education, 77(2), 343–358. Evans, T. M., Bira, L., Gastelum, J. B., Weiss, L. T., & Vanderford, N. L. (2018). Evidence for a mental health crisis in graduate education. Nature Biotechnology, 36(3), 282–284. Felder, P., Stevenson, H., & Gasman, M. (2014). Understanding race in doctoral student socialization. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 9, 21–42. Feldon, D. F. (2020). Implications of measurement issues for advancing the socialization framework. In J. C. Weidman & L. DeAngelo (Eds.), Socialization in higher education and the early career: Theory, research and application (Vol. 7, pp. 287–310). Springer.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

397

Feldon, D. F., Peugh, J., Timmerman, B. E., Maher, M. A., Hurst, M., Strickland, D., et al. (2011). Graduate students’ teaching experiences improve their methodological research skills. Science, 333(6045), 1037–1039. Feldon, D. F., Maher, M. A., Hurst, M., & Timmerman, B. (2015). Faculty mentors’, graduate students’, and performance-based assessments of students’ research skill development. American Educational Research Journal, 52(2), 334–370. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 0002831214549449 Feldon, D. F., Maher, M., Roksa, J., & Peugh, J. (2016a). Cumulative advantage in the skill development of STEM graduate students: A mixed methods study. American Educational Research Journal, 53, 132–161. Feldon, D. F., Shukla, K., & Maher, M. A. (2016b). Faculty-student coauthorship as a means to enhance STEM graduate students’ research skills. International Journal for Researcher Development, 7, 178–191. Feldon, D. F., Peugh, J., Maher, M. A., Roksa, J., & Tofel-Grehl, C. (2017a). Effort-to-credit gender inequities of first-year Ph.D. students in the biological sciences. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 16(1), Article 4. Feldon, D. F., Sun, V., & Rates, C. (2017b). Doctoral threshold concepts in the biological sciences. International Journal of Science Education, 18, 2574–2593. Feldon, D. F., Litson, K., Jeong, S., Blaney, J. M., Kang, J., Miller, C., Griffin, K., & Roksa, J. (2019). Postdocs’ lab engagement predicts trajectories of Ph.D. students’ skill development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(42), 20910–20916. Feldon, D. F., Litson, K., & Cahoon, B. (2021). The predictive validity of the GRE across graduate outcomes: A meta-analysis of trends over time. Paper presented at the 46th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 3–6. Feller, I. (2001). Elite and/or distributed science: An analytical and empirical guide to public policy on the distribution of federal academic R&D funds. In M. P. Feldman & A. N. Link (Eds.), Innovation policy in the knowledge-based economy. Economics of science, technology and innovation, vol 23. Springer. Fernandez, F. (2019). What’s money got to do with it? An examination of the relationships between sources of financial support and the post-graduation career plans of Latina and Latino doctoral students in the social sciences. The Review of Higher Education, 43(1), 143–168. Finkelstein, M. J., Seal, R. K., & Schuster, J. H. (1998). The new academic generation: A profession in transformation. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Fitzgerald, H. E., Bruns, K., Sonka, S. T., Furco, A., & Swanson, L. (2012). The centrality of engagement in higher education. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 16(3), 7–28. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977 (C. Gordon, Trans.). Pantheon Books. Freeman, S. (2022, May 13). I’m scared that I have mentored my people into a burning house. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/ 15292016/im-scared-that-i-have-mentored-my-people-into-a-burning-house Fuhrmann, C. N., Halme, D. G., O’Sullivan, P. S., & Lindstaedt, B. (2011). Improving graduate education to support a branching career pipeline: Recommendations based on a survey of doctoral students in the basic biomedical sciences. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 10(3), 239–249. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.11-02-0013 Fulgence, K. S. (2019). A theoretical perspective on how doctoral supervisors develop supervision skills. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 14, 721–739. https://doi.org/10.28945/4446 Furstenberg, A. L., & Nichols-Casebolt, A. (2001). Hurdle or building block: Comprehensive examinations in social work doctoral education. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 21(1–2), 19–37. Gaff, J., Pruitt-Logan, A., & Weibl, R. (2000). Building the faculty we need: Colleges and universities working together. Council of Graduate Schools & Association of American Colleges and Universities.

398

D. F. Feldon et al.

Gaff, J., Pruitt-Logan, A., Sims, L., & Denecke, D. (2003). Preparing future faculty in the humanities and social sciences: A guide for change. Council of Graduate Schools & Association of American Colleges and Universities. Garcia, G. A., Ramirez, J. J., & Patrón, O. E. (2020). Rethinking Weidman’s models of socialization for Latinxs along the postsecondary educational pipeline. In J. C. Weidman & L. DeAngelo (Eds.), Socialization in higher education and the early career: Theory, research and application (Vol. 7, pp. 55–72). Springer. Garcia, A. L., Lane, T. B., & Rincón, B. E. (2021). Cultivating graduate STEM pathways: How alliance-based STEM enrichment programs broker opportunity for students of color. Frontiers in Education, 6, Article 667976. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.667976 Gardner, S. K. (2008). “What’s too much and what’s too little?”: The process of becoming an independent researcher in doctoral education. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(3), 326–350. Gardner, S. K. (2009a). Conceptualizing success in doctoral education: Perspectives of faculty in seven disciplines. The Review of Higher Education, 32(3), 383–406. Gardner, S. K. (2009b). Coming out of the sexual harassment closet: One woman’s story of politics and change in higher education. NWSA Journal, 21(2), 171–195. Gardner, S. K. (2013). Women faculty departures from a striving institution: Between a rock and a hard place. The Journal of Higher Education, 36, 349–370. Gardner, S. K., & Holley, K. A. (2011). “Those invisible barriers are real”: The progression of firstgeneration students through doctoral education. Equity & Excellence in Education, 44(1), 77–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2011.529791 Gaughan, M., & Bozeman, B. (2016). Using the prisms of gender and rank to interpret research collaboration power dynamics. Social Studies of Science, 46(4), 536–558. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0306312716652249 Geiger, R. L. (2008). Research & relevant knowledge: American research universities since World War II. Routledge. Germano, W. (2014). From dissertation to book. University of Chicago Press. Gettysburg College. (2021). Consortium for faculty diversity. https://www.gettysburg.edu/offices/ provost/consortium-for-faculty-diversity/ Gibbs, K. D., & Griffin, K. A. (2013). What do I want to be with my Ph.D.? The roles of personal values and structural dynamics in shaping the career interests of recent biomedical science Ph.D. graduates. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 12(4), 711–723. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.1302-0021 Gibbs, K., McGready, J., & Griffin, K. (2014). Biomedical science PhD career interest patterns by race/ethnicity and gender. PLoS One, 9, e114736. Gibbs, K. D., Basson, J., Xierali, I. M., & Broniatowski, D. A. (2016). Decoupling of the minority Ph.D. talent pool and assistant professor hiring in medical school basic science departments in the US. eLife, 5, Article e21393. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21393 Gillian-Daniel, D. L., & Walz, K. A. (2016). Teaching-as-research internships: A model for the development of future chemistry faculty and the improvement of teaching in science, technology, engineering, and math. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 40(2), 133–145. Goldberg, A. E., & Kuvalanka, K. (2019). Transgender graduate students’ experiences in higher education: A mixed-methods exploratory study. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(1), 38–51. Golde, C. M., & Dore, T. M. (2001). At cross purposes: What the experiences of today’s doctoral students reveal about doctoral education [Report]. Pew Charitable Trusts. https://files.eric.ed. gov/fulltext/ED450628.pdf Golde, C. M., & Walker, G. E. (Eds.). (2006). Envisioning the future of doctoral education: Preparing stewards of the discipline-Carnegie essays on the doctorate (Vol. 3). John Wiley & Sons. Golde, C. M., Conklin Bueschel, A., Jones, L., & Walker, G. E. (2009). Advocating apprenticeship and intellectual community: Lessons from the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate. In R. G.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

399

Ehrenberg & C. V. Kuh (Eds.), Doctoral education and faculty of the future (pp. 53–64). Cornell University Press. Gonzales, L. D., Martinez, E., & Ordu, C. (2014). Exploring faculty experiences in a striving university through the lens of academic capitalism. Studies in Higher Education, 39(7), 1097–1115. González, J. C. (2006). Academic socialization experiences of Latina doctoral students: A qualitative understanding of support systems that aid and challenges that hinder the process. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 5(4), 347–365. Gooden, M. A., Devereaux, C. A., & Hulse, N. E. (2020). # BlackintheIvory: Culturally responsive mentoring with Black women doctoral students and a Black male mentor. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 28(4), 392–415. Gopaul, B. (2011). Distinction in doctoral education: Using Bourdieu’s tools to assess the socialization of doctoral students. Equity & Excellence in Education, 44(1), 10–21. https://doi.org/10. 1080/10665684.2011.539468 Gopaul, B. (2015). Inequality and doctoral education: Exploring the “rules” of doctoral study through Bourdieu’s notion of field. Higher Education, 70, 73–88. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10734-014-9824-z Gopaul, B. (2016). Applying cultural capital and field to doctoral student socialization. International Journal for Researcher Development, 7(1), 46–62. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRD-032015-0009 Gopaul, B. (2019). “Nothing succeeds like success”: Doctoral education and cumulative advantage. The Review of Higher Education, 42(4), 1431–1457. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0071 Gorski, P. C. (2012). Perceiving the problem of poverty and schooling: Deconstructing the class stereotypes that mis-shape education practice and policy. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(2), 302–319. Graham, H. D., & Diamond, N. (2004). The rise of American research universities: Elites and challengers in the postwar era. JHU Press. Griffin, K. A. (2020a). Rethinking mentoring: Integrating equity-minded practice in promoting access to and outcomes of developmental relationships. In A. Kezar & J. Posselt (Eds.), Higher education administration for social justice and equity: Critical perspectives for leadership (pp. 93–110). Routledge. Griffin, K. A. (2020b). Institutional barriers, strategies, and benefits to increasing the representation of women and men of color in the professoriate. In L. W. Perna (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 35, pp. 277–349). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31365-4_4 Griffin, K. A., & Reddick, R. J. (2011). Surveillance and sacrifice: Gender differences in the mentoring patterns of Black professors at predominantly White research universities. American Educational Research Journal, 48(5), 1032–1057. Griffin, K., Muñiz, M., & Espinosa, L. (2012). The influence of campus racial climate on diversity in graduate education. The Review of Higher Education, 35, 535–566. Griffin, K., Baker, V., O’Meara, K., Nyunt, G., Robinson, T., & Staples, C. L. (2018). Supporting scientists from underrepresented minority backgrounds: Mapping developmental networks. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 9(1), 19–37. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPED-17-00032 Guarino, C., & Borden, V. (2017). Faculty service loads and gender: Are women taking care of the academic family? Research in Higher Education, 58, 672–694. Guerin, C., & Green, I. (2015). “They’re the bosses”: Feedback in team supervision. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 39(3), 320–335. Guillaume, R. O., & Apodaca, E. C. (2020). Early career faculty of color and promotion and tenure: The intersection of advancement in the academy and cultural taxation. Race Ethnicity and Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2020.1718084 Guloy, S., Hum, G., & O’Neill, D. K. (2020). Voices at the gate: Faculty members’ and students’ differing perspectives on the purposes of the PhD comprehensive examination. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(2), 279–291.

400

D. F. Feldon et al.

Hackman, R. J., Wiggins, N., & Bass, A. R. (1970). Prediction of long-term success in doctoral work in psychology. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30, 365–374. https://doi. org/10.1177/001316447003000219 Hanasono, L. K., Broido, E. M., Yacobucci, M. M., Root, K. V., Peña, S., & O’Neil, D. A. (2019). Secret service: Revealing gender biases in the visibility and value of faculty service. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(1), 85–98. Harper, S. R. (2016). Racial literacy: A critical skill for student affairs professionals. NASPA Leadership Exchange. https://www.leadershipexchange-digital.com/leadershipexchange/ 2016fall/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId¼1151777#articleId1151777 Harris, N. F., & Bastedo, M. N. (2011). Corruption at the top: Ethical dilemmas in college and university governance. In T. B. Gallant (Ed.), Creating the ethical academy: A systems approach to understanding misconduct and empowering change (pp. 127–144). Routledge. Harris, T. M., & Lee, C. N. (2019). Advocate-mentoring: A communicative response to diversity in higher education. Communication Education, 68, 103–113. Hattie, J., & Marsh, H. W. (1996). The relationship between research and teaching: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 66, 507–542. Hayter, C., & Parker, M. (2019). Factors that influence the transition of university postdocs to non-academic scientific careers: An exploratory study. Research Policy, 48, 556–570. Helbing, C. C., Verhoef, M. J., & Wellington, C. L. (1998). Gender and the postdoctoral experience. Science and Public Policy, 25(4), 255–264. Helm, M., Campa, H., III, & Moretto, K. (2012). Professional socialization for the Ph.D.: An exploration of career and professional development preparedness and readiness for Ph.D. candidates. The Journal of Faculty Development, 26(2), 5–23. Herbert, W. A., Apkarian, J., & van der Naald, J. (2020). Supplementary directory of new bargaining agents and contracts in institutions of higher education, 2013–2019. Available at SSRN 3731420. Higgins, M. C., & Kram, K. E. (2001). Reconceptualizing mentoring at work: A developmental network perspective. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 264–288. Hill, L. B., Austin, A. E., Bantawa, B., & Savoy, J. N. (2019a). Factors of success: Building and sustaining teaching professional development opportunities for doctoral students and postdocs. Higher Education Research & Development, 38(6), 1168–1182. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 07294360.2019.1616677 Hill, L. B., Savoy, J. N., Austin, A. E., & Bantawa, B. (2019b). The impact of multi-institutional STEM reform networks on member institutions: A case study of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning. Innovative Higher Education, 44(3), 1–16. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10755-019-9461-7 Hinchey, P., & Kimmel, I. (2000). The graduate grind: A critical look at graduate education. Falmer Press. Hirt, J., & Muffo, J. (1998). Graduate students: Institutional climates and disciplnary cultures. New Directions for Institutional Research, 98, 17–33. Hodge, D. R., Yu, M., & Kim, A. (2020). Assessing the quality and prestige of disciplinary social work journals: A national study of faculty perceptions. Research on Social Work Practice, 30(4), 451–459. Hoey, J. J., IV. (2008). Tools and assessment methods specific to graduate education. In J. E. Spurlin, S. A. Rajala, & J. P. Lavelle (Eds.), Designing better engineering education through assessment: A practical resource for faculty and department chairs on using assessment and ABET criteria to improve student learning (pp. 149–167). Stylus. Hoffer, T., Grigorian, K., & Hedberg, E. (2008). Postdoc participation of science, engineering, and health doctorate recipients. InfoBrief (March), National Science Foundation, Arlington. Hokanson, S. C., & Goldberg, B. B. (2018). Proactive postdoc mentoring. In A. J. Jaeger & A. J. Dinin (Eds.), The postdoc landscape: The invisible scholars (pp. 91–120). Academic Press. Holley, K. A. (2018). The longitudinal career experiences of interdisciplinary neuroscience PhD recipients. The Journal of Higher Education, 89, 106–127. Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

401

Hopwood, N. (2010). Doctoral experience and learning from a sociocultural perspective. Studies in Higher Education, 35(7), 829–843. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070903348412 House, S. C., Spencer, K. C., & Pfund, C. (2018). Understanding how diversity training impacts faculty mentors’ awareness and behavior. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 7(1), 72–86. Huang, Y., Cantwell, B., & Taylor, B. (2016). Reasons for becoming a postdoc: Differences by race and foreign-born status. Teachers College Record, 118(11), 1–29. Hudson, T. D., Haley, K. J., Jaeger, A. J., Mitchall, A., Dinin, A., & Dunstan, S. B. (2018). Becoming a legitimate scientist: Science identity of postdocs in STEM fields. The Review of Higher Education, 41(4), 607–639. Hutcheson, P. A., & Kidder, R. D. (2011). In the national interest: The college and university in the United States in the post-World War II era. In J. Smart & M. Paulsen (Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 26, pp. 221–264). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/97894-007-0702-3_6 Hyun, J. K., Quinn, B. C., Madon, T., & Lustig, S. (2006). Graduate student mental health: Needs assessment and utilization of counseling services. Journal of College Student Development, 47(3), 247–266. Ishiyama, J., Miles, T., & Balarezo, C. (2010). Training the next generation of teaching professors: A comparative study of Ph.D. programs in political science. PS: Political Science & Politics, 43(03), 515–522. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096510000752 Jaeger, A. J., & Dinin, A. J. (Eds.). (2018). The postdoc landscape: The invisible scholars. Academic Press. Jaeger, A. J., Mitchall, A., O’Meara, K., Grantham, A., Zhang, J., Eliason, J., & Cowdery, K. (2017). Push and pull: The influence of race/ethnicity on agency in doctoral student career advancement. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 10(3), 232–252. Jeong, S., Litson, K., Blaney, J., & Feldon, D. F. (2020). Shifting gears: Characteristics and consequences of latent class transitions in doctoral socialization. Research in Higher Education, 61, 1027–1053. Johnson, W. B., & Huwe, J. M. (2002). Toward a typology of mentorship dysfunction in graduate school. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 39(1), 44–55. https://doi.org/10. 1037/0033-3204.39.1.44 Johnson, J. M., & Scott, S. (2020). Nuanced navigation: Narratives of the experiences of Black “All but dissertation” (ABD) women in the academy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1852485 Johnson, J. A., & Taylor, B. J. (2019). Academic capitalism and the faculty salary gap. Innovative Higher Education, 44(1), 21–35. Johnson, W. B., Long, S., Smith, D. G., & Grif, K. A. (2022). Creating a mentoring culture in graduate training programs. Training and Education in Professional Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000404 Julius, D. J., & Gumport, P. J. (2003). Graduate student unionization: Catalysts and consequences. The Review of Higher Education, 26(2), 187–216. Kamimura-Jimenez, M., & Gonzalez, J. (2018). Understanding PhD Latinx career outcomes: A case study. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 17(2), 148–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1538192717753037 Kamler, B. (2008). Rethinking doctoral publication practices: Writing from and beyond the thesis. Studies in Higher Education, 33(3), 284–294. Kamler, B. (2010). Revise and resubmit: The role of publication brokers. In C. Aitchison, B. Kamler, & A. Lee (Eds.), Publishing pedagogies for the doctorate and beyond (pp. 64–82). Routledge. Karpicz, J. R. (2020). “Just my being here is self-advocacy”: Exploring the self-advocacy experiences of disabled graduate students of color. JCSCORE, 6(1), 137–163. Katz, J., & Hartnett, R. T. (1976). Recommendations for training better scholars. In J. Katz & R. T. Hartnett (Eds.), Scholars in the making: The development of graduate and professional students (pp. 261–280). Ballinger.

402

D. F. Feldon et al.

Katz, J. R., Chow, C., Motzer, S. A., & Woods, S. L. (2009). The graduate record examination: Help or hindrance in nursing graduate school admissions? Journal of Professional Nursing, 25(6), 369–372. Kawa, N., Michelangeli, J., Clark, J., Ginsberg, D., & McCarty, C. (2019). The social network of US academic anthropology and its inequalities. American Anthropologist, 121, 14–29. Kelchen, R. (2018). Higher education accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press. Kelley, M. J., & Salisbury-Glennon, J. D. (2016). The role of self-regulation in doctoral students’ status of all but dissertation (ABD). Innovative Higher Education, 41(1), 87–100. Kent, J. D., & McCarthy, M. T. (2016). Holistic review in graduate admissions: A report from the Council of Graduate Schools. Council of Graduate Schools. https://cgsnet.org/report/ innovation-in-graduate-admissions-through-holistic-review/ Kezar, A., & Sam, C. (2010). Understanding the new majority: NTTF faculty in higher education. ASHE Higher Education Report (Vol. 36). Kezar, A., DePaola, T., & Scott, D. T. (2019). The gig academy: Mapping labor in the neoliberal university. Johns Hopkins University Press. Kim, D., & Otts, C. (2010). The effect of loans on time to doctorate degree: Differences by race/ ethnicity, field of study, and institutional characteristics. The Journal of Higher Education, 81(1), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2010.11778968 Kim, D., Kim, S., Flores, A., & Palek, A. M. (2022). Are primary funding sources and debt level associated with career outcomes among recent STEM doctoral graduates? The Journal of Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2022. 2031706 Knight, D., Kinoshita, T., Choe, N., & Borrego, M. (2018). Doctoral student funding portfolios across and within engineering, life sciences and physical sciences. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 9(1), 75–90. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-D-17-00044 Koren, E. R., & Evans-El, S. X. (2020). Laissez-faire ableism in the academy: Contouring the map with graduate student perspectives. Critical Education, 11(14), 14–30. Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in US schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3–12. Lanahan, L., Graddy-Reed, A., & Feldman, M. P. (2016). The domino effects of federal research funding. PLoS One, 11(6), e0157325. Larson, R. C., Ghaffarzadegan, N., & Xue, Y. (2014). Too many PhD graduates or too few academic job openings: The basic reproductive number R0 in academia. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 31(6), 745–750. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. Layton, R. L., Brandt, P. D., Freeman, A. M., Harrell, J. R., Hall, J. D., & Sinche, M. (2016). Diversity exiting the academy: Influential factors for the career choice of well-represented and underrepresented minority scientists. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(3), Article 41. Lee, A. (2008). How are doctoral students supervised? Concepts of doctoral research supervision. Studies in Higher Education, 33, 267–281. Lee, J. J., Oseguera, L., Kim, K. A., Fann, A., Davis, T. M., & Rhoads, R. A. (2004). Tangles in the tapestry: Cultural barriers to graduate student unionization. The Journal of Higher Education, 75(3), 340–361. Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (2002). Social cognitive career theory. In Career choice and development (4th ed., pp. 255–311). Jossey-Bass. Lenzi, R., Korn, S., Wallace, M., Desmond, N., & Labosky, P. (2020). The NIH “BEST” programs: Institutional programs, the program evaluation, and early data. The FASEB Journal, 34(3), 3570–3582. Levin, J. S., Kater, S., & Wagoner, R. L. (2006). Community college faculty: At work in the new economy. Palgrave Macmillan. Liera, R. (2020). Moving beyond a culture of niceness in faculty hiring to advance racial equity. American Educational Research Journal, 57(5), 1954–1994.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

403

Liera, R., & Hernandez, T. E. (2021). Color-evasive racism in the final stage of faculty searches: Examining search committee hiring practices that jeopardize racial equity policy. The Review of Higher Education, 45(2), 181–209. Liera, R., Rodgers, A. J., Irwin, L. N., Posselt, J. R., & Anglón, G. C. (2021, April 8–12). Learning disciplinary legitimacy: How faculty and students construct the transition to doctoral candidacy [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Virtual Annual Meeting. Lindahl, J., Colliander, C., & Danell, R. (2020). Early career performance and its correlation with gender and publication output during doctoral education. Scientometrics, 122(1), 309–330. Lindholm, J. A. (2004). Pathways to the professoriate: The role of self, others, and environment in shaping academic career aspirations. The Journal of Higher Education, 75(6), 603–635. Löfström, E., & Pyhältö, K. (2017). Ethics in the supervisory relationship: supervisors’ and doctoral students’ dilemmas in the natural and behavioural sciences. Studies in Higher Education, 42(2), 232–247. Lovitts, B. E. (2001). Leaving the ivory tower: The causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lovitts, B. E. (2007). Making the implicit explicit: Creating performance expectations for the dissertation. Stylus Publishing. Lovitts, B. E. (2008). The transition to independent research: Who makes it, who doesn’t, and why. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(3), 296–325. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2008. 11772100 Maher, M., Fallucca, A., & Halasz, H. M. (2013a). Write on! Through to the Ph.D.: Using writing groups to facilitate doctoral degree progress. Studies in Continuing Education, 35(2), 193–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2012.736381 Maher, M. A., Gilmore, J. A., Feldon, D. F., & Davis, T. E. (2013b). Cognitive apprenticeship and the supervision of science and engineering research assistants. Journal of Research Practice, 9, Article M5. Maher, M., Wofford, A., Roksa, J., & Feldon, D. F. (2019). Doctoral student experiences in biological sciences laboratory rotations. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 10, 69–82. Maher, M. A., Wofford, A. M., Roksa, J., & Feldon, D. F. (2020). Finding a fit: Biological science doctoral students’ selection of a principal investigator and research laboratory. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19(3), Article 31. Main, J., Prenovitz, S., & Ehrenberg, R. (2019). In pursuit of a tenure-track faculty position: Career progression and satisfaction of humanities and social sciences doctorates. The Review of Higher Education, 42, 1309–1336. Marsh, H. W., & Hattie, J. (2002). The relation between research productivity and teaching effectiveness. Journal of Higher Education, 73, 603–641. Martinez, E. D., Botos, J., Dohoney, K. M., Geiman, T. M., Kolla, S. S., Olivera, A., et al. (2007). Falling off the academic bandwagon: Women are more likely to quit at the postdoc to principal investigator transition. EMBO Reports, 8(11), 977–981. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.embor.740110 Martinez, E., Ordu, C., Della Salla, M., & McFarlane, A. (2013). Striving to obtain a school-worklife balance: The full-time doctoral student. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 8, 39–59. Martins, R. S., Cheema, D. A., & Sohail, M. R. (2020). The pandemic of publications: Are we sacrificing quality for quantity? Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 95(10), 2288–2290. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.mayocp.2020.07.026 Masta, S. (2021). Classroom counterspaces: Centering Brown and Black students in doctoral education. Teaching in Higher Education, 26(3), 354–369. Mathieu, R. D., Austin, A. E., Barnicle, K. A., Campa, H., III, & McLinn, C. M. (2020). The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning: A national-scale network to prepare STEM future faculty. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 163, 45–53. McAlpine, L., & Amundsen, C. (2009). Identity and agency: Pleasures and collegiality among the challenges of the doctoral journey. Studies in Continuing Education, 31(2), 109–125.

404

D. F. Feldon et al.

McAlpine, L., Amundsen, C., & Turner, G. (2014). Identity-trajectory: Reframing early career academic experience. British Educational Research Journal, 40, 952–969. McCarthy, M. T. (2017). Promising practices in humanities PhD professional development: Lessons learned from the 2016–2017 next generation humanities PhD consortium. Council of Graduate Schools. McCartney, M., Childers, C., Baiduc, R., & Barnicle, K. (2018). Annotated primary literature: A professional development opportunity in science communication for graduate students and postdocs. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 19(1), 1–11. McConnell, S. C., Westerman, E. L., Pierre, J. F., Heckler, E. J., & Schwartz, N. B. (2018). United States National Postdoc Survey results and the interaction of gender, career choice and mentor impact. eLife, 7, Article e40189. McDaniels, J., Pfund, C., & Barnicle, K. (2016). Creating dynamic learning communities in synchronous online courses: One approach from the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL). Online Learning, 20(1), 110–129. McGee, E. O. (2020). Interrogating structural racism in STEM higher education. Educational Researcher, 49(9), 633–644. Means, D. R., Beatty, C. C., Blockett, R. A., Bumbry, M., Canida, R. L., & Cawthon, T. W. (2017). Resilient scholars: Reflections from Black gay men on the doctoral journey. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 54(1), 109–120. Meara, K. O. (2007). Striving for what? Exploring the pursuit of prestige. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 121–179). Springer. Medoff, M. H. (2006). Evidence of a Harvard and Chicago Matthew effect. Journal of Economic Methodology, 13(4), 485–506. Mendez, S. L., Starkey, K. E., Cooksey, S. E., & Conley, V. M. (2021). Environmental influences on the STEM identity and career intentions of Latinx STEM postdoctoral scholars. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1538192721992436 Mendoza, P. (2007). Academic capitalism and doctoral student socialization: A case study. The Journal of Higher Education, 78(1), 71–96. Mendoza, P., Kuntz, A. M., & Berger, J. B. (2012). Bourdieu and academic capitalism: Faculty “habitus” in materials science and engineering. The Journal of Higher Education, 83(4), 558–581. Merenda, P. M., & Reilly, R. (1971). Validity of selection criteria in determining success of graduate students in psychology. Psychological Reports, 28, 259–266. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1971. 28.1.259 Merton, R. K., Reader, G., & Kendall, P. L. (Eds.). (1957). The student physician: Introductory studies in the sociology of medical education. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/ harvard.9780674366831 Mervis, J. (2020). NIH hopes ‘cluster hiring’ will improve diversity. Science, 367(6479), 726. Mewburn, I., Osborne, L., & Caldwell, G. (2014). Shut up & write. In C. Aitchison & C. Guerin (Eds.), Writing groups for doctoral education and beyond: Innovations in practice and theory (pp. 218–233). Routledge. Michel, R. S., Belur, V., Naemi, B., & Kell, H. J. (2019). Graduate admissions practices: A targeted review of the literature (ETS Report No. RR-19-33). Educational Testing Service. https://doi. org/10.1002/ets2.12271 Miller, K. (2017). Deeper in debt: Women and student loans. American Association of University Women. https://www.aauw.org/app/uploads/2020/03/DeeperinDebt-nsa.pdf Miller, J. M., & Feldman, M. P. (2015). Isolated in the lab: Examining dissatisfaction with postdoctoral appointments. The Journal of Higher Education, 86(5), 697–724. Miller, C., & Roksa, J. (2020). Balancing research and service in academia: Gender, race, and laboratory tasks. Gender & Society, 34(1), 131–152.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

405

Miller, C. W., Zwickl, B. M., Posselt, J. R., Silvestrini, R. T., & Hodapp, T. (2019). Typical physics Ph.D. admissions criteria limit access to underrepresented groups but fail to predict doctoral completion. Science. Advances, 5(1), Article eaat7550. Minerick, A. R. (2011). Journal club: A forum to encourage graduate and undergraduate research students to critically review the literature. Chemical Engineering Education, 45(1), 73–82. Misra, J., Lundquist, J. H., Holmes, E., & Agiomavritis, S. (2011). The ivory ceiling of service work. Academe, 97(1), 22–26. Misra, J., Kuvaeva, A., O’Meara, K., Culpepper, D. K., & Jaeger, A. (2021). Gendered and racialized perceptions of faculty workloads. Gender & Society, 35(3), 358–394. Mitchell, M., Leachman, M., & Saenz, M. (2019). State higher education funding cuts have pushed costs to students, worsened inequality. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 24, 9–15. Monk, J. J., Foote, K. E., & Schlemper, M. B. (2012). Graduate education in US geography: Students’ career aspirations and faculty perspectives. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(6), 1432–1449. Morgan, A. C., Economou, D. J., Way, S. F., & Clauset, A. (2018). Prestige drives epistemic inequality in the diffusion of scientific ideas. EPJ Data Science, 7(1), 40. Morin, S., Jaeger, A. J., & O’Meara, K. (2016). The state of community engagement in graduate education: Reflecting on 10 years of progress. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 20, 151–156. Morrison, E., Rudd, E., Picciano, J., & Nerad, M. (2011). Are you satisfied? PhD education and faculty taste for prestige: Limits of the prestige value system. Research in Higher Education, 52(1), 24–46. Mountz, A., Bonds, A., Mansfield, B., Loyd, J., Hyndman, J., Walton-Roberts, M., Basu, R., Whitson, R., Hawkins, R., Hamilton, T., & Curran, W. (2015). For slow scholarship: A feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 14(4), 1235–1259. Mt. Holyoke College. (2022). Mt. Holyoke Fellowship Program. Retrieved from https://www. mtholyoke.edu/deanoffaculty/mount-holyoke-fellowship-program Muñoz, S. M., Basile, V., Gonzalez, J., Birmingham, D., Aragon, A., Jennings, L., & Gloeckner, G. (2017). Critical perspectives from a university cluster hire focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 6(2), 1–21. Murshed, S. M. (2022). Consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for economic inequality. In Covid-19 and international development (pp. 59–70). Springer. Musial, J., & Holmes, C. (2018). Five-year study on hiring trends in gender, women’s, and feminist studies. Feminist Studies, 44(2), 253–272. Na, V. S., Wang, A. C., & White, H. H. (2022). Our restive selves: A collaborative autoethnography on confronting complicity in neoliberal doctoral socialization. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35, 478–495. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). Graduate STEM education for the 21st century. The National Academies Press. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2021). Mental health, substance use, and wellbeing in higher education: Supporting the whole student. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26015 National Academy of Science’s Committee on Science, Engineering, and Policy. (1995). Reshaping the graduate education of scientists and engineers. National Academy Press. National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2017). Job outlook: Hiring for U.S. jobs expected to be flat. NACE Publishing. https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/trends-andpredictions/job-outlook-hiring-for-us-jobs-expected-to-be-flat/ National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2021). Survey of doctorate recipients, Table 47. NCSES.

406

D. F. Feldon et al.

National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Survey of Earned Doctorates. (2020). Table 46: Employment sector of doctorate recipients with definite postgraduation commitments for employment in the United States, by broad field of study: Selected years, 1999–2019 [NSF Report 21–308]. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21308/data-tables National Science Foundation. (2020). Postgraduation plans of doctorate recipients with definite commitments, by broad field of study: Selected years, 1998–2018. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/ nsf20301/data-tables/#group6 National Science Foundation, Survey of Earned Doctorates. (2021). www.nsf.gov/statistics/ srvydoctorates/ Navarro, T. (2017). But some of us are broke: Race, gender, and the neoliberalization of the academy. American Anthropologist, 119(3), 506–517. Navarro, T., Williams, B., & Ahmad, A. (2013). Sitting at the kitchen table: Fieldnotes from women of color in anthropology. Cultural Anthropology, 28(3), 443–463. Nerad, M. (2004). The PhD in the US: Criticisms, facts, and remedies. Higher Education Policy, 17, 183–199. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300050 Nerad, M. (2012). Conceptual approaches to doctoral education: A community of practice. Alternation, 19(2), 57–72. Nerad, M. (2015). Searching for taboos in doctoral education: An exploratory journey. Die Hochschule, 24, 17–32. Nerad, M., & Cerny, J. (2003). Career outcomes of political science PhD recipients: Results from the PhDs ten years later study. Seattle: Center for Research and Innovation, University of Washington. Available at https://www.education.uw.edu/cirge/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ career-outcomes1.pdf Nerad, M., Rudd, E., Morrison, E., & Picciano, J. (2007). Social science PhDs – Five+ years out. A national survey of PhDs in six fields. CIRGE. Also available at www.cirge.washington.edu Nettles, M. T., & Millett, C. M. (2006). Three magic letters: Getting to Ph.D. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Newkirk-Turner, B. L., & Hudson, T. K. (2022). Do no harm: Graduate admissions letters of recommendation and unconscious bias. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 7(2), 463–475. Newswander, L. K., & Borrego, M. (2009). Using journal clubs to cultivate a community of practice at the graduate level. European Journal of Engineering Education, 34(6), 561–571. https://doi. org/10.1080/03043790903202959 Niang, A., Khoury, E., Brunelle, N., & Goyette, M. (2021). Can you tell me more about your postdoctoral experience? A personal narrative review of the postdoctoral position in the social sciences. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education. Advance online publication. https:// doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-07-2020-0050 Nyquist, J. D., & Woodford, B. J. (2000). Re-envisioning the Ph.D.: What concerns do we have? Center for Instructional Development and Research. O’Meara, K. (2011). Inside the panopticon: Studying academic reward systems. In J. C. Smart & M. B. Paulsen (Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 26, pp. 161–220). Springer. O’Meara, K. (2016). Whose problem is it? Gender differences in faculty thinking about campus service. Teachers College Record, 118(8), 1–38. O’Meara, K. (2021). Leveraging, checking, and structuring faculty discretion to advance full participation. The Review of Higher Education, 44(4), 555–585. O’Meara, K., Jaeger, A., Eliason, J., Grantham, A., Cowdery, K., Mitchall, A., & Zhang, K. (2014). By design: How departments influence graduate student agency in career advancement. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 9(1), 155–179. http://www.informingscience.com/ijds/ Volume9/IJDSv9p155-179OMeara0518.pdf O’Meara, K., Kuvaeva, A., & Nyunt, G. (2017). Constrained choices: A view of campus service inequality from annual faculty reports. The Journal of Higher Education, 88(5), 672–700.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

407

O’Meara, K., Templeton, L., & Nyunt, G. (2018). Earning professional legitimacy: Challenges faced by women, underrepresented minority, and non-tenure-track faculty. Teachers College Record, 120(12), 1–38. O’Meara, K., Culpepper, D., & Templeton, L. (2020). Nudging toward diversity: Applying behavioral design to faculty hiring. Review of Educational Research, 90(3), 311–348. Okahana, H., & Kinoshita, T. (2018). Closing gaps in our knowledge of PhD career pathways: How well did a humanities PhD prepare them? CGS Research in Brief, 1–4. Okahana, H., & Zhou, E. (2018). Graduate enrollment and degrees: 2007 to 2017. Council of Graduate Schools. Osei-Kofi, N. (2012). Junior faculty of color in the corporate university: Implications of neoliberalism and neoconservatism on research, teaching and service. Critical Studies in Education, 53(2), 229–244. Owen-Smith, J. (2001). Managing laboratory work through skepticism: Processes of evaluation and control. American Sociological Review, 66(3), 427–452. Owen-Smith, J. (2018). Research universities and the public good: Discovery for an uncertain future. Stanford University Press. Paglis, L. L., Green, S. G., & Bauer, T. N. (2006). Does adviser mentoring add value? A longitudinal study of mentoring and doctoral student outcomes. Research in Higher Education, 47(4), 451–476. Park, T. (2011). Academic capitalism and its impact on the American professoriate. Journal of the Professoriate, 6(1), 84–96. Park, J. J., Choe, N. H., Schallert, D. L., & Forbis, A. K. (2017a). The chemical engineering research laboratory as context for graduate students’ training: The role of lab structure and cultural climate in collaborative work. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 13, 113–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2017.04.001 Park, H., Lee, M. J., Choi, G. Y., & Zepernick, J. S. (2017b). Challenges and coping strategies of East Asian graduate students in the United States. International Social Work, 60(3), 733–749. Parry, S. (2007). Disciplines and the doctorate. Springer. Pearson, M., & Brew, A. (2002). Research training and supervision development. Studies in Higher Education, 27, 135–150. Pelczar, M. (1969, December 4–6). The relative roles of faculty and students in academic decisionmaking. Address to the 9th annual meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools in the U.S. Washington, DC. Perna, L. W., & Hudgins, C. (1996). The graduate assistantship: Facilitator of graduate students’ professional socialization. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Memphis. Peterson, S. E., Bowman, R. L., Myer, R. A., & Maidl, C. M. (1992). A survey of comprehensive examination practices among doctoral programs in counseling. Counselor Education and Supervision, 32(2), 116–129. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6978.1992.tb00181.x Pfund, C., House, S., Asquith, P., Fleming, M., Buhr, K., et al. (2014). Training mentors of clinical and translational research scholars: A randomized controlled trial. Academic Medicine, 89, 774–782. Phelps-Ward, R. (2020). Emancipatory research counter-spaces: Re-examining Black doctoral student socialization. In J. C. Weidman & L. DeAngelo (Eds.), Socialization in higher education and the early career: Theory, research and application (Vol. 7, pp. 241–268). Springer. Ponder, N., Beatty, S. E., & Foxx, W. (2004). Doctoral comprehensive exams in marketing: Current practices and emerging perspectives. Journal of Marketing Education, 26(3), 226–235. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0273475304268778 Portnoi, L. M., Chlopecki, A. L. A., & Peregrina-Kretz, D. (2015). Expanding the doctoral student socialization framework: The central role of student agency. The Journal of Faculty Development, 29(3), 5–16. Posselt, J. R. (2014). Toward inclusive excellence in graduate education: Constructing merit and diversity in PhD admissions. American Journal of Education, 120(4), 481–514.

408

D. F. Feldon et al.

Posselt, J. R. (2015). Disciplinary logics in doctoral admissions: Understanding patterns of faculty evaluation. The Journal of Higher Education, 86(6), 807–833. Posselt, J. R. (2016). Inside graduate admissions: Merit, diversity, and faculty gatekeeping. Harvard University Press. Posselt, J. (2018a). Normalizing struggle: Dimensions of faculty support for doctoral students and implications for persistence and well-being. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(6), 988–1013. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1449080 Posselt, J. R. (2018b). Rigor and support in racialized learning environments: The case of graduate education. New Directions for Higher Education, 2018(181), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1002/he. 20271 Posselt, J. R. (2018c). Trust networks: A new perspective on pedigree and the ambiguities of admissions. The Journal of Higher Education, 41(4), 497–521. Posselt, J. R. (2020). Equity in science: Representation, culture, and the dynamics of change in graduate education. Stanford University Press. Posselt, J. (2021a). Discrimination, competitiveness, and support in US graduate student mental health. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 12(1), 89–112. https://doi.org/10. 1108/SGPE-07-2020-0042 Posselt, J. (2021b). Promoting graduate student well-being: Cultural, organizational, and environmental factors in the academy. Council of Graduate Schools. Posselt, J. R., & Grodsky, E. (2017). Graduate education and social stratification. Annual Review of Sociology, 43, 353–378. Posselt, J., & Liera, R. (2022, March). Doctoral candidacy and qualifying exams: A guide to contexts, costs for equity, and possibilities of transformation. Inclusive Graduate Education Network Research Hub. Posselt, J. R., & Nuñez, A. M. (2022). Learning in the wild: Fieldwork, gender, and the social construction of disciplinary culture. The Journal of Higher Education, 93(2), 163–194. Powell, K. (2015). The future of the postdoc. Nature, 520(7546), 144–147. Preparing Future Faculty. (n.d.). The preparing future faculty program. https://preparing-faculty.org/ Pruitt-Logan, A., Gaff, J., & Weibl, R. (1998). The impact: Assessing the experiences of participants in the preparing future faculty program 1994–1996. Association of American Colleges and Universities. Pruitt-Logan, A., Gaff, J., & Jentoft, J. (2002). Preparing future faculty in the sciences and mathematics: A guide for change. Council of Graduate Schools & Association of American Colleges and Universities. Pyne, J., & Grodsky, E. (2020). Inequality and opportunity in a perfect storm of graduate student debt. Sociology of Education, 93(1), 20–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040719876245 Quinn, K., & Litzler, E. (2009). Turning away from academic careers: What does work-family have to do with it? NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, 2(1), 68–92. https://doi.org/ 10.2202/1940-7890.1026 Ramirez, E. (2011). “No one taught me the steps”: Latinos’ experiences applying to graduate school. Journal of Latinos and Education, 10(3), 204–222. Ramirez, E. (2017). Unequal socialization: Interrogating the Chicano/Latino(a) doctoral education experience. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 10(1), 25–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/ dhe0000028 Reybold, L. E. (2003). Pathways to the professorate: The development of faculty identity in education. Innovative Higher Education, 27(4), 235–252. Roach, R. (2009). A pipeline to the tenure track. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 26(4), 9–12. Roach, M., & Sauermann, H. (2017). The declining interest in an academic career. PLoS One, 12(9), Article e0184130. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184130 Robinson, S. J. (2013). Spoketokenism: Black women talking back about graduate school experiences. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(2), 155–181. Robinson, J. M., O’Loughlin, V. D., Kearns, K. D., & Sherwood-Laughlin, C. (2019). The graduate course in pedagogy: Survey of instructors of college pedagogy in the United States and Canada. College Teaching, 67(2), 109–119.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

409

Rodriguez, S. L., Perez, R. J., & Schulz, J. M. (2022). How STEM lab settings influence graduate school socialization and climate for students of color. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(1), 58–72. Roemer, R. E., & Schnitz, J. E. (1982). Academic employment as day labor: The dual labor market in higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 53(5), 514–531. Rogers, S. E., Eaton, A. E., & Voos, P. B. (2013). Effects of unionization on graduate student employees: Faculty-student relations, academic freedom, and pay. ILR Review, 66(2), 487–510. Roksa, J., Feldon, D. F., & Maher, M. (2018a). First-generation students in pursuit of the PhD: Comparing socialization experiences and outcomes to continuing-generation peers. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(5), 728–752. Roksa, J., Jeong, S., Feldon, D., & Maher, M. (2018b). Revisiting the “Model Minority” stereotype: API students’ socialization experiences and research productivity. Research in Sociology of Education, 20, 155–179. Roksa, J., Wang, Y., Feldon, D. F., & Ericson, M. (2022). Who is publishing articles during graduate school? Race and gender inequalities in biological sciences over time. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15, 47–57. Roscigno, V., & Hodson, R. (2004). The organizational and social foundations of worker resistance. American Sociological Review, 69(1), 14–39. Sallee, M. (2011). Performing masculinity: Considering gender in doctoral student socialization. The Journal of Higher Education, 82(2), 187–216. Sam, C. H., & Gupton, J. T. (2021). Ethical mindfulness: Why we need a framework for ethical practice in the academy. Journal of the Professoriate, 12(1), 80–103. Sarnecka, B. W., Silva, P. N., Coon, J., Vickers, D. C., Goldstein, R. B., & Rouder, J. N. (2022). Doctoral writing workshops: A pre-registered, randomized controlled trial. Innovative Higher Education, 47, 155–174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09574-6 Satinsky, E. N., Kimura, T., Kiang, M. V., Abebe, R., Cunningham, S., Lee, H., Lin, X., Liu, C. H., Rudan, I., Sen, S., Tomlinson, M., Yaver, M., & Tsai, A. C. (2021). Systematic review and metaanalysis of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among Ph.D. students. Scientific Reports, 11, Article 14370. Sauermann, H., & Roach, M. (2012). Science PhD career preferences: Levels, changes, and advisor encouragement. PLoS One, 7(5), Article e36307. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036307 Schafer, J. A., & Giblin, M. J. (2008). Doctoral comprehensive exams: Standardization, customization, and everywhere in between. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 19(2), 275–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511250802137648 Schein, J., Hill, L., Austin, A., Rollert French, K., Zaborowski, M., & Miller, K. (2017, April). Preparing doctoral students as effective teachers: The impact of a high-engagement teaching development experience [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Antonio. Schram, L., Pinder-Grover, T., & Turcic, S. (2017). Assessing the long-term impact of the Preparing Future Faculty seminar. To Improve the Academy, 36(2), 101–116. Schussler, E., Read, Q., Marbach-Ad, G., Miller, K., & Ferzli, M. (2015). Preparing biology graduate teaching assistance for their roles as instructors: An assessment of institutional approaches. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 14, Article 31. Scott, L. D., & Zerwic, J. (2015). Holistic review in admissions: A strategy to diversify the nursing workforce. Nursing Outlook, 63(4), 488–495. Scott-Clayton, J., & Li, J. (2016). Black-white disparity in student loan debt more than triples after graduation. Economic Studies, 2(3). Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). “We are all for diversity, but...”: How faculty hiring committees reproduce whiteness and practical suggestions for how they can change. Harvard Educational Review, 87(4), 557–580. Seo, G., & Yeo, H. T. (2020). In pursuit of careers in the professoriate or beyond the professoriate: What matters to doctoral students when making a career choice? International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 15, 615–635.

410

D. F. Feldon et al.

Sewell, W. H. (1999). The concept(s) of culture. In V. E. Bonell & L. Hunt (Eds.), Beyond the cultural turn (pp. 35–61). University of California Press. Sheltzer, J. M., & Smith, J. C. (2014). Elite male faculty in the life sciences employ fewer women. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(28), 10107–10112. Shortlidge, E., & Eddy, S. (2018). The trade-off between graduate student research and teaching: A myth? PLoS One, 13(6), Article e0199576. Shulman, L. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52–59. Simpson, S. (2013). Systems of writing response: A Brazilian student’s experiences writing for publication in an environmental sciences doctoral program. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(2), 228–249. Singh, S., Mishra, S., & Kim, D. (1998). Research-related burnout among faculty in higher education. Psychological Reports, 83, 463–473. Sivro, A. (2015). Industrial postdoc: Choosing a different path. Health Science Inquiry, 6(1), 58. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Smaldone, A., Heitkemper, E., Jackman, K., Joanne Woo, K., & Kelson, J. (2019). Dissemination of PhD dissertation research by dissertation format: A retrospective cohort study. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 51(5), 599–607. Solem, M., Kollasch, A., & Lee, J. (2013). Career goals, pathways and competencies of geography graduate students in the USA. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 37(1), 92–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2012.729563 Southern Regional Education Board. (2021). Student debt stifles faculty diversity: Comparing debt burdens in SREB’s doctoral scholars program and nationwide. https://www.sreb.org/sites/main/ files/fileattachments/studentdebt_facdivfeb2021.pdf?1613062555 Sowell, R., Allum, J., & Okahana, H. (2015). Doctoral initiative on minority attrition and completion. Council of Graduate Schools. Spalter-Roth, R., Shin, J., Mayorova, O., & White, P. (2013). The impact of cross-race mentoring for “ideal” PhD careers in sociology. Sociological Spectrum, 33, 484–509. Speakman, R. J., Hadden, C. S., Colvin, M. H., Cramb, J., Jones, K. C., Jones, T. W., et al. (2018). Market share and recent hiring trends in anthropology faculty positions. PLoS One, 13(9), Article e0202528. Squazzoni, F., Bravo, G., Grimaldo, F., Garcia-Costa, D., Farjam, M., & Mehmani, B. (2021). Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals. PLoS One, 16(10), e0257919. Squire, D. D. (2020). “It’s pretty essential”: A critical race counter-narrative of faculty of color understandings of diversity and equity in doctoral admissions. The Urban Review, 52(1), 173–197. St. Clair, R., Hutto, T., MacBeth, C., Newstetter, W., McCarty, N. A., & Melkers, J. (2017). The “new normal”: Adapting doctoral trainee career preparation for broad career paths in science. PLoS One, 12(5), Article e0177035. Stassun, K. G., Sturm, S., Holley-Bockelmann, K., Burger, A., Ernst, D., & Webb, D. (2011). The Fisk-Vanderbilt master’s-to-PhD bridge program: Recognizing, enlisting, and cultivating unrealized or unrecognized potential in underrepresented minority students. American Journal of Physics, 79, 374–379. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3546069 Stephan, P. (2012). How economics shape science. Harvard University Press. Stephan, P. (2013). How to exploit postdocs. Bioscience, 63(4), 245–246. https://doi.org/10.1525/ bio.2013.63.4.2 Stephan, P., & Ma, J. (2005). The increased frequency and duration of the postdoctorate career stage. American Economic Review, 95(2), 71–75. Stephens, S. (2014). The supervised as the supervisor. Educational Training, 56, 537–550.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

411

Stewart-Wells, A. G., & Keenan, K. M. (2020). Assessing doctoral students: A background on comprehensive and authentic assessments. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 68(2), 84–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2020.1743950 Straub, J. (2014). Assessment of examinations in computer science doctoral education. Computer Science Education, 24(1), 25–70. Stupnisky, R. H., Weaver-Hightower, M. B., & Kartoshkina, Y. (2015). Exploring and testing the predictors of new faculty success: A mixed methods study. Studies in Higher Education, 40(2), 368–390. Sweitzer, V. (2009). Towards a theory of doctoral student professional identity development: A developmental networks approach. The Journal of Higher Education, 80(1), 1–33. Szelényi, K., & Denson, N. (2019). Personal and institutional predictors of work-life balance among women and men faculty of color. The Review of Higher Education, 43(2), 633–665. Taylor, J., & Meschede, T. (2018). Inherited prospects: The importance of financial transfers for White and Black college-educated households’ wealth trajectories. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 77(3–4), 1049–1076. Teixeira da Silva, J. A. (2021). Conflicts of interest arising from simultaneous service by editors of competing journals or publishers. Publications, 9(1), 6. Thiry, H., Laursen, S. L., & Loshbaugh, H. G. (2015). “How do I get from here to there?” An examination of Ph.D. science students’ career preparation and decision making. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 10, 237–256. http://ijds.org/Volume10/IJDSv10p237256Thiry0925.pdf Tierney, W. G., & Minor, J. T. (2003). Challenges for governance: A national report. University of Southern California Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis. Tierney, W. G., & Rhoads, R. A. (1993). Enhancing promotion, tenure and beyond: Faculty socialization as a cultural process. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 6. The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development. Tuma, T. T., Adams, J. D., Hultquist, B. C., & Dolan, E. L. (2021). The dark side of development: A systems characterization of the negative mentoring experiences of doctoral students. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(2), Article 16. Turner, A. L., & Berry, T. R. (2000). Counseling center contributions to student retention and graduation: A longitudinal assessment. Journal of College Student Development, 41(6), 627–636. Twale, D. J., Weidman, J. C., & Bethea, K. (2016). Conceptualizing socialization of graduate students of color: Revisiting the Weidman-Twale-Stein framework. Western Journal of Black Studies, 40(2), 80–94. Twine, F. W. (2004). A white side of black Britain: The concept of racial literacy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(6), 878–907. Tyler, N. C., Montrosse, B. E., & Smith, D. D. (2012). The supply: Profile of current students and recent graduates in special education. Teacher Education and Special Education, 35(2), 114–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888406412444762 UCLA CIRTL. (n.d.). Welcome to CIRTL@UCLA: The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning. https://cirtl.ceils.ucla.edu/ Ullrich, L., Dumanis, S. B., Evans, T. M., Jeannotte, A. M., Leonard, C., Rozzi, S. J., Taylor, C. M., Gale, K., Kanwal, J. S., Maguire-Zeiss, K. A., Wolfe, B. B., & Forcelli, P. A. (2014). From student to steward: The interdisciplinary program in neuroscience at Georgetown University as a case study in professional development during doctoral training. Medical Education Online, 19, Article 22623. Vakalahi, H. F., & Starks, S. H. (2011). Health, well-being and women of color academics. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1(2), 185–190. Van Benthem, K., Adi, M. N., Corkery, C. T., Inoue, J., & Jadavji, N. M. (2020). The changing postdoc and key predictors of satisfaction with professional training. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 11(1), 123–142.

412

D. F. Feldon et al.

Verostek, M., Miller, C. W., & Zwickl, B. (2021). Analyzing admissions metrics as predictors of graduate GPA and whether graduate GPA mediates Ph.D. completion. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 17(2), Article 020115. Vostal, F. (2015). Speed kills, speed thrills: Constraining and enabling accelerations in academic work-life. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 13(3), 295–314. Waaijer, C. J., Macaluso, B., Sugimoto, C. R., & Larivière, V. (2016). Stability and longevity in the publication careers of US doctorate recipients. PLoS One, 11(4), Article e0154741. Wagoner, R. L. (2019). Ethics of employment: The new adjunct majority. In D. M. Hellmich & S. T. Kater (Eds.), Ethical decision-making in community colleges: Not losing our way. New directions for community colleges, No. 185 (pp. 89–96). Jossey-Bass. Wagoner, R. L., Levin, J. S., & Kater, S. (2010). Reconstructing US community college faculty: Mobilizing professional expertise. In L. Henrickson, T. Seddon, & B. Niemeyer (Eds.), Learning and work and the politics of working life: Global transformations and collective identities in teaching, nursing and social work (pp. 87–106). Routledge. Walker, G. E., Golde, C., Jones, L., Bueschel, A. C., & Hutchings, P. (2008). The formation of scholars: Rethinking doctoral education for the twenty-first century. Jossey-Bass. Wang, Y., & Main, J. B. (2021). Postdoctoral research training and the attainment of faculty careers in social science and STEM fields in the United States. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 12(3), 384–402. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-04-2020-0025 Ward, K. (2003). Faculty service roles and the scholarship of engagement. ASHE-ERIC higher education report. Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series. Jossey-Bass. Wasil, A. R., Taylor, M. E., Franzen, R. E., Steinberg, J. S., & DeRubeis, R. J. (2021). Promoting graduate student mental health during COVID-19: Accessibility, feasibility, and perceived utility of an online single-session intervention. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 1167. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.569785 Way, S. F., Morgan, A. C., Larremore, D. B., & Clauset, A. (2019). Productivity, prominence, and the effects of academic environment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(22), 10729–10733. Weidman, J. C., & DeAngelo, L. (Eds.). (2020). Socialization in higher education and the early career: Theory, research and application (Vol. 7). Springer. Weidman, J. C., & Stein, E. L. (2003). Socialization of doctoral students to academic norms. Research in Higher Education, 44(6), 641–656. Weidman, J. C., Twale, D. J., & Stein, E. L. (2001). Socialization of graduate and professional students in higher education: A perilous passage? ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 28(3), 1–136. Weisbuch, R., & Cassuto, L. (2016). Reforming doctoral education, 1990 to 2015: Recent initiatives and future prospects. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. White-Lewis, D. K. (2021). Before the ad: How departments generate hiring priorities that support or avert faculty diversity. Teachers College Record, 123(1), 1–36. Whitford, H. (2014). The role of graduate student unions in the higher education landscape. New Directions for Higher Education, 2014(167), 17–29. Wilkins-Yel, K. G., Arnold, A., Bekki, J., Natarajan, M., Bernstein, B., & Randall, A. K. (2022). “I can’t push off my own mental health”: Chilly STEM climates, mental health, and STEM persistence among Black, Latina, and white graduate women. Sex Roles, 86, 208–232. Williams, M. S., Brown Burnett, T. J., Carroll, T. K., & Harris, C. J. (2018). Mentoring, managing, and helping: A critical race analysis of socialization in doctoral education. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, & Practice, 20(2), 253–278. Wilson, S. B., Mason, T. W., & Ewing, M. J. M. (1997). Evaluating the impact of receiving university-based counseling services on student retention. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 44(3), 316–320. Winkle-Wagner, R., & McCoy, D. (2016). Entering the (postgraduate) field: Underrepresented students’ acquisition of cultural and social capital and social capital in graduate school preparation programs. The Journal of Higher Education, 87(2), 178–205. Winkle-Wagner, R., McCoy, D. L., & Lee-Johnson, J. (2020). Creating porous ivory towers: Two-way socialization processes that embrace Black students’ identities in academia. In J. C.

7

Ph.D. Pathways to the Professoriate: Affordances and Constraints. . .

413

Weidman & L. DeAngelo (Eds.), Socialization in higher education and the early career: Theory, research and application (Vol. 7, pp. 73–92). Springer. Winter, K., Kent, J., & Bradshaw, R. (2018). Preparing future faculty: A framework for design and evaluation at the university level. Council of Graduate Schools. https://www.teaglefoundation. org/Teagle/media/GlobalMediaLibrary/documents/resources/CGS-PFF-Framework.pdf? ext¼.pdf Wofford, A. M. (2021, November 6). Equity-minded stage-ahead mentoring: Exploring graduate students’ narratives as mentors to undergraduates in computing [Paper presentation]. Association for the Study of Higher Education Annual Meeting, San Juan. Wofford, A. M., & Blaney, J. M. (2021). (Re)shaping the socialization of scientific labs: Understanding women’s doctoral experiences in STEM lab rotations. The Review of Higher Education, 44(3), 357–386. Wofford, A. M., Griffin, K. A., & Roksa, J. (2021). Unequal expectations: First-generation and continuing-generation students’ anticipated relationships with doctoral advisors in STEM. Higher Education, 82(5), 1013–1029. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-02100713-8 Wong, A. A., Marrone, N. L., Fabiano-Smith, L., Beeson, P. M., Franco, M. A., Subbian, V., & Lozano, G. I. (2021). Engaging faculty in shifting toward holistic review: Changing graduate admissions procedures at a land-grant, Hispanic-serving institution. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 30(5), 1925–1939. Wood, L. M., & Townsend, R. B. (2013). The many careers of history PhDs: A study of job outcomes, Spring 2013. A Report to the American Historical Association, 1. Wulff, D. H., & Austin, A. E. (2004). Paths to the professoriate: Strategies for enriching the preparation of future faculty. Jossey-Bass. Wulff, D. H., Austin, A. E., Nyquist, J. D., & Sprague, J. (2004). The development of graduate students as teaching scholars: A four-year longitudinal study. In D. Wulff & A. Austin (Eds.), Paths to the professoriate: Strategies for enriching the preparation of future faculty. JosseyBass. Wurgler, E., VanHeuvelen, J., Rohrman, S., Loehr, A., & Grace, M. (2013). The perceived benefits of a Preparing Future Faculty program and its effect on job satisfaction, confidence and competence. Teaching Sociology, 42, 50–60. Xia, J. (2013). A mixed method study on students’ experiences in the selection of a dissertation topic. Arizona State University. https://keep.lib.asu.edu/_flysystem/fedora/c7/88339/Xia_asu_ 0010E_13176.pdf Yadav, A., Seals, C. D., Sullivan, C. M. S., Lachney, M., Clark, Q., Dixon, K. G., & Smith, M. J. (2020). The forgotten scholar: Underrepresented minority postdoc experiences in STEM fields. Educational Studies, 56(2), 160–185. Yang, L., & Webber, K. L. (2015). A decade beyond the doctorate: The influence of a US postdoctoral appointment on faculty career, productivity, and salary. Higher Education, 70, 667–687. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9860-3 Yi, V., & Ramos, D. (2022). Collective achievement and resistance: Understanding the motivations of doctoral women of color. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(1), 12. Ynalvez, M. A., Ynalvez, R. A., & Ramírez, E. (2017). Mentor-mentee interaction and laboratory social environment: Do they matter in doctoral students’ publication productivity? Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 45(2), 130–144. Yoels, W. C. (1974). On the fate of the Ph.D. dissertation: A comparative examination of the physical and social sciences. Sociological Focus, 7(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237. 1974.10570872 Yusuf, J., Saitgalina, M., & Chapman, D. (2020). Work-life balance and well-being of graduate students. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 26, 458–483. Zeiser, K. L., Kirshstein, R. J., & Tanenbaum, C. (2013). The price of a science PhD: Variations in student debt levels across disciplines and race/ethnicity. Retrieved from https://www.air.org/ sites/default/files/downloads/report/AIRPriceofPhDMay13_0.pdf Zuckerman, H. (1970). Stratification in American science. Sociological Inquiry, 40(2), 235–257.

414

D. F. Feldon et al.

David Feldon is a professor of instructional technology and learning sciences in the College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University. His research identifies mechanisms of learning and graduate training that facilitate the equitable development of scholarly expertise and access to professional opportunities. To understand fully the mechanisms that shape individual learning, his work engages the sociological factors that drive both experiences and opportunities. Thus, his research attempts to build bridges from a deep understanding of motivation and cognition to broader cultural and structural influences that shape divergent pathways to expertise and modes of professional success. Annie M. Wofford is an assistant professor of higher education at Florida State University. Her research uses critical quantitative and qualitative methods to interrogate systemic inequities in higher education, with an emphasis on pathways to and through graduate education as well as structures of mentorship in STEM fields. Dr. Wofford’s research has been published in many wellregarded journals, including The Journal of Higher Education, the Review of Higher Education, and Research in Higher Education. Prior to earning her Ph.D. in higher education and organizational change from UCLA, she worked as a practitioner in graduate admissions and strives to cultivate research-practice partnerships in her work. Jennifer M. Blaney is an assistant professor of higher education at Northern Arizona University, where she studies gender equity and community college transfer in computing and other STEM fields. Her most recent research – including studies funded by the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation – explores community college transfer pathways to graduate training and the professoriate in computer science. Dr. Blaney earned her Ph.D. from UCLA in higher education and organizational change. Her research has appeared in leading journals, including the Review of Higher Education, the Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, and many others.

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Milagros Castillo-Montoya, Liza A. Bolitzer, and Sylk Sotto-Santiago

Contents Defining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Higher Education Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current Model of Faculty Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Faculty Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Instructional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guiding Conceptual Framework: Faculty as Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Faculty Members’ Funds of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Content of Faculty Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conditions of Faculty Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contexts of Faculty Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intersectionality in Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEI Faculty Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEI Faculty Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEI Instructional Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moving Forward: Reconceptualizing Faculty Development to be Anchored in DEI . . . . . . . . . Approach Faculty as Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enact a Holistic Model of Faculty Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

419 419 421 422 423 425 427 428 428 430 430 431 432 447 464 465 466

Aimee Le Pointe Terosky was the Associate Editor for this chapter. M. Castillo-Montoya (*) University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. A. Bolitzer Kean University, Union, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. Sotto-Santiago Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_11

415

416

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Conceptualize DEI Faculty Development as a Mediator of Institutional Cultural Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 Closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Abstract

DEI faculty development is on the rise in higher education, but we have little research on the breadth and depth of those efforts or their effectiveness in facilitating change. To address this gap, we draw on extant literature to offer insights on the foundations and aims of DEI faculty development, focusing on two major components: faculty advancement and instructional development. Throughout, we identify how DEI faculty development currently is approaching faculty as learners and how it potentially can center the needs of racially minoritized faculty. We conclude this chapter by calling for a reconceptualization of faculty development so that it is anchored in DEI. We also offer three recommendations: approach faculty as learners, enact a holistic model for faculty development, and use faculty development as a meditator of transformational institutional change. Keywords

Faculty Development · Faculty Advancement · Instructional Development · Diversity · Equity and Inclusion · Inclusive Excellence · Inclusive Teaching · Inclusive Faculty Development · Inclusive Instructional Development · Faculty as Learners · Conditions of Learning · Contexts of Learning · Content of Learning · Sustained Learning · Faculty · Higher Education · Teaching and Learning · Professional Development

Faculty development in higher education is at a critical juncture. It is striving to respond to the recent national and global calls for real changes to policies and practices that oppress Black and other racially minoritized people. These calls are not altogether new but have grown more pervasive on college campuses within the context of the Black Lives Matter movement that followed the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin, the 2015 student protests at the University of Missouri and subsequent college students protests across the USA (thedemands.org), and the upheaval that followed the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police in 2020. These calls have pressured colleges and universities to face a profound reckoning with its own historic and systematic devaluation of its racially minoritized students and faculty. The fruits of this reckoning have been varied with likely different degrees of effectiveness and authenticity. Some institutions have responded by recognizing their responsibilities to address racism and issuing institutional statements that express a broad commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Other institutions have responded with more specific commitments to racial equity. Several colleges and universities have created broad institutional initiatives such as developing and offering antiracism courses (e.g., University of Connecticut, 2022a; University of Pittsburgh,

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

417

2022), establishing antiracism-focused research centers (e.g., American University, 2022), addressing student and faculty-driven antiracist demands (e.g., Princeton University; refer to Aronson, 2021; Tomlinson, 2021), and centering DEI as the focal-point of the school (e.g., University of California - Berkeley, 2022). Within these calls is a focus on the role of faculty in DEI (Haynes & Bazner, 2019). Students and faculty alike are calling for increased hiring and retention of historically minoritized faculty. And, students have specifically demanded for faculty to bring DEI into their teaching, to enable them to better support their racially minoritized students (thedemands.org; Haynes & Bazner, 2019). Of all these responses, it is the latter centering of DEI that is the focus of this chapter, specifically in its application to faculty development – activities and resources to support faculty careers and teaching as well as changes faculty may experience within their work. An increasing number of institutions are focused on offering faculty development that is attentive to DEI, which we refer to here as DEI faculty development. By DEI faculty development, we mean activities and resources that focus on aspects of faculty careers and research such as diversifying the composition of the faculty, examining inequities and working toward equitable faculty experiences and outcomes, meaningfully incorporating minoritized faculty voices and expertise, and tending to how DEI can be integrated into instruction. DEI faculty development initiatives range from antiracist faculty development (e.g., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2022), faculty allyship training (e.g., California Lutheran University, 2022), sessions on attending to DEI in faculty research (e.g., University of Minnesota Medical School, Mendez, 2021), and rewarding faculty who advance the institution’s DEI commitment through their service (e.g., Columbia University, 2022a). While this list is not exhaustive, it is a clear indicator that institutional leaders have growing expectations that DEI be part and parcel of faculty careers, and are using faculty development to enact that goal. In addition to this growing expectation of DEI being a part of faculty careers, institutional leaders are also emphasizing the need for faculty1 to create classroom learning spaces where all students can thrive. This is especially necessary for Black, Indigenous, and other racially minoritized students who have historically been and continue to be excluded from and marginalized within higher education (Thelin, 2019; Tuitt et al., 2018). Given this emphasis, the field of higher education is witnessing a burgeoning of workshops, resources, and frameworks, mostly through the campus teaching and learning centers, to support faculty’s development of antiracist teaching approaches (e.g., Columbia University, 2022b) as well as critical, inclusive, and/or decolonizing teaching strategies (e.g., Illinois State University, 2022; University of California, San Diego, 2022; Yale University, 2021). As a result of broader commitments to DEI, a few universities have moved toward including inclusive or antiracist teaching as part of the criteria for obtaining promotion and tenure (e.g., American University, n.d.).

1

Faculty are composed of people who work in a variety of academic positions that range in title such as “professors, associate professors, assistant professors, instructors, lecturers, assisting professors, adjunct professors, and interim professors” (U.S. Department of Education, 2020, para. 1)

418

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Although DEI training is becoming a more common part of faculty development programs (Clayton, 2021; Khalid & Snyder, 2021; Núñez, 2021), as we detail in this chapter, the content or impact of DEI faculty development is limited. Furthermore, institutional leaders and scholars alike have placed less attention and resources on supporting and understanding faculty development that is specific to minoritized faculty. For example, we have only identified a few colleges and universities that have specific faculty development resources for minoritized faculty (e.g., Ithaca College, 2022; University of Central Florida, n.d.) within an institution or across institutions (e.g., Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, n.d.) or workshops on teaching at PWIs as racially minoritized faculty (e.g., University of Connecticut, 2022b). Furthermore, even fewer, higher education institutions have activities or resources dedicated to faculty with “multiple marginality” given the power structures that intersect to impinge on their lived experiences as minoritized faculty such as racially minoritized women (e.g., Black women faculty) (Turner, 2002, p. 74). Based on a review of the field, these programs seem rare, and this lack of attention to minoritized faculty, and especially those with multiple marginality, within faculty development efforts further centralizes whiteness to the detriment of minoritized faculty. Responding to the faculty development needs of minoritized faculty is critical to advancing DEI through faculty development. Although all minoritized groups have powerful and legitimate interests in the efforts and outcomes of DEI policies and practices in higher education, the focus of this chapter is on racially minoritized faculty determined by race, ethnicity, or tribal affiliation. This is a necessary focus given the historical and persistent marginalization of these faculty (and students) in higher education and the call for focusing on racial equity that higher education is specifically striving to respond to. It is important to note that this call for DEI to become a meaningful component of faculty development is occurring at the same time that the professoriate is dealing with the continuing implications of moving from a majority full-time faculty, who are predominately white, to majority non-tenure track, adjunct faculty, where racially minoritized women are concentrated. Recognizing this larger context, we argue it behooves higher education to better understand how faculty development is attentive to DEI. Toward this goal, in this chapter we address the following inquiry questions: 1. For the past decade (2010–2020/21), what have been the foundations, aims, and forms of DEI faculty development in the USA? 2. To what extent are faculty conceptualized as learners in DEI faculty and instructional development in the USA? Toward addressing these questions, in this chapter, we draw on the extant literature on DEI faculty development to offer insights on the foundations and aims of DEI faculty development. We specifically aim to bring together literature on two aspects of DEI faculty development, which we describe below: faculty advancement and instructional development. This enables us to examine how faculty development may facilitate the centering of DEI in faculty’s careers and teaching.

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

419

Critical to this work, we also highlight the ways faculty development currently is and potentially can center the needs of racially minoritized faculty.

Defining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion We define DEI as encompassing policies or practices that focus on three primary objectives: representation, equity in experiences and outcomes, and community integration. Efforts related to representation focus on increasing compositional diversity (i.e., by people, curriculum) particularly of historically minoritized communities (e.g., Black, Indigenous and other racially minoritized people, women) (Milem et al., 2005). Policies and practices aimed at equity in experiences and outcomes apply an affirming race-consciousness lens to examine underlying practitioner values and beliefs that impact minoritized students’ and faculty’s experiences and outcomes in order to work toward equitable structural change (Bensimon, 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015). Efforts focused on inclusion emphasize ways to meaningfully integrate community members so that all can thrive in their learning, particularly those who have been historically marginalized within higher education (Tuitt, 2016). We offer this definition recognizing that a shared understanding of DEI does not exist, and hoping that this chapter will contribute toward an ongoing development of its meaning.

Higher Education Context Responding to the questions above requires beginning with an acknowledgement that the increase in DEI faculty development in the United States is occurring in the midst of other changes in higher education. For instance, higher education is increasingly focusing on teaching and learning, and creating initiatives to advance faculty teaching (Fletcher & Patrick, 1998; Pallas & Neumann, 2019; Pallas et al., 2017; Terosky & Conway, 2020). This has created a shift in faculty development, which historically focused much more exclusively on supporting faculty as researchers (Fletcher & Patrick, 1998). This shift in focus – from research to teaching – is attributed to increased attention to the quality of undergraduate education and institutional interests in demonstrating student success, as measured largely by graduation rates (Beach et al., 2016; Fletcher & Patrick, 1998). Increased interest in teaching has led to calls for “faculty to use high-impact, evidence-based practices; for example, student-centered active learning techniques such as problem-based learning and writing across the curriculum” (Beach et al., 2016, p. 9). These calls have been both driven and supported by a variety of national organizations’ funding opportunities which have focused on promoting instructional practices (Beach et al., 2016; Fletcher & Patrick, 1998), such as opportunities from the National Sciences Foundation (NSF.gov) and the the Association of American Universities (aau.edu). These funding opportunities have strongly contributed to shifting the focus of faculty development to teaching in the past 20 years, and

420

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

supported organizational changes such as the creation of teaching and learning centers on college campuses (Beach et al., 2016; Fletcher & Patrick, 1998). At the same time as institutions and faculty development were increasingly focusing on teaching, a radical restructuring of the professoriate was also occurring. Non-tenure track adjunct faculty have become the majority of teachers in higher education (Finklestein et al., 2016a). In Fall 2018, part-time faculty alone composed 46% of faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the U.S. (U.S. Department of Education, 2020) and non-tenure track faculty in part and full-time positions are now 75% of the overall faculty in higher education (Finklestein et al., 2016a). Furthermore, it is within this growing majority of precarious faculty positions that colleges and universities are hiring most women, resulting particularly in a concentration of Black women in non-tenure-track positions (Finklestein et al., 2016b; Flaherty, 2016). Institutions have traditionally not invested in adjunct faculty, hiring them on a semester-by-semester basis, paying them low wages (Kezar et al., 2019), and minimizing investment in their professional development (Bolitzer, 2019b; Rhoades, 2020). Recognition of these ostensible cost-saving measures has resulted in questions about the effectiveness of non-tenure track faculty compared to their full-time colleagues, with both faculty and researchers asking how adjunct faculty can teach well given their working conditions (Bolitzer 2019a; Hearn & Burns, 2021). While the field of higher education is investigating that question, what is clear is that when institutions invest in adjunct faculty members, they do so narrowly; thus, focusing primarily on instructional improvement (Beach et al., 2016). Underscoring the recent efforts to improve racial equity and quality of instruction is higher education’s persistent struggle to recruit and retain racially minoritized faculty (Davey et al., 2021; Turner et al., 2008). Even before the current attention to DEI, institutions had already been “striving to expand the diversity of their faculty in terms of gender, race and ethnicity” (Beach et al., 2016, p.8). For instance, in Fall 2018, racially minoritized faculty held only 25% of full-time faculty positions at US degree-granting higher education institutions (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). In comparison, racially minoritized faculty comprised 15.6% of full-time faculty positions in Fall 2003 (U.S. Department of Education, 2008). While these numbers appear promising on the surface – there is a 10% increase in racially minoritized faculty – the number of Black (6%), Latine (6%), and Native American/Alaskan Native faculty along with those who identify with two or more racial groups (1% or less) is much lower (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). Furthermore, the parity between racially minoritized women and men (Black men and women as well as Latine women and men each respectively comprised 3% of full-time faculty) emerges when we examine intersections of race and gender. The exception is Asian/Pacific Islander men who comprise 7% of full-time faculty, while Asian/Pacific Islander women comprised 5% (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). White faculty, however, persist in being the strong majority of senior, tenured faculty. In Fall 2018, 80% of faculty at the rank of full professors were white, whereas Black faculty and Latino (men) faculty only comprised 2%, respectively, of all full-time faculty at the rank of professor. Latina faculty along with Native

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

421

American, Alaska Native, and faculty who identify with two or more races respectively comprised 1% or less of tenured full professors (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). These figures indicate that more racially minoritized faculty have obtained tenure-track positions, but few of them actually hold the influential position of full professor.

Current Model of Faculty Development Although faculty development is a common feature of today’s higher education institutions, its content and purpose have substantially changed over time (Ouellet, 2010). Originally focused on supporting research, faculty development now focuses primarily on improving teaching and providing career development support to faculty (Beach et al., 2016). To ground our effort to understand DEI faculty development, in this section we provide an overview of the current overall model of faculty development. The term faculty development is commonly used to describe both the changes that faculty may experience within their work as faculty members and the activities and resources aimed at facilitating those changes (Beach et al., 2016; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). It is a broad and inclusive term, used to describe all activities and supports designed to buttress faculty members within the individual sectors of their work – research, teaching and service – as well as across and beyond these domains as they develop as scholars and human beings (Beach et al., 2016; Fink, 2013; SottoSantiago et al., 2019). For example, faculty can form greater insights and skills as teachers by participating in faculty development activities that are facilitated by a teaching and learning center on a college campus. Or faculty may receive research support from their institutions in the form of course releases or funding for their laboratories which facilitates their work as researchers. As these examples suggest, faculty development is premised on the idea that providing activities or resources to faculty facilitate improvement in their professional work. Although the term faculty development is common in the United States, outside the U.S. other terms are used, including “educational development . . . staff development and professional development” (Beach et al., 2016, p. 2) in addition to faculty development (Fink, 2013). Since this chapter focuses on higher education in the United States, we use the term faculty development but we also recognize that even within this context, some faculty development professionals and researchers also use distinct terms depending on the focus of the activities, for example, instructional development to refer to activities aimed at teaching improvement (Bolitzer, 2019a) or professional development to describe resources aimed at tenure and promotion (Beach et al., 2016). These additional terms point to the broad range of initiatives and goals within the broader domain of faculty development, and the associated challenge of defining the term (Gillespie & Robertson, 2010). To organize our own discussion, we have drawn from the extant research on faculty development to identify the two central goals of faculty development as it is currently pursued by

422

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Fig. 1 Two central goals of faculty development

institutions – faculty advancement and instructional development – as well as the dominant set of activities associated with each goal (refer to Fig. 1).

Faculty Advancement We use the term faculty advancement to describe the activities and resources designed to support faculty’s career development leading to promotion, tenure, and engagement in leadership. Institutions primarily support faculty advancement in three ways (refer to Fig. 1). The first way is career support and professional development, which we define as programming geared toward the roles, responsibilities, and aspirations of faculty. For example, Beach et al. (2016), in their study of the services provided by faculty development centers, identified new faculty orientation, which is as part of the onboarding process, as a central program that institutions use to position in-coming faculty for success by presenting faculty with resources and setting expectations for career advancement. Such programs can provide an initial space for connecting with colleagues and such connections can enhance faculty’s integration into their new institution (Beach et al., 2016). Faculty’s socialization, which can begin in new faculty orientation, continues as the second way that institutions may support faculty advancement. For instance, faculty socialization can occur through formal or informal mentoring programs where faculty are matched with more senior colleagues (Ardery et al., 2014; Daley et al., 2008; Palermo et al., 2009). Increasingly, higher education institutions are offering mentoring programs which are tailored for minoritized faculty (Beach et al., 2016). Such programs include more intensive mentoring activities while also increasing awareness of common challenges that minoritized faculty might experience (Sotto Santiago, 2017). These programs are being supported at the national

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

423

level. For example, both the Faculty Women of Color in the Academy, a professional opportunity for indigenous and women of color in higher education (Virginia Tech, 2022), and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Minority Faculty Seminar bring together early-career faculty and provide participants tools for pursuing career advancement, and for developing key professional competencies that build skills (i.e., grant writing), while expanding their mentoring network (AAMC, 2022). The third way in which institutions may support faculty advancement is by providing research support, which enables faculty to engage in scholarship and increase research funding. Such support was once the primary and only form of faculty development. For example, Oullett (2010) cites Lewis’s (1996) identification of Harvard’s granting of faculty sabbatical leave in 1810 as “probably the oldest form of faculty development” (p.4). Today, research support can be much more expansive, and include administrative offices designed to support faculty in applying for grants, dedicated funds to hire research assistants, and administrative support for labs and research programs (Beach et al., 2016). The forms of such support vary by both academic field and institutional type (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006) and yet most follow the same basic premise for full-time, tenure-track faculty: they receive research supports from institutions so that they can engage in scholarship, which is both central to faculty work (Boyer, 1990) and necessary for advancement in their careers. Although the production of research was once centralized at research universities, research expectations are increasingly tied to tenure and promotion at a wider range of institutional types, including teaching-centered 4-year institutions and community colleges (Cohen et al., 2013; Finkelstein et al., 2016a). As such, we place career development, socialization, and research support as connected within the overall umbrella of faculty advancement that comprises one major aspect of faculty development. The other major component of faculty development, which we detail below, is instructional development. While these two goals of faculty development have traditionally operated separately, with distinct offices and programs aimed at each, it is important to recognize that faculty member’s learning and development about their work as teachers likely occurs across these domains, as well as within other spaces outside of institutions.

Instructional Development The second primary function of faculty development is instructional development, defined as the activities and resources aimed at the improvement of faculty teaching. It is based on the belief that faculty learning about teaching will result in greater student learning (Beach et al., 2016; Condon et al., 2016). The most prevalent form of instructional development is the “intentional, in-service activities overtly planned to improve various aspects of teaching importance” (Condon et al., 2016, p. 5) which “offer teaching faculty opportunities to learn new approaches, technologies, and more” (Condon et al., 2016, p. 2). These planned activities, which include both training and formal support, are largely facilitated by teaching and learning centers (Lee, 2010).

424

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Examples include workshops on specific teaching practices (DiYanni & Borst, 2020; Wyatt et al., 2021), individual consultations with faculty members (Lee, 2010), demonstrations of new technologies aimed to facilitate teaching (Beach et al., 2016), and on-going seminars on specialized topics for faculty (Macaluso et al., 2020). While teaching practices and technology, and the intersections between them, are the central focus of these programs, the “and more” in Condon et al.’s (2016) description point to the expansiveness and adaptiveness of these offerings. Facilitators of instructional development aim to be flexible in their offerings and are expected by institutional leaders to adapt to changing needs and contexts. This adaptability enabled them to be focal points for resources and providers of training especially in online teaching in March and April of 2020 when COVID-19 moved the majority of higher education online (Xie et al., 2021). Today, the “and more” includes an increased focus on inclusive teaching practices, which are presented as a way to ensure that all students are welcomed and supported as learners (Addy et al., 2021; Magalhães & Hane, 2020). In the section below on DEI instructional development, we detail this focus on inclusive teaching, and how they may be part of DEI instructional development. In addition to the planned, facilitated activities aimed at instructional improvement detailed above, faculty may also grow their understanding of teaching through selffacilitated but institutionally recognized activities designed to investigate or improve their teaching. Engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), where faculty systematically study and share their teaching, is one such activity (Boyer et al., 1990). In the past 30 years, this area of scholarship has grown substantially and operates at the intersection of specific academic disciplines and teaching and learning. Participating in such activities allows faculty members to both facilitate their own instructional development and share their learning with others (Condon et al., 2016). Lastly, faculty may learn about teaching within the wide range of aspects of faculty work and lives that are not intended to facilitate instructional improvement but can nonetheless create opportunities for it (Bolitzer, 2017; Neumann, 2009). For example, Condon et al. (2016) describes how “department committee service focuses on curriculum, . . . hallway conversations often involve talking about ‘what works’ in the classroom. Engaging in departmental self-studies and ensuing external reviews exposes faculty to formative and summative judgements about teaching and learning in their departments and programs” (p. 8). Furthermore, faculty may also gain insights into their teaching within their scholarly research (Neumann, 2009); as they grow their understandings of their disciplines, so too may they grow understandings of how to share their discipline with their students. Other sources of learning for faculty can include self-initiated book clubs focused on teaching or peer observations, whether formal or informal. It is noteworthy that these contexts for learning, like SoTL, likely provide faculty with space to develop their understanding of teaching in relation to their particular subject matter. These subject-matter based conversations are often not the focus of teaching and learning centers because faculty are perceived as subject-matter experts (Pallas & Neumann, 2019) and teaching and learning centers aim their activities to a broad, institutionwide audience of faculty members (Haras, 2018).

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

425

As we have begun to discuss above, while they are organized largely as separate goals, there are likely overlaps between faculty advancement and instructional development. For example, mentors may guide new faculty members on the development of their research and teaching. Faculty development centers or teaching and learning centers may also seek to create connections across or beyond the primary domains of faculty work: teaching, research, and service. Such efforts are described as holistic faculty development, which supports growth “in all aspects of [faculty’s] professional lives—as instructors, scholars, academic leaders and contributors to instructional decisions” (Nelson, 1981, p. 9 as quoted in Beach et al., 2016, p. 3). As we discuss in our concluding section, “Moving Forward,” the deliberate facilitation of faculty’s development across domains is a promising area for the future of faculty development. Instructional improvement for racially minoritized students requires both improved instruction by all college faculty and an increase in faculty from racially minoritized groups, whom also need to be holistically supported in their development. Recognizing that these objectives are linked calls on the field to engage in holistic faculty development premised on a conception of faculty members as learners.

Guiding Conceptual Framework: Faculty as Learners To guide our efforts to understand and advance DEI faculty development, we draw from scholarship focused on sociocultural learning theories (Bransford et al., 2000; Esmonde & Booker, 2017), transformative learning theories (Mezirow, 1997; Taylor et al., 2012), and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989; Harris & Patton, 2019). Bringing this literature together, we conceptualized a learning pathway for faculty (refer to Fig. 2) that is based on the premise that faculty are learners. When policymakers, scholars, administrators, and educators think about learners within the context of higher education, they typically think of students. And, rightfully so. Student learning and development lie at the core of college and university missions. Yet considering only students leaves out a significant population of learners in higher education: the faculty who teach them. Our faculty learning pathway model attends to: • Who faculty are as learners–their prior knowledge, beliefs, skills, and ways of knowing which constitute faculty’s funds of knowledge. • What they are learning–the content of their learning composed of the evidencebased knowledge and skills shared in a way that promotes organized knowledge for the learner as well as knowledge gained from inquiry into one’s own experience. • How they are learning–the conditions of their learning, with ideal development happening through active learning, learning with others (community learning), metacognitive learning, learning from assessing one’s own practice, and support for sustaining learning. • Where they are learning–the contexts, such as the institutions, disciplines, and broader society, that shape faculty’s learning.

426

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Fig. 2 Conceptualization of Faculty Learning Pathway

While the components of the learning pathway model (funds of knowledge as well as the content, contexts, and conditions of learning) are presented separately in the model, they are likely interweaved within faculty’s lives and work. To conceptualize that interweaving, we use the lens of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989). Intersectionality calls on us to examine how these various structures, forces, conditions, and identities intersect in ways that creates and sustains intersectional subordination, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and other racially minoritized women (Crenshaw, 1989; Haynes et al., 2020; Harris & Patton, 2019). We posit that such subordination is a strong force in faculty’s learning and professional development. This is not a view currently pervasive in faculty development literature, though some scholars attend to faculty experiences in higher education with this lens (e.g., Haynes et al., 2022; Patton & Njoku, 2019). As such, we put forth that intersectionality is an essential element of the faculty learning pathway; reflected in our inclusion of it as an element that cuts across all others. We believe that without attention to intersectional subordination that minoritized faculty experience, faculty development falls short in content and process. Taken together, the outcome of the learning pathway model is sustained deep learning, which is composed of faculty developing substantive conceptual understanding, the capacity to apply what they have learned, and the capacity to improve. We view this learning pathway as useful for all faculty development, and especially essential for DEI faculty development. In what follows, we describe each aspect of our faculty learning pathway model and the literature that informed it.

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

427

Faculty Members’ Funds of Knowledge Faculty engage in learning through a variety of activities related to their professional careers. This includes learning from teaching, research, and service as well as across multiple contexts such as their engagement with students inside and outside of the classroom as well as their personal lives (Martinez et al., 2019; Neumann, 2009). Learning, defined as coming to understand something in a new light or to learn something altogether new (Bransford et al., 2000; Neumann, 2005; Terosky & Conway, 2020), is central to faculty work. For many faculty, it is this desire to learn that brings them into the academy (Neumann, 2006). But learning does not happen automatically; it requires an intentional effort on the part of the instructor. Terosky & Conway (2020) noted that faculty as learners continually “reflect on, question, and reformulate what they assume about knowledge (e.g. ideas, perspectives, information) and related skills” (p. 16). Furthermore, learning is a sociocultural process (Esmonde & Booker, 2017). For example, in detailing the learning of adjunct faculty, Bolitzer (2017) showed how learning about teaching can be a sociocultural process that interconnects the teacher, students, and the subject matter at hand. Often, this sociocultural learning process happens live, while teachers teach (Abreu et al., 2019; Bransford et al., 2000; Bolitzer, 2021) and specifically as they learn from and with their students (Bolitzer, 2021; Martinez et al., 2019). The sociocultural learning process is also imbued with power shaped by broader social systems that exert privilege or oppression over people’s lives and learning (Esmonde & Booker, 2017). Thus, work focused on learning requires attention to the way power is shaping the learning experience (Esmonde & Booker, 2017; Freire, 1970/ 1996). A key element for thinking of faculty as learners is to consider that faculty have a fund of valuable prior knowledge composed of their accumulated beliefs, values, and skills, from their lived experiences (González et al., 2005) that informs their understanding of and approach to teaching. Funds of knowledge is an asset-based view of learner’s existing ways of knowing and doing that can serve an an asset in new learning (González et al., 2005). Funds of knowlege is a form of prior knowledge, though the latter is a broader term and can include knowledge one might have that may or may not be helpful to new learning, including misunderstandings that can hinder learning (Bransford et al., 2000). Acknowledging faculty members’ funds of knowledge is important because they can be leveraged to support their learning about inclusive teaching. Variation in faculty’s funds of knowledge, or more broadly their prior knowledge, is based on both their own lived experiences and professional experiences (Oleson & Hora, 2014). Given that faculty member’s funds of knowledge are an important element throughout their pathway as learners, it must consistently be surfaced and attended to during faculty development. It is important to keep in mind, however, that faculty members may have some unlearning to do as they deepen their knowledge of and sensitivity to teaching anchored in principles related to DEI. To expand our conception of faculty as learners, we also draw on Mezirow’s work to better understand the sociocultural processes that can shape their learning. More

428

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

specifically, we draw on transformative learning theory, which indicates that for learning to be transformative, particularly for adults, it must draw on one’s prior and current experiences (Dewey, 1997a, b; Mezirow, 1997). As Mezirow (1997) noted, “Adults have acquired a coherent body of experience—associations, concepts, values, feelings, conditioned responses . . . that define their life world” (p. 5). As such, adults enter their practice, in this case their work as faculty – including their teaching – with experiences that shape how they think about teaching and learning, knowledge, students, and their specific subject matter.

Content of Faculty Learning Drawing largely from the scholarship on sociocultural learning, we consider the content of learning to be composed of evidence-based knowledge and skills that are offered in a way that provides learners with a conceptual map (organized knowledge) of the core concepts in the area they are being taught (Bransford et al., 2000; Pallas & Neumann, 2019). Applied to the context of faculty development means to facilitate faculty’s learning by faculty developers first identifying the core concepts that faculty need to learn. Once the educator, and in this case the faculty developer, identifies the core concepts that are central to what is being taught, then the next step is to organize the teaching of those concepts in a way that supports learners’ ability to create an organized knowledge map of how those concepts connect (Bransford et al., 2000). For instance, a faculty developer who wants to support faculty in learning about teaching anchored in the principles of DEI first has to understand what are the various concepts that compose teaching about DEI. Then, the faculty developer must determine the best order and method to teach those concepts so that faculty have a knowledge map of DEI and how the parts of that map connect to one another. In addition to learning about core concepts to support faculty’s development, content of learning is also composed of knowledge that faculty may gain from inquiring into their own practice; that is, from their own experience (Dewey, 1938/ 1997). Learning from one’s own experience requires guidance from an educator, but that educator must be “intimately acquainted with the conditions of the local community, physical, historical, economic, occupational, etc., in order to utilize them as educational resources” (p. 40). This acquaintance is required by faculty developers too, in order to promote deep learning by their faculty. Inquiring into one’s own experience and using that inquiry to guide their learning, is fundamental to adult learning (Mezirow, 2000). Since the focus here is on the content of learning, we refer to the outcome of such inquiry into experience as inquiry-based knowledge – awareness and understanding based on examining one’s own experiences and practices.

Conditions of Faculty Learning Sociocultural and transformative learning theories posit that the conditions of learning matter for ensuring deep learning. By conditions of learning we mean how faculty are

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

429

engaged during faculty development, specifically instructional development, so as to facilitate deep learning outcomes. Drawing on sociocultural learning and adult transformative learning theory (Bransford et al., 2000; Mezirow, 2000), we identify five conditions that are central to faculty’s learning: active learning, community learning, metacognitive learning, assessment learning, and sustained learning. In active learning, faculty are engaged in ways that both elevate and examine their learning within their work. This condition of learning emphasizes the value of learning that occurs within professional practice (Terosky & Conway, 2020; Wenger, 1999), and the importance of faculty being able to bring that learning to their development. These can include strategies such as discussions, problem-based learning (e.g., problems of practice), case studies, role playing and other methods. In community learning, faculty engage in and benefit from discourse with others, thereby developing relationships and building community in the process (Mezirow, 2000; Servage, 2008) —the most common factors contributing to transformative adult learning (Taylor, 1997; Taylor et al., 2012). This learning through discourse can happen as faculty learn from others, including their students (Boltizer, 2021; Martínez et al., 2019), their colleagues (Abreu, 2020), their professional development opportunities (Castillo-Montoya & Ives, 2021), and within their disciplinebased communities (Terosky & Conway, 2020). In metacognitive learning, faculty learn by critically reflecting on their learning process. Through metacognitive practices, learners can examine their prior experiences and consider expanding or altering their frames of reference (Bransford et al., 2000; Dewey, 1997/1910). According to transformative learning theory, critical reflection is necessary because “how we see the world is a result of our perceptions of our experiences” (Taylor et al., 2012, p. 5). The problem comes in when “we uncritically assimilate perspectives from our social world, community, and culture. Those perspectives include distortions, stereotypes, and prejudices” (Taylor et al., 2012, p. 6), assumptions that ultimately guide what we do in our work and in our lives. Yet, when faculty experience a tension between their expectations and a situation they are experiencing, they can either reject new perspectives they are encountering or they can question their held perspectives and open themselves up to transforming their perspective (Christie et al., 2015; Taylor et al., 2012). That is, engaging in analysis of assumptions facilitates transformative learning. In assessment learning, faculty learn from data points about their own teaching and students. For example, faculty may learn from feedback provided through peer observations of their teaching (Bolitzer, 2019a), student course evaluations, or student feedback (Bolitzer, 2021; Martinez et al., 2019). Or faculty may learn by examining the racial disparity in DFW rates in their courses (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015). These data points could be formal, as in the case of student evaluations, or informal, such as within their interactions with students. Through supported examination of these data points, faculty can experience assessment learning which in turn can support their development as teachers (Beach et al., 2016). In sustained learning, faculty are involved in a continuous cycle of improvement and learning, which can be supported by their institutions. That is, they can learn about their teaching from a variety of sources (e.g., their own teaching, peer

430

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

observations, students, trainings, etc.), yet what is key is that they have space and time to reflect on those sources to improve their teaching (McApline & Weston, 2002). For this to happen, not only must faculty have sufficient time and space to engage in this activity, they must also be able to do so within an institutional environment that encourages and rewards such exploration and engagement (Daley et al., 2008; Pallas et al., 2017). Such conditions are prerequisites for deep learning that leads to transfer of knowledge to other contexts (Bransford et al., 2000), which organizational change theorists call transfer of training (Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Grossman & Salas, 2011).

Contexts of Faculty Learning Contexts of learning are the various locations in which learning can occur (Schwab, 1973). For faculty, these can include the institution where they are teaching, what they are teaching (subject matter), and who they are teaching, as well as potentially many other contexts inside and outside their institution. All these contexts can influence what faculty learn about teaching and about the relevance of DEI for their teaching. For faculty, the contexts of their disciplines, departments, and the community in which they are learning are important (Neumann, 2009; Taylor, 1997). That is, we can best understand faculty’s learning when we situate it within the context of where that learning is taking place and we can best support faculty as learners when we help them understand how contexts are shaping their teaching (Karweit, 1998). For faculty three essential contexts of learning are (refer to Fig. 2): broader society, disciplines, and institutions (including departments and classrooms).

Intersectionality in Learning Faculty careers and instruction are not neutral, but instead imbued with power and privilege (Flores Niemann, 2020; Patton & Njoku, 2019; Pérez, 2019). As faculty learn and develop, they are likely to navigate multiple power structures and their multiple identities will shape their relationship with and treatment by those structures. Intersectionality, which was originally constructed to describe how intersecting power structures impinge to create the lived experiences of Black women in the USA (Crenshaw, 1989), allows us to witness how intersecting power structures impact the lives and careers of racially minoritized faculty with multiple marginality (Corneille et al., 2019; Haynes et al., 2020; Patton & Njoku, 2019). For example, utilizing an intersectionality lens, Corneille et al. (2019) conducted a qualitative meta-synthesis of the lived experiences of women of color faculty in STEM that identified the specific challenges they face with multiple marginality, as both women and racially minoritized people. One specific challenge they highlight based on the scholarship of Harper et al. (2001) is that racially minoritized women faculty were more likely than STEM men faculty to be in non-tenure track positions, which they note leads to lower pay, less influence in decision-making, and higher teaching and service loads. Their multiple marginality negatively impacts their research productivity and is detrimental to their

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

431

health as they engage in highly emotional and intensive labor that institutions of higher education tend to undervalue (Corneille et al., 2019; Harper et al., 2001; Zambrana, 2018). Including intersectionality as part of our framework leads us to examine the extent to which the current efforts at DEI faculty development attends to the multiple identities of faculty members informed by intersection systems of power. Institutional and faculty development failures to address the specific needs of communities with multiple marginality is not just an oversight or a missed opportunity, but rather an action of complicity that causes harm to these communities. As Patton and Njoku (2019) emphasize, through the failure to address multiple marginality, institutions sanction violence against Black women in the academy. This institution-sanctioned violence function[s] to: (1) discredit Black women, (2) subject Black women to heightened scrutiny, (3) blame Black women for their predicament, (4) hold innocent those who target Black women, (5) rob Black women of attention and protection, and (6) treat Black women as a threat. (p. 1167–68)

This violence is an endemic condition in which Black women are forced to engage in as faculty members and somehow still thrive. To fully understand and support faculty as learners requires recognizing the conditions in which they are learning. Intersectionality is, therefore, an essential component of understanding when and how the lives and careers of faculty with multiple marginality are being attended to in DEI faculty development. We posit that even within DEI faculty development, faculty with multiple marginality can still experience violence that is detrimental to their lives and careers. Patton and Njoku (2019) wrote, “as Black women within the academy, the authors have experienced covert and overt acts of violence against us. Such enactments of violence were not only harmful, but they also rendered us invisible despite institutional rhetoric of care, diversity, and inclusion” (p. 1163). The words and work of these scholars is a call to recognize and attend to the intersectionality of faculty’s identities, which likely strongly shape their learning and development. A key question of this chapter is whether DEI faculty development recognizes these forces and realities. This framework of faculty as learners, as presented in this section, guided the analysis within this chapter in several ways. These ideas shaped the development of our guiding questions and we stayed attentive to them as we reviewed extant literature on DEI faculty development. This framework also allowed us to identify how the DEI faculty development literature is attending to faculty as learners. And lastly, we drew on these ideas in forming our recommendations for advancing DEI faculty development, which we present in the final section of this chapter.

DEI Faculty Development In this section, we examine and highlight efforts in faculty development that attempt in some way to address all or some components of DEI. We begin by detailing current DEI faculty advancement efforts attentive to DEI because those efforts

432

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

increasingly recognize the importance of faculty identities (the “who” of the faculty learning pathway; refer to Fig. 2). As we detail below, these efforts are often situated within a larger goal of inclusive excellence (IE), wherein institutions embrace DEI in all areas of learning, teaching, institutional functioning, and engagement (Milem et al., 2005). Through the lens and application of IE, DEI faculty advancement is poised to engage the experiences of racially minoritized faculty and design programs that address their specific needs and unique experiences (Danowitz & Tuitt, 2010; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). We then turn to current DEI instructional development efforts. These are largely guided by inclusive teaching, which describes how faculty can foster of classroom environments welcome all students and, therefore, better support their learning of subject matter (Addy et al., 2021; Haynes, 2016; Magalhães & Hane, 2020), thus mirroring the larger institution-wide aims of IE. The following two sections, therefore, present a window into the current efforts aimed at DEI faculty development.

DEI Faculty Advancement DEI faculty advancement describes the activities and resources designed to support faculty through progressive stages in their academic careers and research activities. In reviewing this literature, we found limited evidence of DEI faculty advancement programs that specifically focus on adjunct faculty. Given the recent increased attention to adjunct faculty and calls for equity in their working conditions (Kezar et al., 2019; Rhoades, 2020), we posit that such career advancements programs for adjunct faculty may be underway at select institutions, but they have not yet become pervasive enough to show up in the DEI faculty advancement literature. Therefore, in presenting this section on DEI faculty advancement, we recognize that supports for faculty advancement likely depend on the institutional type (e.g., research universities, community or bachelors granting institutions, undergraduate or graduate institutions), the resources of the institution, the particular institution’s commitments to their faculty, as well as the particular position of a faculty member at the institution (tenured, tenure-track, adjunct, part- or full-time, etc.). With this understanding, we present an overview of current efforts at DEI faculty advancement. DEI faculty advancement means that DEI considerations are deeply integrated throughout each stage of the faculty career (refer to Fig. 3). This approach calls for institutional leaders and faculty developers to acknowledge how racially minoritized faculty experience academia during each stage and to adequately alter them through policies and practices to support racially minoritized faculty (Sotto Santiago, 2017; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). For racially minoritized faculty, there is a close connection between these career stages and their perception of the institution’s DEI culture and climate (Sotto Santiago, 2017). Simultaneously, DEI faculty advancement also calls for institutional leaders and developers to identify how they will uphold DEI capacities as an expectation throughout the careers of all faculty, inclusive of white faculty. This is a process necessary for faculty advancement anchored in DEI because while there is no seamless transition through faculty stages,

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

433

Fig. 3 Conceptualization of Faculty Career Stages

ample research indicates that racially minoritized faculty navigate academia through systemic barriers, oppressive structures, and obsolete models of promotion and tenure that are detrimental to their well-being and career success (Flores Neimann, 2020; Turner et al., 2008; Zambrana, 2018). In this section, we focus on several aspects of faculty advancement: search and recruitment; onboarding and socialization; and retention, promotion, tenure, and leadership advancement. Within each of these sections, we describe DEI faculty advancement programming meant for all faculty and those designed specifically for racially minoritized faculty. These aspects of faculty advancement align with the stages of faculty careers highlighted in Fig. 3. However, few existing models of faculty advancement account for the way DEI can be integrated meaningfully throughout those stages. To address this gap, At the end of this section we provide emerging models as some examples of how DEI is being embedded in each stage.

Faculty Search, Recruitment, and Hiring Attentive to DEI The stages of a faculty career begins with the search and recruitment process (Fig. 3). While historically higher education has failed to recruit minoritized faculty (Gasman et al., 2011), recently the field has identified some promising practices for minoritized faculty. DEI attentive search and recruitment practices include being specific about how the position is conceptualized, reaffirming a strong commitment to hire and retain a diverse faculty, and following overall equitable processes from interviewing, to effectively communicating, and evaluating applicants (Fine & Handelsman, 2012b). For example, the Society for Human Resources Management recently introduced a DEI discipline (Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 2020). This DEI function, under human resources and talent management functions, is said to deal with the qualities, experiences and work styles that make individuals unique and the methods by which organizations can leverage those qualities. It also includes metrics and effective DEI practices that can be applied throughout the organization (SHRM, 2020). DEI informed search and recruitment includes efforts on the front end of the search and recruitment process such as writing job descriptions that are gender-neutral,

434

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

specific about the skill set required, and avoiding phrases that could alienate a large portion of one’s candidate pool. For example, a phrase like “native English speakers” points to biased language when in reality the specific role needs fluency in the English language (SHRM, 2020). DEI informed search and recruitment also includes expanding job posting locations so that the position is also intentionally marketed to minoritized communities, therefore potentially diversifying the pool of candidates. In addition, inclusive recruitment processes include equity-driven application and review processes that acknowledge the role that biases and assumptions can have in selecting a candidate. Studies show that these biases and assumptions impact the perceived competence of women and members of minoritized populations, and expectations about social roles, hence impacting their experiences in the search and recruitment process (Fine & Handelsman, 2012a, b). Search committees composed of diverse members benefit from a wide variety of perspectives, enhance recruitment efforts and the evaluation of candidates. However, every member must be committed to DEI, otherwise the same search committee may hamper all efforts to recruit excellent and diverse candidates (Fine & Handelsman, 2012b). A best practice for search committee members is to include implicit bias training consisting of not only personal reflection, but also demonstrating where these unconscious biases appear (Railey et al., 2016). Today, more institutions are also requesting diversity statements from candidates, and it may soon become a standard practice meant to weigh a candidate’s commitment to DEI. The aforementioned practices recognize DEI and may also provide faculty candidates, especially those from racially minoritized faculty, with a sense of the institution’s values associated with DEI. To be clear, adherence to these processes do not always indicate a true inclusive environment, and DEI statements from candidates can be viewed with skepticism (Lewis & Tong, 2021). Such practices and statements, however, can point to some institutional commitment to DEI. As the process gets closer to the hiring stage, an inclusive search standardizes interview questions and produces standardized candidate evaluations to ensure each candidate has the same opportunities and are evaluated against the same criteria (Fine & Handelsman, 2012b). Ideally, that criteria would include specific skill sets required and evidence of ability to contribute to the DEI mission of the college/ university. In addition, an inclusive hiring process provides all candidates, but especially racially minoritized faculty, with transparency during negotiations and competitive offers (Fine & Handelsman, 2012b). While not meant to be exhaustive, these inclusive search and recruitment processes indicate the necessity for institutions to enact multiple strategies to recruit diverse applicants while also reducing biases along the way (Davey et al., 2021; Stewart & Valian, 2018).

DEI Faculty Onboarding and Socialization Onboarding, which marks the beginning of the socialization process, emphasizes what is expected of faculty in the organization and in particular situations. Socialization plays an important role in faculty advancement and is characterized as being fundamentally important (Tierney, 1997). It is the process through which faculty acquire and incorporate an understanding of the organizational culture with shared

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

435

attitudes, beliefs, values, and skills (Sotto Santiago, 2017; Tierney, 1997). Throughout that socialization process, racially minoritized faculty receive information formally (e.g., resources location, promotion and tenure) or informally (e.g., who the institutional agents are that can connect them with social capital at the institution, and politically savvy institutional navigators (whom to contact in order to avoid political pitfalls in the organization) (Museus & Neville, 2012; Sotto Santiago, 2017). Studies have shown that Black faculty learn about institutional values and expectations, along with expectations for promotion and tenure, in formal and informal ways and consider this an influential component of the socialization process. Embedded in socialization, however, is the danger that such a process will reinforce existing power structures, as they can perpetuate notions of what a faculty member looks like and does, as well as, who fits into academia (Gonzales & Terosky, 2016). For racially minoritized faculty, an institutional failure to attend to DEI within socialization processes adds to a long list of lived experiences of racial marginalization and sends a message of possible institutional toxicity and challenges they may have to confront to obtain career success (Sotto Santiago, 2017). Unsatisfactory socialization is said to lead to faculty stress, disillusionment, stalled careers, and organizational loss in the form of lowered productivity and increased turnover (Korte, 2007). One way to counter unsatisfactory socialization is to support faculty in building social capital and community, both of which can support socialization and be an agent of socialization. Social capital is the aggregate of potential resources linked to a network of relationships and membership to a group (Bordieu, 2018). Building communities can be especially supportive of racially minoritized faculty who tend to value spaces that bring communities together to share their accomplishments, barriers and challenges, and opportunities (Sotto Santiago, 2017). The benefits of such relationships and community building is a network of allies and accountability partners that hold each other up through mutual support. Ultimately, this process of community building can grow community cultural wealth, which are the forms of capital that empower individuals, capture their strengths, talents, and experiences and disrupt and protect against interpersonal and structural racism, and marginalization (Acevedo & Solorzano, 2021; Yosso & Burciaga, 2016). Mentoring within these networks of other racially minoritized faculty and allies can develop from building these communities. Mentoring can support socialization and in turn can be a key retention effort.

DEI Faculty Retention Efforts: Mentoring, Career, and Research Support Attentive to DEI As faculty move steadily through these career stages, the focus of DEI faculty advancement emphasizes the retention of faculty members through mentoring along with their promotion and tenure, research support, and supporting minoritized faculty in assuming leadership roles. Mentoring. DEI faculty advancement promotes culturally-relevant mentoring that fully considers race/ethnicity, gender, class and gender identity, among other

436

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

intersecting identities; questions institutional structures and distributions of power; and provides adequate support regarding navigating a faculty career and obtaining research funding (Sotto Santiago, 2017). Culturally-relevant mentoring includes a programmatic structure, recruiting of mentors, training of mentors, support of mentoring relationships, mentoring activities and finally, targeted outcomes (Sotto-Santiago, 2018). This type of mentoring is recognized as helping mentors identify personal assumptions, biases and privileges (House et al., 2018; Womack et al., 2020). For example, the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) offers sessions on how these personal perspectives may operate in research mentoring relationships (National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN), 2017). Promotion and Tenure. Another key aspect of retention practices is the early and continuous support toward promotion and/or tenure. DEI faculty advancement would create promotion and tenure criteria that expects and rewards DEI-related work, such as that of service to minoritized student populations and communityengaged scholarship (Matthew, 2016; Flaherty, 2021). At Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, for example, the faculty council overwhelmingly approved a new path to tenure and promotion centered on DEI work (Flaherty, 2021). This is an attempt to respond to the issue of faculty doing DEI-related work not being recognized for it in any career stage. These faculty are disproportionately likely to be from racially minoritized groups (Flaherty, 2021). Similar work has been done at other institutions such the University of California which, through its academic personnel policy, requires that faculty contribute to diversity aims as part of their faculty work in order to proceed through its faculty appointment and promotion process (University of California Review and Appraisal Committee, 2022). Among racially minoritized faculty, scholars recognize that cultural taxation – expectations that minoritized faculty serve or demonstrate knowledge with regard to respective minoritization (Padilla, 1994) – exists and plays a role in hindering faculty advancement toward promotion and tenure (Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). Scholars have documented three strategies to counter cultural taxation: being strategic about commitments to students and promotion and tenure efforts; making connections between faculty workloads and motivation for pursuing promotion and tenure; and believing relationships with students were a benefit during the promotion and tenure process (Guillaume & Apodaca, 2020). Scholars have suggested that successfully navigating cultural taxation helped faculty in their pursuit of promotion and tenure. However, this is another example of how DEI faculty advancement can work to eliminate systemic barriers and actualize promotion and tenure processes without causing harm due to the burden and toxicity that comes from cultural taxation (Croom, 2017; Stewart & Valian, 2018; Zambrana, 2018). Research Support. The model for faculty career stages emphasizes mentoring, career, and research support are key to DEI faculty advancement. Faculty career development is premised on the idea that providing research support is an effective way to facilitate faculty advancement. It is important to highlight that research support comes in many forms and depends on the institution type (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006, p. 77). Some examples include pilot funding for research studies, bridge funding during periods of gaps in external funding, funding for graduate

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

437

assistants or research assistants, technology and equipment purchases, laboratory space allocation, and funding for professional development programs specializing in proposal writing for foundations and federal funding grants. Research support attentive to DEI and to racially minoritized faculty has been a growing focus in research institutions. Funds earmarked specifically for racially minoritized faculty are now available at many institutions. The Enhanced Mentoring Program with Opportunities for Ways to Excel in Research (EMPOWER) of Indiana University-Indianapolis and Purdue University, for example, supports faculty members from populations that have been historically underrepresented and/or excluded populations in their discipline or area of scholarship to become successful in sponsored research and “to achieve significant professional growth and advancement” (IUPUI, n.d.). Other external mechanisms, such as federal programs like the National Institutes of Health, offer supplements to existing awardees who are outstanding mentors and who have demonstrated compelling commitments and contributions to enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the biomedical sciences (NIH, 2022). This is in addition to the availability of federally sponsored research funding aimed to enhance workforce diversity (NIMH, 2022). Minoritized Faculty Leadership. Effective institutions require effective leadership. DEI faculty advancement leading to leadership positions requires programs that are skills focused and that support individual development (Steinert, 2014). Often, leadership development includes management training, coaching, workplace feedback such as 360 professional performance evaluations, psychometric tests and personality inventories (Steinert, 2014). DEI faculty advancement means considering career goals and aspirations, while nurturing high performing racially minoritized faculty through tailored programming, sponsorship, and leadership opportunities. A 2020 report found that more than 80% of college administrators were white, and only 13% of executive officers were members of racially minoritized groups (Lederman, 2022). Moreover, even when these executive-level leaders are in place, their performance evaluation can be harsher and their short-comings very public. In An Inclusive Academy, Stewart & Valian (2018) state “all leaders occasionally fail. When women or people of color fail, their failure is likely to be attributed to gender or ethnicity” (p. 102). An example of a development program dedicated to leadership advancement of women is the HERS Women in Higher Education Leadership Network. HERS is dedicated to creating and sustaining a diverse network of woman-identified leaders in higher education, and supporting women in various stages of their careers (HERS, 2022). Yet, this wellestablished program has not yet provided tailored-programming for women of color in academia. DEI faculty advancement in relation to leadership has multiple purposes, among them, benefiting the individual’s professional growth and the institution’s proven commitment to DEI. In addition to a commitment to a shared purpose, it means faculty career support toward advancement and professional fulfillment. In summary, DEI faculty advancement across faculty career stages supports career success and is important to attend to in all institutional strategies. Racially minoritized faculty will be more effective when their identities are affirmed, when their careers and institutional values align, and when institutions are deeply invested in DEI and faculty success.

438

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

In summary, we demonstrate the close connection between faculty career stages and the opportunity to truly embed DEI faculty development throughout the entire career pathway. Specifically, we focused on faculty advancement as explored through search and recruitment; onboarding and socialization; and retention, mentoring, promotion, tenure, and leadership advancement. In this way, we supported how current models for faculty development within the individual sectors of their work, such as research, teaching, and service – tend to support faculty advancement with one-size fits all programs. In what follows, we present two novel approaches to DEI faculty advancement that draw from the concept of intersectionality to counter the multiple power structures and treatment that impacts the careers of racially minoritized faculty (Corneille et al., 2019; Patton & Njoku, 2019).

Two Approaches to DEI Faculty Advancement Development programs and related literature focus largely on positive outcomes including boasting the benefits of “learning from experience, by design, by observing, and by reflecting on experience; learning from peer-colleagues and learners, and online learning” (Steinert, 2014, p. 12). Unfortunately, the same programs that outline positive outcomes fail to demonstrate commitment and attentiveness to DEI faculty advancement, and sadly, faculty developers themselves often failed to acknowledge this need for DEI faculty development programs (Sotto-Santiago, 2017; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). In a study by Sotto-Santiago et al. (2019), faculty developers were asked about their perspectives on supporting DEI faculty development. Developers acknowledged the need to overcome their own implicit bias and assumptions; address issues with recruitment, retention, and advancement of racially minoritized faculty; personally value and champion DEI; and address the specific needs of racially minoritized faculty because they can experience academia very differently from white faculty. Below, we present two approaches to DEI faculty advancement, one specifically tailored faculty advancement for racially minoritized faculty, and the second DEI-centered faculty advancement for all faculty. Tailored Faculty Advancement for Racially Minoritized Faculty. Faculty advancement programs that are specifically tailored to support racially minoritized faculty have proliferated over the past decade (Guevara et al., 2013). This proliferation is largely based on the recognition that racially minoritized faculty experience the academy differently than white faculty, and that in being attentive to DEI, these programs can be a tool to diversify higher education. The development of programs tailored specifically for racially minoritized faculty relies on the evidence and subsequent assumption that faculty advancement programs along with robust mentoring increase their retention, productivity, promotion, and tenure attainment (Rodriguez et al., 2014). A recent study highlights how racially minoritized faculty believe that faculty development cannot be entirely generalized in ways that benefit all faculty and all tracks, while also highlighting that the spaces created specifically for racially minoritized faculty are quite limited (Sotto Santiago, 2017). Evidence confirms that microaggressions, discrimination, and overt racism are ever-present in academia (Fries-Britt et al., 2011; Sotto Santiago, 2017; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019) and

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

439

reinforces the importance of racially minoritized faculty having access to specifically tailored programs and spaces for networking, community-building, and affirmation (Turner et al., 2008). The approaches and goals of the institutions for this intersection of DEI and faculty development will vary. Institutions and faculty developers may offer tailored programs as a way to enhance the environment, advancement, and skills. However, inclusive environments require minimally providing safe and brave spaces. Safe spaces are designed so that minoritized individuals can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, harassment, or any emotional or physical harm (Arao & Clemens, 2013; Merriam-Webster, 2022). Yet, scholars have questioned the possible conflation between safe spaces and “safety with comfort” (Arao & Clemens, 2013, p. 135). Conversely, more scholars have considered the value of brave spaces as an alternative approach. Brave spaces emphasize “the need for courage rather than the illusion of safety” (Arao & Clemens, 2013, p. 141) in order to create an environment where individuals may equally participate in challenging dialogue. These spaces and programs require assisting faculty and confidently demonstrating that racially minoritized faculty are not alone in facing obstacles (Palermo et al., 2009). A growing approach to tailored faculty advancement for racially minoritized faculty, however, is to use an asset-based framework that draws on these faculty epistemologies and ways of knowing. For instance, Grant et al. (2022) have applied an Indigenous framework to support Native American faculty in their preparation as STEM faculty. The framework was “Native American-led and was guided by specific tenets of Indigenous research methodologies (IRM), drawing upon Respect, Relationship, Representation, Relevance, Responsibility, and Reciprocity” (p. 2). This culturally-informed faculty advancement approach is a promising area of growth in DEI faculty development. Another example at the national level includes the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Faculty Fellowship Program which aims to prepare Latine faculty for successful careers and increase the number of tenured Latine faculty. The program helps connect its members to a network of Latine faculty and develop faculty leaders who are dedicated to uplifting Latine communities (AAHHE, 2022). Furthermore, racially minoritized faculty have suggested important topics that merit more attention in faculty development. These include discussions on handling being a target of microaggressions, dealing with bias in student and performance evaluations, and working through imposter syndrome (Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). They also noted the importance of finding mentors, developing into culturallyrelevant mentors, and achieving promotion and tenure when their work is centered on DEI and/or service to the community (Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). Racially minoritized faculty also noted the importance of having faculty development opportunities that addressed the reality of service obligations, cultural taxation, how to avoid potential burnout, as well as leadership development that touched on dealing with organizational barriers and hostile environments (Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). Although programs tailored to racially minoritized faculty aspire to be comprehensive and holistic, their presence across institutions and organizations are limited. Furthermore, many tailored-faculty advancement programs that claim to be focused

440

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

on racially minoritized faculty have failed to free themselves from a faculty developers’ perspective that continues to try to adapt programming that has been highly centered on white-faculty orientation (Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). For example, the same study that highlighted faculty developers’ positive perspectives on tailored programs explored also their negative perspectives. An “all faculty matter” bias prevented the development of such programs with suggestions that faculty should not be isolated based on race/ethnicity and a view that outcomes should be the same irrespective of the identities of the faculty (Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). These attitudes and assumptions counter what we present as DEI faculty advancement. If institutions are truly living their commitment to DEI, they must resource programs for racially minoritized faculty professional growth, preparing them for senior faculty roles and leadership positions, and assuring the same success in scholarship, funding, and productivity as that afforded and enjoyed by other faculty groups. DEI Faculty Advancement for All Faculty. In the last decade, the field of faculty advancement has seen the proliferation of faculty and professional development that has tried to be attentive to DEI issues (Ackerman-Berger et al., 2021; Gonzalez et al., 2021; Sotto-Santiago, 2020; Sotto-Santiago & Vigil, 2021; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2021; Tucker Edmonds et al., 2021). It all seems to point to institutions embracing DEI and seeing the value of development of all faculty in this regard. The application of DEI and IE provides faculty of all backgrounds and ranks with transformative spaces – opportunities for developing new ways of knowing and being – to learn and grow (Jackson, 2018) into an equity-mindset – a way of thinking that promotes equity and call attention to patterns of inequity (Bensimon, 2018; Milem et al., 2005). With all pieces in place, DEI faculty advancement can play a critical role in the development of individuals who are race-conscious, socially and historically aware of the context of exclusionary practices in higher education. Furthermore, DEI faculty development for all faculty can provide content and opportunities to understand inequities as a dysfunction of the various power and hierarchical structures, policies, and practices embedded in whiteness. Programs aimed at all faculty can also offer reflection practices that question personal biases, assumptions, harmful stereotypes, and allow and empower faculty to be part of the cultural change at their respective institutions (Steinert, 2014). Often, institutional DEI strategic plans become the accountability necessary to focus on DEI efforts. By making DEI a fundamental value and a solid value proposition, DEI faculty advancement for all faculty becomes the tool by which to align institutional values and mission. For example, institutions have constructed a comprehensive set of competencies for all faculty (and staff) members (e.g., University of Michigan, 2022a). Institutions may have DEI training requirements for all faculty and/or leaders, and may have developed a portfolio of educational sessions on DEI related topics. These DEI topics may include: unconscious bias, bystander interventions which fosters awareness and empowers individuals to recognize and choose how to address instances of racism, discrimination, and microaggression; and hosting a variety of equity-driven conversations (University of Michigan, 2022b; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2020). Depending on the type of institution, these offerings

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

441

may also be focused on student success and faculty advancement. Ideally, faculty advancement would integrate race- and identity-conscious career development while promoting critical reflection on how systems of power and oppression impact all aspects of academia (Costino, 2018). In this manner, DEI does not become a siloed endeavor. Instead, with DEI faculty advancement for all faculty, DEI becomes part of the fabric of the institution. This is effective faculty development for all with holistic forms of caring about inclusive environments.

Faculty as Learners in DEI Faculty Advancement DEI faculty advancement is a growing area of research and practice. Yet, the literature shows that faculty advancement is approached largely from a support angle–providing resources to progress faculty career (e.g., mentorship) and research productivity (e.g., grant writing, seed grants). Faculty members are perceived as needing resources, such as workshops and funding, and less so as needing to learn the faculty career (i.e., holistically how to be a professor, or how to thrive as a racially minoritized faculty in the predominately white field of higher education). While recognizing this overarching viewpoint, in this section we highlight the ways in which DEI faculty advancement does approach faculty as learners.

Funds of Knowledge It is rare in the DEI faculty advancement literature to identify programs that attend to faculty’s funds of knowledge, specifically, or their prior experiences and beliefs, more broadly, as a learning resource. When faculty’s prior knowledge or beliefs are considered it is in two primary ways. The first is as entities that need to be shifted to support DEI. For instance, Goldstein et al. (2018) attended to faculty’s prior experiences and beliefs by examining changes in faculty’s perspectives and beliefs after participation in a 4-week online course focused on increasing faculty knowledge about cultural diversity, bias, privilege, inequality, and capacity to contribute to an inclusive campus. In this sense, they recognized that faculty enter their learning with existing perspectives and beliefs that inform the actions they take and that developmental offerings can influence shifts in perspectives and subsequent actions. The emphasis, however, was on changing rather than engaging those beliefs. The second primary way faculty’s prior knowledge and beliefs are recognized is when scholars, leaders, and faculty developers attend to faculty as learners possessing valuable prior knowledge or beliefs—funds of knowledge—which inform the experiences they have at their respective institutions. This can result in institutions providing specific programming and systemic responses needed to advance in their faculty career. For example, in their study of 18 institutions that received NSF ADVANCE Program Institutional Transformation (IT) grants, Armstrong and Jovanovic (2017) focused on programs that support underrepresented minority women with an eye on “mutually constitutive effects of multiple, subordinated identities” (p. 217). They found that although these programs had an explicit intersectional goal, for the most part, associated initiatives to support racially minoritized women faculty through their STEM careers added their identities to

442

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

existing approaches rather than design initiatives with an intersectional approach that attends to multiple marginality. Without an intersectional lens, it is difficult to clearly identify the specific systemic obstacles that racially minoritized women confront (Armstrong & Jovanovic, 2017). Furthermore, Armstrong & Jovanovic (2017) found that in the rare cases where an intersectional approach was directing a faculty advancement initiative, it was focused on the individual (e.g., how to get each racially minoritized woman in the institution to achieve tenure and promotion) rather than on the group or system level (e.g., how to change the recruitment process to recruit more racially minoritized women). When faculty’s funds of knowledge, specifically, or their prior knowledge or beliefs, more broadly – all that makes them who they are – are not accounted for in how DEI faculty advancement is carried out throughout the faculty career stages, a gap emerges. This is especially true for racially minoritized faculty with multiple marginality. Without intersectional institutional interventions, faculty advancement approaches ignore that racially minoritized faculty broadly, and those with multiple marginality in particular, must engage in learning throughout their careers within oppressive structures (Palermo et al., 2009). This reality is detrimental to their wellbeing and career success (Zambrana, 2018) and minimizes their contributions to the academy and their disciplines (Flores Nieman, 2020; Turner et al., 2008). Because faculty’s funds of knowledge, research agendas, and passion for service and teaching may be undervalued, and their credibility and credentials are often challenged (Flores Nieman, 2020; Turner et al., 2008; Zambrana, 2018), racially minoritized faculty may not have the same learning opportunities in general faculty development programs as their white counterparts (Sotto-Santiago, 2020; SottoSantiago & Vigil, 2021). In the final section of this chapter, we discuss how this may be addressed through a holistic model of faculty development. Content of Learning DEI faculty advancement programs aim to provide faculty with content that is outside faculty areas of disciplinary expertise. Examples include offering training to do search committee work (David et al., 2021), lead a department (Bartels et al., 2021), obtain institutional seed money (Rodriguez et al., 2014), or navigate an academic career (Daley et al., 2008). For instance, faculty are approached as learners of a new organization (e.g., key administrative offices and resources) through faculty orientation programs (Wunsch & Chattergy, 1991). Similarly, faculty are conceptualized as learners of the tenure and promotion expectations at their respective institutions (Wunsch & Chattergy, 1991). In some institutions, faculty are also approached as learners of organizational culture and cultural expectations through sessions that focus on cultural diversity and implications for understanding their own positionalities and work at their respective institutions (Wunsch & Chattergy, 1991). In new faculty orientation programs, faculty have opportunities “to build inclusive community between colleagues; to orient colleagues to institutional culture and community history; to model inclusive, evidence-based pedagogy; and to help colleagues know where to find ‘just n time’ resources and ongoing support”

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

443

(Caldwell-Okeefe et al., 2002, p. 60). In this sense, a significant amount of “learning” is concentrated in the first few days of a full-time faculty member’s onboarding. Yet racially minoritized faculty members have additional learning to do, whether they want to or not. Research shows that racially minoritized faculty can benefit from institutional leaders and developers providing multiple forms of support, including: tenure and promotion strategies, strategies for dealing with microaggressions and bias in students’ evaluations, confronting imposter syndrome and cultural taxation, the dealing with expectations that minoritized faculty serve or demonstrate knowledge with regard to respective minoritization (Padilla, 1994; Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). In essence, racially minoritized faculty need support as learners of a toxic environment. Ideally, institutions would work to eliminate racist and oppressive policies and structures (Zambrana, 2018), but when they do not, institutions can at least provide support for learning how to navigate such a climate. To navigate the academy as it is, DEI faculty advancement can support racially minoritized faculty as learners by providing them with opportunities to develop as teachers, writers, researchers, and leaders within the academy by using frameworks that specifically work toward this aim (Guevara et al., 2013). In addition to the learning faculty members need to do to onboard and navigate their careers from the onset, faculty members also continue to learn as they progress through the stages of their faculty careers. Some DEI faculty development attends to faculty as learners of the communities they serve and the students they work with (Catallozzi et al., 2019). Other faculty advancement initiatives focus on providing additional training to increase faculty’s knowledge of bias, privilege, and inequality with the hope that changes in faculty’s perspectives and actions will make the campus more inclusive (Goldstein et al., 2018). Other faculty advancement initiatives focus on building faculty’s knowledge and skills of specific student populations (e.g., Native American students) so that they know how to appropriately mentor students within an academic environment (Brown et al., 2020). In sum, the content of learning in faculty advancement tends to be technical in nature (e.g., learning how to write a grant) and requires faculty to be learners outside of their disciplinary expertise. However, there is an additional curriculum that racially minoritized faculty have to learn (on top of what all faculty have to learn) and that is how to survive, and hopefully thrive, at institutions with toxic environments (Zambrana, 2018).

Conditions of Learning In our framework, we delineated that the conditions of learning for faculty development focuses on how faculty are engaged in learning: active learning, community learning, metacognitive learning, assessment learning, and sustained learning. The literature on DEI faculty advancement largely emphasizes community learning – learning with and from others – with some attention to engaging in such learning through active participation (active learning) in dialogue and through reflection (metacognitive learning). Community learning to support faculty advancing through

444

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

their careers happens mainly through two avenues: informal and formal mentoring programs and communities of practice. Within mentoring programs, the condition of faculty learning is social. It is a collaborative endeavor between more experienced faculty (the mentor) and faculty who are earlier in their academic careers (the mentee). For example, Ardery et al. (2014) described a program with a three-layer approach to mentoring who they refer to as underrepresented faculty. The program included a mentor who has alignment with their disciplinary interest, a local institutional mentor with similar research interests, and a mentor who had graduated from the program. According to this three-layered approach, mentoring is effective when it is intentionally designed to center the needs of its constituency – here, racially minoritized faculty. Effective mentorship requires a substantial investment by both mentor and mentee (Rodriguez et al., 2014), not only by virtue of the one-on-one relationship at the heart of the mentorship but in the many activities, such as directed workshops, informal lunches, and monthly meetings, that enrich and inform the mentor-mentee commitment (Wunsch & Chattergy, 1991). Given the time-intensive nature of mentoring, scholars recommend that institutions support the success of mentoring programs by compensating faculty to offset their time and to reduce overload (Daley et al., 2008). In addition to mentoring relationships, faculty, particularly racially minoritized faculty, benefit from collaboratively learning with others within a network of colleagues from whom they may learn how to successfully navigate their careers and research (Guevara et al., 2013; Turner et al., 2008). These collegial networking and cross-disciplinary collaborations can come in many forms including through organized roundtable discussions, role-modeling opportunities, facilitated conversations, and other presentations that cultivate reflection, provide opportunities for faculty to learn with and from each other and for possible collaborations to emerge (Catallozzi et al., 2019; Gates, 2013). Research on DEI faculty advancement indicates that faculty favor learning from others in community and that they view such learning as influencing their teaching, their personal or professional growth outside of the classroom, and their sense of belonging at their university (Himelein & Anderson, 2020). And these collaborative opportunities benefit not only the faculty member’s navigation of the academy; they also benefit their research through new possible collaborations (Alvarez et al., 2009). Alvarez et al. (2009) found that those who participated in collaborative work at the institution viewed it as important to participate in “frequent, strategic opportunities to engage in collegial dialogue within and across departments and colleges” (p. 132). Such collaborations provided the faculty with opportunities to identify and correct redundancies in their curricula, which led to more streamlined programs for their students. We noted earlier that little faculty advancement literature focuses on the metacognitive learning that we view as being a part of the faculty learning pathway model (Fig. 2). When critical reflection is discussed in this literature, it is usually to highlight the need to reduce bias (Bartels et al., 2021) and transform how faculty relate to colleagues, the institution, and larger social systems (Goldstein et al., 2018).

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

445

Research indicates that faculty view opportunities to reflect on their experiences as a form of professional development (Wlodarsky, 2021). However, the lack of metacognitive focus in the faculty advancement literature suggests an opportunity for faculty developers to further support faculty advancement by leading faculty in reflection. Furthermore, we noted a gap in the literature in that reflection, when attended to with regard to faculty advancement, did not take an intersectional approach. It is possible that reflection, as currently utilized in faculty advancement, largely centers whiteness, thus limiting its potential to drive DEI professional development. We close this section on the conditions of learning with this: to learn, faculty require adequate time and resources. It takes time to learn from multiple data points across their work, to integrate that learning, to draw from educational frameworks to inform one’s work (especially if this is not the faculty’s research area), and to work on improving one’s practice accordingly (Gates, 2013). Such an approach calls for a holistic view of faculty learning across and beyond the domains of faculty work (research, teaching, and service) that includes time to assess and to identify places for improvement and opportunities to implement strategies that advance their careers (Daley et al., 2008). Providing faculty with the condition to learn means providing them with the networks, collaborations, and time to reflect, ideally from an intersectional perspective, on themselves, their work, and their careers. DEI faculty advancement efforts also need to be sustained over time. One-time workshops or even big presentations of content that occur in orientation programs provide faculty with moments of learning, rather than sustained learning opportunities throughout their careers. Some approaches in the field use a framework to identify faculty needs and to provide developmental opportunities to meet those needs (Magalhães & Hane, 2020); others follow orientation programs with workshops to sustain faculty learning (Wunsch & Chattergy, 1991). While some promising approaches exist, much constructive work could be done to develop more and better programs designed to sustain faculty career and research learning over time, especially for minoritized faculty who often have to learn to thrive even when their work environment is toxic (Zambrana, 2018). Contexts of Learning In our faculty learning pathway model, we highlight three contexts that inform faculty’s learning: institutional, disciplinary, and societal. DEI faculty advancement literature focuses largely on institutional contexts, as discussed above in terms of the content of faculty’s learning. Faculty must learn to navigate the institution in order to advance their careers. Much of this learning happens through the onboarding and socialization stages of the faculty career. For racially minoritized faculty, an additional layer of this learning is how to navigate the toxic environment they encounter in the academy. That is, racially minoritized faculty have to learn within an oppressive structure that often renders their knowledge and production of knowledge as illegitimate (Turner et al., 2008). In addition, racially minoritized faculty often bring with them “new approaches to research, teaching, and service” but these new approaches tend to “conflict with traditional approaches leading to poor evaluations

446

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

and lack of publications” (p. 149). In essence, racially minoritized faculty do not have the same freedom within institutional contexts to engage in learning as their white counterparts. If racially minoritized faculty fail to succeed in their academic careers due to the toxic environment, the institution does not assume responsibility in that failure. Instead, the peril of not succeeding is lived out by the individual faculty member in terms of their well-being and their careers (Zambrana, 2018). In addition to the loss communities experience as racially minoritized faculty go through a revolving door, whether academic leaders want to recognize it or not, the institution also loses in this situation because racially minoritized faculty attrition comes at a big financial cost (Johnson Jr., 2019; Moreno et al., 2006). Another consideration regarding institutional contexts is the degree to which an institution has cultivated or is working to cultivate a climate of learning about DEI (Daley et al., 2008). Ching (2018) noted the importance of institutions providing faculty, staff, and other educators on campus with stipends or flexible credits for those who participate in workshops focused on DEI. Ching also noted the importance of institutional leaders regularly communicating on “equity-related matters so as to create an environment that encourages practitioners to see racial/ethnic equity as an institutional imperative” (p. 418). Integrating DEI into one’s career is challenging and carries risks. An institution that cultivates a learning environment for faculty understands this and supports faculty in responsibly progressing through their learning pathway (Wohlfarth et al., 2021, p. 39). In addition to learning about their institutions, faculty members are also learners of their disciplines. Within each discipline, there are unique expectations for what success means. For instance, in many disciplines, but especially in STEM fields, success is often driven by how many grant dollars faculty are able to bring into their institutions (Toldson, 2019; Vican et al., 2020). In all disciplines, but especially the social sciences, success is defined by how many publications a faculty member can produce within a specified amount of time; an amount that continues to grow (Mbauagbaw et al., 2020; Warren, 2019). Unlike other DEI faculty advancement efforts, what it means to be successful in their respective disciplines and fields is often left to the colleges and departments with which faculty are affiliated (Wunsch & Chattergy, 1991) and consensus on promotion criteria is not guaranteed (Hearn & Anderson, 2002). The result is that the extent to which DEI is centered and valued in faculty work can be disciplinary or departmentally specific with strong variations across a single institution. Lastly, we did not come across DEI faculty advancement literature that focuses on supporting faculty as learners of societal contexts that shape their careers and work. We know this work is happening by the volume of recent efforts to incorporate DEI into faculty advancement, especially after the murder of George Floyd. Yet, not much has been written on how social contexts shape faculty advancement or how faculty are expected to be learners of societal contexts as part of their careers and work. This area is ripe for further work. In sum, reading the faculty advancement literature the DEI faculty advancement literature through the lens of faculty as learners, we noticed that faculty were, at times,

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

447

presented as learners of their disciplines, institutions, and departments. Racially minoritized faculty have an additional area of learning: they must learn to navigate – and thrive in – a racially toxic environment, despite its personal and professional toll (Zambrana, 2018). Much of this learning, for all faculty, seems to be happening in community through informal and formal mentoring, communities of practices, and other collaborations and networks. While there are some opportunities for faculty to engage in metacognitive learning to advance their careers, metacognitive and reflective learning is not emphasized in the DEI faculty advancement literature. Much of the attention in faculty advancement is on faculty members’ individual success navigating their institutions and to a lesser degree their disciplines. An opportunity exists to further consider how societal contexts inform faculty learning throughout their careers and research. With this understanding, we now turn to the second arm of DEI faculty development: instructional development. In what follows, we discuss the foundations, aims, and forms of instructional development attentive to DEI.

DEI Instructional Development In this section we explore current efforts to advance DEI through instructional development. Unlike the initiatives detailed in the previous section, DEI instructional development ostensibly aims to be inclusive of all faculty, including both racially minoritized and non-tenure track, adjunct faculty. Most of the programs and initiatives in this section state that they were open to all faculty members. What we are unable to know, however, is the extent to which these groups felt welcomed or supported in these programs. Given the history of non-tenure track faculty not participating in instructional development (Bolitzer, 2019a, b) and the historical exclusion of racially minoritized faculty in multiple sectors of higher education (Turner et al., 2008; Zambrana, 2018), whether these groups are welcomed in the DEI instructional development initiatives detailed in this section is an essential, open question. DEI instructional development is an emerging area of focus for faculty development, which has become much more prominent in the instructional development research literature since 2019. As an emerging emphasis in instructional development, the aims and forms of this work are, likely, actively being created and refined at both teaching and learning centers and through the work of individual faculty members, and is not fully reflected in the research literature. We posit that it may be many years before these efforts have been thoroughly researched and that even when a set of “best practices” emerge, they will continually need to be revised so that they respond to the constant changes in the socio-cultural contexts of learners. Our hope is that this chapter will support those efforts to continually work towards DEI instructional development. To share what we know about the current state of DEI instructional development, we begin by describing inclusive teaching, the current prevalent approach to addressing DEI within instructional development, and then present how this principle is evidenced within a variety of aims and forms of instructional development.

448

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Guiding Principle: Inclusive Teaching The primary concept guiding instructional development aimed at DEI in higher education is inclusive teaching. Inclusive teaching, which is also referred to as inclusive pedagogy or inclusive practices, is the deliberate creation of classroom environments where all learners are welcomed and supported in their learning of subject matter (Addy et al., 2021; Haynes, 2016; Magalhães & Hane, 2020). As Addy and colleagues (2021) state, “inclusive teaching involves fostering equitable, welcoming environments for diverse learners, which individual instructors [can] utilize to combat inequity” (2021, p. 2). Central to inclusive teaching is the recognition that the social and cultural power structures of the larger society are present in classrooms, and faculty must be deliberate in dismantling them. To confront those structures in their classrooms, faculty must “evaluate who is being included in and excluded from the learning process” (Haynes, 2016, p. 2). The practices of inclusive pedagogy are wide-ranging, but one feature common to all is the centering of students and their needs, and the adaptation of teaching to meet those needs. Addy et al. (2021) list several ways in which faculty can work toward that goal, including assessing students’ prior knowledge and planning instruction to account for differences, implementing teaching strategies that encourage equitable participation from all learners, learning and using student names, utilizing students’ pronouns, developing accessible digital course materials, considering avenues for making course materials more affordable, and revising courses to include diverse authors and examples. (p. 2)

This list presents a wide range of practices. Some focus on learning about students; others focus on racial or gender representation in course material. Another set of practices focuses on equity by ensuring access to both materials and classroom discourse. While a single definition of inclusive teaching has not emerged, looking across these examples of inclusive teaching, a preliminary litmus test for inclusive teaching is emerging: is the faculty member recognizing and engaging with their students’ sociocultural identities – for example, their racial or ethnic identities, their socioeconomic status, or their sexual or gender identity – during classroom instruction? If the answer is yes, within the current instructional development literature, the teaching practice is identified as inclusive and aimed at DEI. However, as we detail below, even with this wide definition, the term inclusive teaching is not always applied, and when applied it does not always include attention to students’ specific socio-cultural identities. Despite the emergence of inclusive teaching as a dominant approach within DEI instructional development, the term inclusive teaching is at times not directly used within the current research literature. For example, Magalhães & Hane (2020) describe a year-long faculty development series aimed at providing faculty with “metacognitive and inclusive classroom strategies” (p. 124) whose “topics and materials encourage faculty to reflect on the identities of their students. The focus is on getting to know the students, exploring their multiple identities and understanding their needs, expectations, and motivations” (p. 125). This is a clear description of inclusive teaching but they do not specifically use that term. Similarly, while

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

449

they do not use the term inclusive teaching, Amaro-Jimenez et al. (2020) conducted a study of how and why faculty might seek professional development that enables them to “grow their understanding of teaching practices relative to the growing diversity in their classrooms, as well as their roles in impacting student success” (p. 2). They describe the survey responses of 268 faculty members who participated in a professional development program as indicating that “participants saw the value and promise of how PD may be able to afford them opportunities to plan their instruction in ways that are more supportive and inclusive” of their students (p.11). While these studies do not use the term inclusive teaching, they indicate it is increasingly valued, or stated as a value, within the field of instructional development. It is also important to note that central to much of the current research on DEI instructional development programs is an emphasis on students’ identities, yet the specific identities and cultures of students are largely unexplored. Scholars often reference students’ identities or backgrounds without describing the specific identities or backgrounds of the students at the institution (i.e. where the students are from, their prior experiences with schooling or how students identify themselves) within their descriptions of the initiatives. This gap calls into question what faculty, and faculty developers, know about students’ identities and how that is being translated into instructional practices: what aspects of students’ identities are faculty learning about within these programs? How are students’ backgrounds and identities being presented? And how might the presentation of student identities by faculty developers shape what faculty do as teachers? A subsection of the research on inclusive teaching practices does focus explicitly on supporting faculty’s ability to recognize and engage with students’ cultures (Ching, 2018; Gutierrez Keeton et al., 2021; Hutchins & Goldstein Hode, 2019), but even within this work, there is not a full detailing of either the students’ cultures or how faculty engage their cultures in the classroom. For example, Hutchins and Goldstein Hode (2019) analyzed how online professional development sequence can foster faculty’s cultural competence, which they define as a “the ability to effectively adapt one’s own behavior and communication to work and engage with people from differing cultural backgrounds (Bennett, 1998)” (p. 1). They argue that such adaptation is necessary for faculty “to effectively provide all students with a well-rounded classroom learning experience suitable for an increasingly diverse workforce” (p. 1). Similarly, Guiterrez Keeton et al. (2021) studied an online faculty development course where facilitators drew from “Longerbeam and Chavez’s cultural framework for teaching learning (CFTL)” (p. 1) to helped “faculty understand why and how to modify curriculum and instruction to deepen learning by drawing upon FGCS’s [First Generation College Students] strengths” (p.1). They describe how the cultural strengths framework supports the development of “courses as cultural spaces shaped by values and practices and acknowledges faculty and students do not all share the same cultural values” (p. 2). While presenting promising starting points DEI instructional development, these discussions, are missing a focus on the specific cultures of students and faculty members at the particular institution where the program occurred. The term culture is often used broadly, without elaboration.

450

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

This limited discussion of the specific cultures of both the students and faculty in the instructional development literature contrasts with DEI faculty advancement efforts, which recognize the unique needs of racially minoritized faculty. As scholars who both study and facilitate faculty development, our hunch (and hope) is that there is much more happening both within instructional development sessions and faculty’s teaching that engages students’ identities and cultures, but that this work is largely underdeveloped within the current faculty development literature. While inclusive teaching is an important, emerging goal of instructional development, which gaining traction in the field, there is a key difference between inclusive teaching and DEI instructional development: programs and initiatives are DEI instructional development when they are attentive in some way to all three of the components of DEI–diversity, equity and inclusion–and aim to support all faculty in teaching their racially minoritized students. While inclusive teaching has the capacity to inform that work, it also may focus on many other groups, such as students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, and international students, as well as other social and cultural aspects of students’ identities which shape their experience as learners. For example, Wyatt et al. (2021), in describing their efforts to teach faculty how to engage in inclusive practices for underrepresented minorities (URM) in STEM fields “defined ‘URM’’ broadly to include: “LGBTQ+, deaf and hard-ofhearing, neurodiverse, first generation, and transfer students, as well as students of color.” (p. 45). While all these students listed above deserve support, our concern is that within this larger umbrella, the field of instructional development may lose sight of designing programs for faculty to specifically and successfully engage and teach racially minoritized students. These students, who have been traditionally unwelcome and under-supported in higher education, face racist campus cultures and classrooms that center whiteness. When they are listed as a sub-group within a larger list, and not identified by their specific identities and needs, we question whether diversity and equity are receiving equal, or sufficient, attention within programs aimed at inclusive practices. While the aims of inclusive teaching can lend themselves to faculty better serving racially minoritized students, they also may take instructional development into many other directions. We encourage faculty to not lose focus on racial equity, even as they attend to other identities and needs. Furthermore, similar questions can be posed for other members of the list above who likely also have unique needs (i.e., the neurodiverse or transfer students): are we fully serving any group when programs take such a wide approach? A promising, emerging focus in teaching and learning in higher education that does explicitly focus on racially minoritized students is antiracist teaching. Antiracist teaching in higher education acknowledges that teaching is political, challenges normative policies and practices that center whiteness, values and centers historically silenced voices and knowledge, and seeks to reconstruct the classroom as a humanizing and liberatory learning space (Kishimoto, 2018; Tuitt et al., 2016, 2018; Wagner, 2005). While the literature on antiracist teaching is growing, less of that literature focuses on instructional development efforts aimed at supporting faculty in their learning of antiracist teaching. Some of this literature is emerging in health and

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

451

medical fields (e.g., Sotto-Santiago et al., 2022) but the field has the potential for much growth. In particular, we need to better understand what is happening within burgeoning workshops on antiracism, which may be led by faculty developers or faculty themselves: what are faculty learning about ant-racist teaching? And how are they applying–or not applying–what they learn within their classrooms? Furthermore, missing from the current literature on inclusive teaching is a recognition of faculty’s identities, and how their identities may shape their learning about and engagement in inclusive practices. This is especially problematic for minoritized faculty. Without attention to faculty’s identities, specifically from an intersectional lens, the research on instructional development, and the programs that they detail, are in danger of remaining largely race neutral and, therefore, privileging whiteness. To explore further how the concept of inclusive teaching is shaping current approaches to DEI instructional development, we now present the current aims and forms of DEI instructional development. We then analyze these aims and forms through the lens of Faculty as Learners, to present avenues for how DEI instructional development may further engage faculty in instructional improvement aimed at DEI.

Aims of DEI Instructional Development Based on our review of extant research literature, we identified two prevalent aims of DEI instructional development: one, programs that attempt to alter faculty perspectives and mindsets, and two instructional development programs that show faculty how to use inclusive teaching practices. Faculty development programs that aim to alter faculty’s perspectives about students are largely based on the premise that changes in knowledge and mindset will enable faculty to better serve their students (Bartell & Boswell, 2019). For example, in Hutchins and Goldstein Hode’s (2019) description of an online program aimed at fostering the cultural competence of faculty and staff, they defined cultural competence as “a developmental process that takes place over time and refers to the ability to effectively adapt one’s own behavior and communication to work and engage with people from differing cultural backgrounds” (p. 1). Drawing on transformative learning theory, they used a computer-mediated platform to provide participants with a space to reflect on and engage in dialogues on “difficult topics such as unconscious bias, microaggressions, and privilege” (p. 3). They found that through engaging in conversations with colleagues both within and outside the course, participants “developed a number of cultural competence skills through online dialogue including heightened self-awareness, increased capacity for empathy, and self-efficacy” (p. 5). The premise of the workshop was that these changes in mindset would inform the way faculty and staff work with students. This premise–that changes in faculty’s mindsets influences their work with students–is supported by Amaro-Jimenez et al. (2020), who examined a faculty development program aimed at “culturally relevant teaching that creates a more equitable classroom and environment for all students” (p. 4). They found that

452

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

participants identified their growth in teaching practices as strongly tied to their increased understandings of their students: From the 268 participants who attended the 14 sessions, 51.5% strongly agreed and 34.3% agreed that their level of understanding of teaching strategies and working with diverse populations had increased as a result of attending these. Faculty cited becoming “aware of the students (sic) background and the needs and concerns they may have during classes,” doing “better for 1st generation” students, and being “. . . more understanding and think about students background” three of the PD outcomes. (p. 10)

These findings are further supported by a wealth of research on K-12 educators that has demonstrated the connection between knowledge areas (i.e. knowledge of students, subject matter and teaching strategies) within teaching (Shulman, 1987) and how educators’ conceptions of students shapes pedagogical practices (Lee, 2007). Yet, despite this wide recognition of the importance of increasing faculty understandings of their racially minoritized students, we have identified relatively few examples of programs focused specifically on those students. We, thus, question the extent to which programs are fully aiming to engage or challenge faculty views of these students. While changes in faculty’s mindset is important, the majority of instructional development programs attentive to DEI aim to improve teaching by providing faculty with pedagogical strategies. Some focus on students’ identities and on teaching faculty how to engage those identities within their teaching (Macaluso et al., 2020; Miller & O’Daniel, 2019). Others focus on specific aspects of teaching such as representation in syllabus construction (Blithe & Fidelibus, 2021; Gutierrez Keeton et al., 2021) or facilitating students’ metacognitive reflection as a way to engage students’ identities (Magalhães & Hane, 2020). The variety of the pedagogical practices included under the banner of inclusive teaching reflects how, as discussed previously, a definitive standard of what counts as inclusive teaching has not yet emerged. Furthermore, many of the teaching strategies presented have previously been identified and associated with other objectives. For example, fostering students’ metacognitive strategies came from the cognitive sciences and was endorsed by the educational community (Bransford et al., 2000) prior to the current presentation of inclusive teaching. This raises some essential questions, is inclusive teaching a new concept or is it an extension of previously identified principles of good teaching that are being pulled together under one term? What aspects of inclusive teaching is specific to the needs of racially minoritized students or other students historically marginalized within higher education learning contexts? We know from research that faculty, particularly white faculty, who teach with social justice as an undergirding tenet view such teaching as good teaching (Haynes, 2017). It seems important for the field to make more explicit the connection between what the learning sciences tell us is good teaching and how inclusive tenets support or even expand those ideas (Esmonde & Booker, 2017).

Forms of DEI Instructional Development To realize the two central aims of DEI instructional development – altering faculty perspectives and sharing inclusive teaching practices – many instructional

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

453

development efforts aimed at DEI utilize a community building approach. They are long-terms programs comprising a series of structured meetings across a semester or year, which were often supplemented by assigned readings or materials, presentations from guest lecturers, and/or faculty completing independent projects (Bartell & Boswell, 2019; Castillo-Montoya & Ives, 2021; Macaluso et al., 2020; Wyatt et al., 2021). Facilitators of these programs describe these series of meetings, spread over time, as providing faculty with both space for in-depth inquiry into teaching and a community of faculty members to learn from and with. The additional elements – assigned readings or materials, guest speakers and independent assignments – varied across the instructional development programs but all included some kind of activity outside of the meetings themselves (Bartell & Boswell, 2019; Macaluso et al., 2020; Wyatt et al., 2021). An example of a program that contained the elements described above is a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) program, presented by Wyatt et al. (2021), which sought to teach faculty how to engage in inclusive mentoring of students as researchers. It was organized through “bi-weekly 1-hour workshops during the academic year that provided faculty with resources and the opportunity to reflect on mentoring skills and practices. . . . Faculty [also] completed reading, video, or podcast assignments and short written reflections before each session . . . . Lastly, invited experts in diversity and inclusion were incorporated into the FLC for their expertise and connections to resources on campus” (p. 45). There is strong consensus in the instructional development literature that this structure – a series of meetings over time that create community and support for in-depth inquiry – is essential for faculty members learning about inclusive practices. In addition to describing long-term programs, the research literature on instructional development aimed at DEI also describes one-time workshops (AmaroJimenez et al., 2020; Harlap, 2014). These one-off trainings can be more practical for faculty members who are unable to make larger commitments (Ching, 2018). Unlike the long-term programs, these workshops often focus on a more narrow or specific topic. For example, Harlap (2014) describes a workshop that aimed to prepare faculty to teach through “hot moments” when there is conflict in the classroom. Yet, even in discussions of one-time workshops, researchers stated the importance of faculty engaging in on-going development. For example, Ching (2018), in describing a one-time professional development session for math faculty at a community college, described choosing a narrow focus for the session (syllabus review for equity mindedness) because they recognized that there were limitations of a one-time meeting, and they thought the topic would set the stage for further independent reflection by faculty members. Lastly, in addition to the dominant models of long-term programs and one-time workshops, the literature on instructional development programs also captures emerging, potentially more novel forms of DEI instructional development. For example, some studies detailed programs where faculty learned directly from or collaborated with students by co-constructing courses or by inviting students to present their experiences at instructional development sessions (Blithe & Fidelibus, 2021; Miller & O’Daniel, 2019). Both these projects were premised on the idea that

454

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

students have valuable insights into their own needs as learners. Another example of an emerging approach are programs that draw from and extend the faculty learning community model that position faculty as leaders of their own development as they engage in inquiry into their own practices and enacting change. For example, one program used the networked improvement community model where faculty identify an area of their teaching they want to improve, implement a change, collect and analyze data on the execution to determine how to continue improving their practice (Castillo-Montoya & Ives, 2021). These projects, which expand on and differ from the long-term or one-time workshop model, speak to possible innovations in the forms of DEI instructional development. In the preceding section, we have detailed inclusive teaching as the prominent focus on instructional development, and the way it influences the aims and forms of DEI instructional development. It is essential to recognize what is missing from this section, and from the literature itself: attention to the identities of faculty members. Most of the research presented here did not discuss how the racial, ethnic or sociocultural identities of the faculty members shaped the instructional development process. They are, therefore, missing the “who” of the learning pathway model (see Fig. 2). Furthermore, few of the literature discussed in this section investigates the career stage or position of the faculty participants. While most programs are described as open to all faculty, including tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty, the literature largely does not discuss how these positions and the positionality associated with them shape faculty’s learning within instructional development. The absence of attention to faculty’s identities and positionalities reflects a larger problem with the organization of DEI faculty development. It is divided into two separate tracks: career advancement is in one lane and instructional development is in another. Given what we know about learning, it is likely that such lanes continually intersect. As we discuss in the closing section of this chapter, recognizing and capitalizing on these intersections should be a priority of the field if it aims to fully support racially minoritized students and the faculty who teach them.

Faculty as Learners in DEI Instructional Development The section above provides an overview of DEI instructional development. Having detailed the field, we now turn to analyzing how this work conceptualizes the learning process of faculty members. Our guiding framework foregrounds the idea that faculty are learners, and within DEI instructional development, they are of how to better teach racially minoritized students. To understand what we know about that learning process, in this section we analyze the existing literature on DEI faculty development by applying each component of the faculty as learners framework in the same order as detailed in Fig. 2. Funds of Knowledge One of the key principles of transformative learning theory and central to how people learn is that each person enters their learning context with prior knowledge—what one already knows about the given learning content whether it be helpful or lined misunderstandings (Bransford et al., 2000). For our purposes, and with the goal of

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

455

upholding an asset-based view of faculty’s prior knowledge, we also refer to this former knowledge as, funds of knowledge – prior ways of knowing, knowledge, skills, conceptions, beliefs, and values developed from their past and current expereinces and useful for their current learning contexts (González et al., 2005). DEI instructional development is rarely approached with an understanding that faculty have knowledge from their lived (sociocultural) or professional experiences about teaching and learning that can connect with aspects of DEI. Instead, faculty tend to be approached in a deficit way, as lacking relevant knowledge (Haras, 2018). There are exceptions. A few scholars do attend to the lived experiences that also shape faculty’s prior knowledge in ways that can support or thwart inclusive teaching. For instance, Dewsbury (2019) emphasizes that self-awareness is key to what he refers to as “deep teaching” – an inclusive teaching model in STEM. Bryson et al. (2020) noted that the first principle of good teaching, inclusive of instructional development, is to “meet learners where they are by validating lived experiences in the process of learning” (p. 2). In the realm of DEI instructional development, acknowledging and incorporating faculty’s funds of knowledge, specifically, and their prior knowledge, more broadly, requires creating space and providing time for such knowledge to be a part of the development experience from the onset (Bryson et al., 2020). Given that research has found that having content knowledge about inclusive teaching is a key predictor of successful implementation of this teaching, surfacing and leveraging faculty’s prior knowledge is important for supporting the effectiveness of instructional development (Addy et al. 2021). This signals and models the importance of taking time and making space to surface what it is that faculty already know about teaching in ways attentive to DEI (in process or content) and leveraging such knowledge to advance learning of such teaching (Bransford et al., 2000). With this said, the literature is highly centered on the prior knowledge that could hinder learning of inclusive teaching, such as the worries that faculty hold about attempting to alter their teaching to respond to students’ identities. For example, what if I cause harm? What if I, or students in my classroom, say the wrong thing? I have so much content to cover; how do I make room for this, too? My course has nothing to do with this, why do I have to be attentive to DEI? And how will I maintain the rigor of my courses? While some of these may be appropriate concerns, they largely center whiteness by focusing on the potential discomfort of white faculty members and white students, and de-center the needs of racially minoritized students (Madda, 2018; Sue et al., 2009). Scholars have written about the discursive moves that white faculty, in K-12 and in higher education, use to avoid DEI due to their discomfort (Blaisdell, 2019; Madda, 2018; Sue et al., 2009). In addition, as detailed in the previous section, the DEI instructional development literature is largely based on the experiences of white faculty and little attention is paid to racially minoritized faculty. In most instances, scholars do not detail the identities of faculty participants and their whiteness is implicit. As such, the field of faculty development is operating with little knowledge about what is the sort of prior knowledge (lived or professional experiences) racially minoritized higher education faculty bring to DEI instructional development. Funds of knowledge continues to be

456

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

a useful concept in educational literature focused on minoritized students (CastilloMontoya, 2018; Castillo-Montoya & Ives, 2020; González et al., 2005; Kiyama & Rios-Aguilar, 2018), but it has not yet been substantively leveraged to identify the types of knowledge that racially minoritized faculty bring to their teaching. Thus, faculty development scholars and practitioners may want to more carefully consider who faculty are as learners, and what it is that they bring to their learning of inclusive teaching. Furthermore, we need further attention on differences in the prior knowledge of faculty given their positionality, especially as it relates to racially minoritized faculty. Content of Learning DEI instructional development literature is largely focused on the learning of inclusive teaching, as detailed above. In reviewing existing literature, we noted that the majority of this instructional development literature focused on the need for faculty to learn knowledge and/or skills that are outside of their disciplinary expertise, focusing on four central areas: mindset shift, learning new frameworks, gaining skills, and learning from other disciplines and areas of campus (Jackson et al., 2013). In terms of mindset shift, faculty are being exposed to content and instructional development to help them become aware of and knowledgeable about DEI topics (Alvarez et al., 2009) which include examining their own fears of inclusive teaching (Addy et al., 2021), and improving aspects of their teaching (e.g., syllabi) to advance equity and inclusion (Ching, 2018). In learning about DEI, faculty are being encouraged to undergo a mind shift, which would help them develop a growth mindset and, therefore, engage in cognitive and behavioral shifts (Bryson et al., 2020). In some cases, faculty need convincing about why such a shift is needed. Wohfarth et al. (2021) found that some faculty believed that culture had little to do with what they teach, which reflects their “own personal biases rather than a defensible pedagogical position” (p. 39). They found that being exposed to “course content [on] privilege, racism, and oppression” (p. 39) enabled faculty to shift in their thinking about of DEI, and changes they need to make in their teaching. This cognitive shift positions faculty to be able to change their own behavior, particularly as it relates to understanding and addressing student behaviors. The challenge is that our existing way of thinking is resilient – it wants to stay. And, conceptual change requires not just gaining new information but revisioning how we see the world (Ching, 2018). In addition, our conceptions, even when changed, do not always lead to changes in practices or change at the same rate as their conceptions (CastilloMontoya & Ives, 2021). When faculty do work toward a mindset change that emphasizes an asset-based view of teaching minoritized students, it can be particularly impactful for how faculty attend to DEI through their teaching. For instance, Magalhães & Hane (2020) noted how through a learning community faculty developed an asset-based view of their students and subsequently their “newly found awareness influenced how they approached their course design” (p. 128). One key way for faculty to experience a mindset change is to open themselves up to learning from their students

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

457

(Ives, 2022; Magalhães & Hane, 2020). In fact, Dewsbury & Brame (2019) noted that it is this dialogue between instructors and students that contributes to inclusive teaching in STEM. Learning outside of one’s discipline often requires exposure and understanding of new frameworks to inform one’s teaching. The frameworks in DEI instructional development vary greatly and can include understanding one’s own cultural biases (Wohlfarth et al., 2021), understanding other cultures and how to interact with them (Wyatt et al., 2021), having a positive view about students that focuses on the assets they bring to their learning (Gutierrez Keeton et al., 2021; Magalhães & Hane, 2020), and creating an environment in which students feel they belong (Bryson et al., 2020). Needing to learn new frameworks to inform one’s teaching is not an easy task as it may be altogether new information, given that few graduate programs prepare faculty to be teachers (Mills, 2011; Oleson & Hora, 2014) and even less prepare future faculty to be attentive to DEI in their teaching (Alvarez et al., 2009). Furthermore, frameworks attentive to DEI, may not be reflective of the teaching that faculty themselves experienced as undergraduate students (Dewsbury & Brame, 2019). Studies of K–12 educators and higher education faculty have demonstrated that when learning how to teach, people, especially those in early stages of their teaching careers, draw heavily on their own experiences as students (Bolitzer, 2017; Bransford, 2000; Shulman, 1986). This raises an important question: What happens when faculty do not have prior, direct experiences of pedagogical practices attentive to DEI? For each learning area there are likely new frameworks and content that faculty need to first be exposed to and then engage with for deep learning to occur. By deep learning, we mean a strong conceptual and practical (applicable) understanding (Bransford et al., 2000; Pallas & Neumann, 2019). Furthermore, teaching that is attentive to DEI often requires learning of pedagogy and learning about students’ realities and histories (Catallozzi et al., 2019). Deep learning depends on knowledge being organized in a way that fosters fluent retrieval and use in other contexts (Bransford et al., 2000). Without that, faculty may acquire bits and pieces of DEI without the ability to critically connect those to make lasting and sustainable adaptations to their practice. And this learning is not necessarily quick; it is a developmental process that happens over time (Gates, 2013; Miller & O’Daniel, 2019). In addition to exposure to and understanding of frameworks from a variety of disciplines, the DEI instructional development literature also points to the importance of faculty developing concrete instructional skills. Some of these skills include knowing how to confront microaggressions when they occur in the classroom and follow-up with specific students, discuss diversity in the classroom, diffuse difficult moments, and be an ally to minoritized students (Alvarez et al., 2009; Wohlfarth et al., 2021). Some faculty also need and want support when a difficult issue related to DEI arises on campus (Himelein & Anderson, 2020). In their work, Alvarez et al. (2009) noted that the skill of knowing how to address student resistance to DEI is also one that faculty grapple with: “Many participants noted a lack of skill in addressing student resistance, and stated that their preparation

458

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

program did not instruct them about delivering content that may challenge students’ belief systems or addressing covert or overt student resistance to those topics” (p. 132). Resistance is a complex reaction, energized by both the intersectional identities of the learner and by the object and context of the resistance itself. For instance, in her research, Ives (2022) found that although both white students and racially minoritized students may initially show signs of resistance to equity pedagogy, their resistance may manifest and resolve differently. Supporting faculty in developing pedagogical skills can enhance their capacity to implement inclusive pedagogy and “can improve academic performance of all students, especially those from historically underserved populations” (Ford & Carpenter, 2020, p. 5). Lastly, with regard to the content of learning, some of the instructional development literature highlights how faculty can learn by inquiring into their experiences and practices. For instance, Jackson et al. (2013) noted that “a critical component of engaging faculty in culturally relevant pedagogy discussions was the presentation of de-identified demographic data about their students at the start of the PD” (pp. 4–5). This presentation of data with redacted students names but reflected students’ demographic information and provided faculty with a deeper understanding not only of their students but of the systemic and institutional equity issues that impact them, such as the challenges students face in paying for college (Bartell & Boswell, 2019). Some college/university teaching centers use frameworks to guide the instructional development of their faculty to achieve some of the aims noted here, including the use of data to improve teaching, as well as other related goals. For instance, Illinois State University developed their “Inclusive Teaching Excellence” framework based on student and faculty focus groups and surveys they conducted. The framework has six components including but not limited to using “evidence-informed teaching practices. . . using student and peer feedback to improve teaching and learning,” and “using a variety of data sources” to reflect on one’s positionality, biases, and identity (Hatch, 2020, para. 2; para. 7). A glaring omission, however, in the DEI instructional development literature is not anchoring faculty learning in an intersectional lens that can help faculty consider how to engage in learning given their own respective positionalities and the systems of power in place that impinge on those positionalities. While some DEI instructional development applies this lens to students (Bartell & Boswell, 2019), little attention is placed on fauclty’s own intersectional positions. Conditions of Learning The conditions that shape faculty’s learning experiences include opportunities for active learning, community learning, meta-cognitive learning, assessment learning, and sustained learning. These conditions are present to varying degrees in the DEI instructional development literature. Active Learning. Scholars and practitioners alike note that active learning – engaging learners in the process of learning – is key for faculty development and instructional development, specifically (Macaluso et al., 2020). The most prevalent form of active learning in DEI instructional development literature is in the form of

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

459

learning from and with peers/colleagues about both teaching in general and one’s own teaching specifically. Actively learning from peers and colleagues by way of discussions, dialogues, and discourse is a key form of DEI instructional development (Bartell & Boswell, 2019; Ching, 2018; Wyatt et al., 2021). Through DEI-centered discourse, faculty can help each other examine their existing beliefs. For instance, Hutchins and Goldstein Hode (2019) found that discourse was key to the learning that faculty experienced when they enrolled in a diversity course with an online discussion forum: “Participants developed a number of cultural competence skills through online dialogue including heightened self-awareness, increased capacity for empathy, and self-efficacy” (p. 5). In addition, discourse with colleagues helps faculty to not only learn from each other but also be more efficient and effective in how they elevate DEI across their curriculum. In their work with faculty, Alvarez et al. (2009) found: All participants discussed the importance of having frequent, strategic opportunities to engage in collegial dialogue within and across departments and colleges. These opportunities would allow faculty to engage in departmental and college conversations to ensure that content was not duplicated, thus diminishing student frustration—and possibly resistance— and facilitate designing a spiraling curriculum that builds on students’ prior experiences and knowledge. Likewise, faculty need opportunities to identify redundancy in course materials and work collaboratively to build students’ cultural awareness, sensitivity, and competency in a developmental manner. (p. 132)

Alvarez and colleagues went on to find that faculty learned from each other in other settings such as through the focus groups they held with them for their research, which was an “unanticipated benefit for faculty, many of whom expressed how much they enjoyed the opportunity to dialogue . . .. Furthermore, several participants indicated that they had gained new ideas that they would implement in their courses in the future” (p. 132). Similar to Alvarez et al. (2009), Bartwell & Boswell (2019) found that instructors highly valued the opportunity to collaborate with other instructors in course and assignment design because it shifted the culture away from individualized learning. Only a small body of instructional development literature focuses on learning by inquiring into an aspect of one’s teaching practice (mostly in a community/ social setting). This scholarship highlighted that deep learning is supported when faculty have the opportunity for real-time application; that is, faculty develop as teachers by applying what they are learning into their own teaching practice (Bartell & Boswell, 2019; Catallozzi et al., 2019; Harlap, 2014). This approach to learning builds faculty confidence that their learning has real-world, practical applicability (Goldstein et al., 2018). One way to learn from one’s current teaching practice is to engage in inquiry of one’s syllabus, as an artifact of one’s teaching practice. Taking this approach of inquiry into one’s course syllabi with faculty, Ching (2018) found: In considering how students—especially students of color—experience their syllabi and teaching, and in implementing new or modified practices, faculty started to shift their beliefs and assumptions in ways that were more equity-minded than previously, especially when student performance and outcomes improved in tandem. (p. 41)

460

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

This shift in mindset that Ching identified was informed by this opportunity to engage in inquiry but also by the changes faculty noticed in student outcomes. Similarly, Bryson et al. (2002) found that from syllabi review: Often, instructors find their syllabi: a) lack language of their commitment to equity and inclusion, b) convey a threatening tone when explaining consequences for late work and missed attendance, c) are absent of clear and transparent language about their availability for students (i.e., what office hours are and what students can expect from their instructors), and d) are missing positive statements about their belief that all students can succeed. (p. 4)

In addition to syllabi review as one form to engage faculty in active learning about their own teaching, faculty can also learn from immersion in local communities. Catallozzi et al. (2019) provided a great example of this by creating an opportunity for faculty to learn about pedagogy and Asian American realities and history. In addition to exposing faculty to knowledge about this history and relevant pedagogies, they immersed faculty in the community to encounter first-hand this history and the realities to “drive practitioner-based learning” (p. 82). It is promising that active learning is prevalent in the DEI instructional development literature because it points to the potential for deep learning (Bransford et al., 2000; Mezirow, 2000, 2003). Community Learning. As noted above, DEI instructional development literature strongly emphasized the value of faculty learning from and with others, a practice well supported by sociocultural and transformative learning theories (Bransford et al., 2000; Mezirow, 2000, 2003). While some of this literature pointed to faculty also learning from their students (a point we discuss further below), most of the literature that highlights how faculty learn from others focused on colleagues as a key motivator and source informing faculty’s instructional development (Magalhães & Hane, 2020). One key way for faculty to engage in community learning about inclusive teaching is through faculty learning communities—intentional faculty group who engage in active and collaborative learning over a set period of time— that are specificially focused on DEI-related teaching (Magalhães & Hane, 2020). In and outside of faculty learning communities, colleagues can support each other’s learning in multiple ways: they may serve as peer coaches (Amaro-Jimenez et al., 2020) or peer observers who observe each other’s teaching and provide constructive feedback (Bolitzer, 2019a). Faculty may also support each other through conversations (Addy et al., 2021; Bryson et al., 2002). For instance, Ching (2018) noted faculty valued being able to learn from others: “Almost all participants referenced a comment another instructor made or the discussion in general as crucial to their learning, whether about syllabi, equity, or equity-mindedness” (p. 416). However, Ching also noted that messages from colleagues can either support or discourage equity work in faculty’s teaching, depending on who is making the comment. Learning from others can also happen through role play or by modeling exemplary teaching to one another (Gates, 2013). These types of interactions with colleagues can also contribute to enhancing the interpersonal relationships among faculty (Jackson et al., 2013). In essence, the robust scholarship pointing to faculty learning with and from their peers indicates that faculty value learning with their

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

461

colleagues, including contingent faculty, about applying DEI to their teaching. Recognizing this calls on institutions, and facilitators of faculty development to make sure that all faculty are welcomed to and supported in participating in DEI instructional development, especially the adjunct, non-tenure track faculty who are often missing from instructional development efforts (Bolitzer, 2019a, b). One area that must be noted in considering the value of faculty learning from their colleagues is that such learning requires trust. While small-groups settings with discussions allow for deeper exploration of personal challenges and biases, they also require confidentiality so faculty can feel safe to learn with their colleagues (Wyatt et al., 2021). Trust is key because learning about DEI requires vulnerability and moving through fears (Bryson et al., 2020), and colleagues have to feel comfortable enough with each other to push through boundaries of discomfort and to discuss hard topics (Magalhães & Hane, 2020). While some scholars and practitioners note the importance of trust and vulnerability, it is not prevalent in the DEI instructional development literature. Furthermore, little attention is currently placed on the particular challenges that racially minoritized faculty can experience in building trust and engaging in vulnerability given the systemic and historical nature of racism in higher education. Again, the absence of this point in the existing literature suggests the continued centering of whiteness in DEI instructional development and the need for an intersectional approach that reflects faculty learning processes. Learning from Students. While instructional development literature is not rich with examples of how faculty learn from students, we know that students can meaningfully shape how and what faculty teach (Castillo-Montoya, 2019; Martinez et al., 2019). For the scholars who do focus on faculty learning about teaching from their students, we recognize that learning from students can provide opportunities to democratize and modernize what students learn and how they get to learn it (Blithe & Fidelibus, 2021; Dewsbury & Brame, 2019; Miller & Daniel, 2019). Learning from students can also help faculty better understand how their work to advance DEI can go beyond their teaching to inform other aspects of their work as faculty (Jackson et al., 2013). In their work with faculty, Miller & O’Daniel (2019) noted, “without nuanced understanding of student experiences from students themselves, faculty development activities and interventions may be off-target” (p. 63). One solution is to bring students into learning communities. Jackson et al., (2013) noted that being able to be in a learning community that included students provided opportunities for faculty members to explore and connect with the issues and needs of students in ways that had an impact on the faculty. When asked to elaborate on ways that the learning community experiences had affected them, the faculty members drew attention to four themes: (a) creating empathy and greater awareness, (b) building authentic student relationships, (c) engaging in the larger campus community, and (d) promoting active collaboration and professional development with other faculty members. (p. 9).

There seems to be a ripe opportunity for mutual learning in bringing faculty and students together. Metacognitive Learning. Learning theory is clear that metacognitive reflection is valuable for deepening learning and that critical reflection is an important tool for

462

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

engaging DEI. But, this type of reflection is not easy to do (Wohlfarth et al., 2021). Yet, tools with which faculty can advance DEI, such as cultural competence, require critical reflection, which itself requires that faculty confront their existing beliefs or views (Hutchins & Goldstein Hode, 2019) and the limits of their knowledge about the cultures of their students (Miller & O’Daniel, 2019). While reflection can be done privately or collectively, it benefits from prompts and stimuli (Bartwell & Boswell, 2019). Columbia University provides an example of reflection serving as a tool in teaching improvement. Their guide for inclusive teaching is composed of five principles, one of which is to reflect on “one’s beliefs about teaching to maximize self-awareness and commitment to inclusion” (Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning, 2020, p. 26). Critical reflection can also be helpful in confronting one’s own fears. In their work with faculty, Hutchins & Goldstein Hode (2019) found: The topics and discussion prompts asked participants to consider, question, and grapple with their positionality in a power structure that differentially positions individuals and groups based on race and gender, as well as other identity groups. Common reactions that emerged in our data set to these challenges to one’s identity or sense of self were guilt, shame, discomfort, and defensiveness (Pope & Mueller, 2017). For some participants, these difficult feelings inhibited desired action or change in behavior, yet these challenging feelings also served as a resource for potential change. Fear was a major obstacle for some participants. (p. 8)

None of these pieces, however, explicitly articulated the components of critical reflection required for the practice to be attentive to intersectional identities. Further, most of the focus in the DEI instructional development literature on reflection focused on teaching white faculty how to be more conscious of their bias, cultural values, epistemologies (Gutierrez Keeton et al., 2021; Wohlfarth et al., 2021). The intention of these programs is to move white faculty toward asset-based views of their students, particularly their minoritized students, so that they can shift deficitbased views and be more responsive to students’ needs (Amaro-Jimenez et al., 2020; Magalhães & Hane, 2020; Miller & O’Daniel, 2019). Yet, missing from these discussions is racially minoritized faculty’s experience of such programs or their own needs which are likely quite distinct from their white colleagues. Opportunities for critical reflection can be useful for helping faculty align their intentions to better serve students with the frameworks shaping their practice. To this point, Bryson et al. (2002) noted, “We find that our faculty, for the most part, do inherently value justice, equality, diversity and an ethic of care, but haven’t checked these values against a framework that offers a more particularized understanding or application” (p. 4). The role that critical reflection can play in faculty learning appears to be an area that can merit further exploration in the instructional development literature, particularly for minoritized faculty. Assessment Learning. Another condition for faculty learning are opportunities to assess their own development, either through a cycle of continuous improvement (Bartell and Boswell 2019; Castillo-Montoya & Ives, 2021) or through other forms of assessment such as pre- and post-program evaluations (Goldstein et al., 2018).

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

463

The DEI instructional development literature, however, has little to say about the role that assessment can play in supporting faculty in learning about DEI. Some centers for teaching and learning (e.g., Illinois State University) are encouraging faculty to draw on a variety of data to inform and improve their own teaching (Hatch, 2020), which is an assessment strategy. What is prevalent in this smaller body of scholarship at the moment, however, is an underlying value of assessing faculty’s knowledge and skills before and after instructional development to gauge the impact of developmental efforts (Gates, 2013). This is an area that merits further attention in the practice and scholarship of instructional development. Sustained Learning. Opportunities for sustained learning is key in DEI instructional development (Amaro-Jimenez et al., 2020), especially when it comes to expanding their capacity to be attentive to DEI in their teaching (Bartell and Boswell 2019; Miller & O’Daniel, 2019). Even more, sustained learning over time can contribute to faculty’s sense of belonging (Himelein & Anderson, 2020). Research has shown that within a matter of months or a year, faculty can begin to experience stagnation or decline in implementation of what they learned during DEI instructional development (Castillo-Montoya & Ives, 2021; Ching, 2018; Himelein & Anderson, 2020). The degree of sustainability of faculty’s learning appears to be dependent on facilitation and institutional support rather than on individual effort alone (Hutchins & Goldstein Hode, 2019). This point highlights the necessity for institutions to more carefully consider not only the offerings provided to their faculty to enhance their instruction, but also the support provided afterward to sustain any gains and continued growth.

Contexts of Learning The instructional development literature rarely touches on the contexts in which faculty are learning. That is, little attention is placed on how society broadly, and the institution and department specifically, shapes faculty’s learning of inclusive teaching, the focal point of DEI instructional development. The one broader context that is attended to in the DEI instructional development literature is disciplinary context. For instance, Abby et al. (2021) found that non-STEM faculty reported more implementation of inclusive teaching and that STEM faculty tended to indicate implementing such teaching in STEM courses was challenging. They also found that instructors indicated needing more support from their institutions to engage in inclusive teaching. While not explicitly addressed in the DEI instructional development literature, we know that what is happening in the broader society does influence faculty’s teaching. For instance, scholars are beginning to document changes in college teaching across the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (Aristovnik et al. 2020). Furthermore, the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the heightened awareness of racial violence, is a likely catalyst for many of the current DEI initiatives (Felten, 2022; Imad, 2020). In addition to broader societal contexts, disciplinary and institutional contexts, which often combine in departments and programs influence the implementation of inclusive practices. For instance, Addy et al. (2021) noted that respondents in their

464

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

study reported several institutional barriers that thwarted implementation of inclusive teaching such as, lack of awareness that inclusion was an issue or lack of professional development; lack of buy-in from their colleagues and administration; fear; not wanting to take on the responsibility; not having enough time or proper resources; lack of incentives; an unwillingness of their colleagues to change their teaching practices; and need for more discussions, assessment, and data measures; and a variety of student supports. (pp. 19–20)

These authors pointed to the need for institutional investment in inclusive teaching as an important context that influences instructors’ capacity to implement such teaching in their classroom.

Moving Forward: Reconceptualizing Faculty Development to be Anchored in DEI In this chapter, we have presented how the field of higher education is currently attending to DEI in faculty development. Given this focus, we have consistently referred to this work as DEI faculty development. In this final section, however, we move from what is currently happening to what is possible and, therefore, urge the field to reconceptualize what faculty development is so that all aspects of faculty development include DEI in both their conceptualization and implementation. Instead of DEI being a separate wing of faculty development, all faculty development can be anchored in DEI. Toward this goal of anchoring faculty development in DEI, we offer a new model of faculty development (Fig. 4). This new model is composed of three strands (DEI, faculty advancement, and instructional development) that each have their own core elements but also intertwine for a more holistic approach to faculty development. Linking these three strands is the learning process depicted by the Faulty Learning Pathways model (refer to Figure 2), which emphasizes faculty’s intersectionality in learning and thus positions faculty development to adopt a holistic approach. With these three strands intertwined, and bridged by the faculty learning pathway, faculty development would be positioned to attend to DEI through faculty career stages and instructional development; attend to faculty advancement for all faculty, including adjunct faculty and minoritized faculty; and attend to instructional development for all faculty and minoritized faculty. With this reconceptualization in mind, we offer the following three recommendations to advance holistic faculty development: approach faculty as learners, enact a holistic model of faculty development, and engage faculty development as a mediator of institutional culture change. Within these recommendations, which are anchored in the model above, we no longer separate DEI faculty development from other faculty development, as it is currently enacted by the field. We, therefore, use the term faculty development with the understanding that all faculty development can and should be anchored in DEI.

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

465

Fig. 4 Faculty Development Model

Approach Faculty as Learners Central to faculty development integrating DEI into all programs and processes, is for faculty development to utilize a framework for conceptualizing faculty learning. As we presented with the faculty learning pathway model, the starting point of a faculty member’s trajectory is the prior knowledge and beliefs they bring to their careers and work. There are three major influences on faculty’s learning: what faculty are learning (content of learning), how faculty are learning (conditions of learning), and where they are learning (contexts of learning). Throughout this chapter, we have addressed how the current two arms of DEI faculty development (faculty advancement and instructional development) approach faculty as learners. We have argued that to integrate across all faculty development, and not just regulated to separate programs and activities, faculty need to be supported as whole human beings, whose sociocultural and racial identities are engaged. While the field now recognizes that an additional learning burden is placed on racially

466

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

minoritized faculty to learn how to navigate a toxic academic environment, and some limited supports are being created to support minoritized faculty, the field has not yet reconceptualized faculty development to dismantle those forces. As identified in the literature on DEI instructional development, the most effective conditions of learning for faculty relative to their teaching is community learning – learning with and from others – including learning from and with their students. Within attempts to build community around teaching that is attentive to DEI, faculty developers have increased recognition of students’ identities, but faculty have not yet received the same attention. The faculty development literature, however, has made a turn to social learning opportunities, whether they be communities of practices, learning communities, cohort-based groups, learning circles, dialogue opportunities, collaborative networks, or other approaches; the research supports that this is an effective approach for faculty development broadly, and that it is specifically supportive of racially minoritized faculty. We encourage institutional leaders and faculty developers to leverage this insight and continue to develop more opportunities for collaborative learning within faculty development. In addition, we encourage institutional leaders and faculty developers alike to examine whether their institutions currently cultivate a culture of learning, not only for students, but for faculty too. That is, how are faculty supported as learners? To what extent can they take risks in their learning and be supported rather than penalized for doing so? How is learning recognized and rewarded in the promotion and tenure process? To what extent are non-tenure, adjunct faculty supported in their learning? In addressing these questions, we strongly encourage institutional leaders and faculty developers alike to use the lens of intersectionality to surface and address the intersectional subordination that Black women and other racially minoritized faculty experience within the academy (Crenshaw, 1989; Haynes et al., 2020). This lens requires leaders and developers to consistently be attentive to and address the way systems of power intersect to impinge on the lived and professional experiences of faculty given their own respective positionalities (Haynes et al., 2020). Without an intersectionality lens on the learning experience, leaders and developers will largely overlook how structural barriers–such as the separation of DEI into a separate track of faculty development– perpetuates those barriers, particularly for racially minoritized faculty.

Enact a Holistic Model of Faculty Development In addition to creating communities and cultures of learning, supporting faculty as learners can enable institutions to create a holistic model of faculty development which supports faculty’s growth within all aspects of their work (Beach et al., 2016). This holistic model would have two key benefits: one, it would facilitate collaboration across the two current arms of faculty development (faculty advancement and instructional development); and two, it would better support the learning of faculty members across the three traditional domains of faculty work: research, teaching and service. As such, it would engage and elevate the traditional aims of faculty

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

467

development (career advancement and instructional development) to address the DEI learning needs of faculty members as whole individuals. The current model of dividing faculty development between two domains, and the lack of collaboration between these domains, likely limits faculty’s learning and professional development. For example, minoritized faculty can experience some emphasis on DEI within the recruitment, hiring and socialization process (Fine & Handelsman, 2012b). This may transmit a message that DEI is important to the institution, and that their minoritized identities are important to the institution (Sotto Santiago, 2017). Yet, if they seek instructional development, there is unlikely to be any engagement with their identities, and the socio-cultural knowledge they bring to their teaching. Their learning about institutional values and the recognition they received in the hiring and initial socialization process would end when these faculty members enter into the space of instructional development. Conversely, for white faculty, we have found little evidence of them being encouraged to engage with or learn about DEI within the recruitment, hiring, and socialization process, beyond potentially being asked to write a diversity statement as part of their application (Lewis & Tong, 2021). This is a strong contrast to what they may experience in instructional development, which is increasingly focused on teaching faculty to engage inclusive teaching practices. In both these cases, faculty members lack opportunities to fully engage DEI, and to explore ways to unify their activities across these areas due to the limited collaboration across the current arms of faculty development. In addition to supporting collaboration across the two domains of faculty development, a holistic model of faculty development would also benefit faculty members by recognizing that learning is an emotional and intellectual process, deeply rooted in one’s sociocultural identity and in the sociopolitical structures and forces that impinge on people’s lives (Esmonde & Booker, 2017). It recognizes that learning occurs within and across the traditional domains of faculty work (research, teaching and service), as well as outside of one’s work as a faculty member. And, a holistic model of faculty development attends to the multiple challenges and tensions faculty experience across their disciplines, institutions, and even with their students, as they aim to provide inclusive teaching (Castillo-Montoya, 2020). Furthermore, it would adopt an intersectionality lens that recognizes and engages multiple aspects of faculty’s identity in the learning process with an understanding of how social structures impinge on those identities. Enacting a holistic model of faculty development, therefore, requires facilitators of faculty development to develop programs that are rooted in the learning pathway of faculty members (refer to Fig. 2). It calls on facilitators of individual programs to identify the faculty they are aiming to support and their learning needs; assess their level of knowledge and leverage faculty’s relevant prior knowledge to support their development; identify the specific support that faculty might need given their identities, positions, and career stages; and examine the array of faculty development programs to identify opportunities for connection across programs or the creation of new model. Two particular groups of faculty members, who are currently undersupported by faculty development, who would benefit from this holistic model are adjunct,

468

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

non-tenure track faculty and racially minoritized faculty. In higher education today, adjunct non-tenure track faculty are primarily hired to teach and largely only have access to faculty development that is connected to teaching (Bolitzer, 2019a). While there is increasing concern and interest in adjunct faculty’s work lives and their treatment by institutions, we have no attention to their DEI faculty advancement. Furthermore, their access to instructional development is limited by several factors associated with their positions as adjuncts, such as their lack of financial support, limited time on campus, and limited communication from institutions (Antony & Hayden, 2011; Kezar & Sam, 2010). A holistic model of faculty development would recognize the positionality of adjunct faculty members and create programs that address their particular career advancement needs, as well as offer greater financial and cultural support for their participation in instructional development. An important starting point is identifying their goals and the contexts of learning. For example, Bolitzer (2019a) identified two key ways in which adjuncts currently learn about teaching–from and with subject matter colleagues and within classroom observations of their teaching–which could be engaged in instructional development. Participants reported being driven to learn about teaching in these spaces because they were able to identify the value to their students and because it enabled them to create relationships with faculty colleagues. Faculty developers and higher education researchers need to ask similar questions about career advancement for adjunct faculty: what do they want out of their careers both within, and likely outside, higher education? And what are their faculty development needs given those goals? Furthermore, if institutions want adjunct faculty to participate in faculty development, they need to compensate them for their time. The current model of inviting all faculty but not compensating adjunct faculty for attending is inequitable, and sends a message that adjunct faculty are under-valued. A holistic model requires recognizing the larger working and living conditions of adjunct, non-tenure track faculty. Enacting a holistic model of faculty development also calls on institutions to better support racially minoritized faculty. Although there is some limited faculty career advancement programming and resources focused on the needs of racially minoritized faculty, programming and resources focused on the instructional development needs of racially minoritized faculty are largely absent in higher education. As we have detailed, this absence makes instructional development a “race-neutral” space that by default privileges whiteness. Furthermore, the current scholarship on instructional development does not recognize the disproportionate burden of DEI work and teaching that has traditionally fallen on minoritized faculty across academic disciplines (Castro, 2014; Flaherty, 2019; Jimenez et al., 2019). Well-meaning white colleagues who are new to DEI may not realize the significant work that is already underway, or the price that their faculty colleagues have paid or are paying for engaging in it. Similarly, it is likely that minoritized faculty did not experience the kind of DEI-related teaching practices that the field is currently promoting. Instead they likely experienced multiple forms of racial microaggression within their schooling and are continuing to experience those aggressions today within the academy (Turner et al., 2008).

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

469

A holistic model also calls on faculty members to expand larger supports for racially minoritized faculty members, in concert with creating instructional development. Centering racially minoritized faculty’s career and instructional development needs requires the deliberate construction of communities of practice where they can reflect on their experiences in the academy, identify the strengths they bring to the academy individually and as communities, provide space for processing challenges they confront in their advancement and instruction, share resources and build community, among more. Facilitators of instructional development might benefit from working with their institutional colleagues in faculty advancement, to learn about how to identify and support the needs of racially minoritized faculty. Furthermore, within these collaborations which center the full development needs of minoritized faculty, faculty developers could identify and enact additional support for the career advancement of minoritized faculty, including rewarding and supporting these faculty members for their support of racially minoritized students. The holistic model of faculty development, furthermore, would also seek to support people who are at the intersections of the two groups detailed above: racially minoritized adjunct faculty. There is a limited, emerging literature on these faculty members which speaks to the multiple ways that they are marginalized in higher education (Corneille et al., 2019). Centering DEI in faculty development requires both recognizing the positionality of these faculty members, and creating support for them that attend to both their faculty advancement and instructional development needs, and larger development as learners. We have found no evidence of such programs suggesting they do not exist or are minimally offered in the field of higher education.

Conceptualize DEI Faculty Development as a Mediator of Institutional Cultural Change In promoting a unified and holistic model of faculty development, we posit that faculty development can play a significant role in transforming institutional culture (Fletcher & Patrick, 1998; O’Meara et al., 2019). By cultural change, we are not suggesting small or siloed adjustments, but rather change that is “both deep and pervasive” because it addresses “assumptions about what the institution does, how it behaves, and what [it] produces” (Eckel, 2002, p. 7). Transformational institutional change is “pervasive, a collective, institution-wide phenomenon. . . altering the beliefs, values, norms, underlying assumptions, structures, processes, and policies” (Eckel, 2002, p. 7). We posit that faculty development can promote institutional culture change, which can drive buy-in and consensus building, alignment of values, and space to challenge institutional norms. Steinert (2012) stated, faculty development can promote culture change by helping to develop institutional policies that support and reward excellence in teaching, communicate the expectation of professionalism among all faculty members, encourage a re-examination of criteria for academic promotion if appropriate, and provide educational resources for junior and senior faculty members as needed. (para. 10)

470

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Moreover, faculty developers can be leaders in establishing “a sense of urgency, forming a powerful guiding coalition, creating a vision, communicating the vision, empowering others to act on the vision, generating short-term wins, and anchoring new approaches in the culture” (Steinert et al., 2007, para. 2). For faculty developers to mediate cultural change, institutional leaders must create opportunities for faculty developers to be integrated as part of the executive leadership of an institution (Fletcher & Patrick, 1998). The increase in the number of executive leaders who are attentive to faculty development have been growing and speaks to a movement toward seeing faculty developers as critical parts of the institutional mission (Dawson et al., 2010). This is a promising approach because in elevating faculty developers in higher education institutions, leaders can be proactive and readily adaptable to the needs of faculty, trainees, and learners (Baker et al., 2018). In order for faculty developers to be leaders of institutional change, they will need to be a mediator of cultural change. It is important for faculty developers to attend to two points. First, they must ensure that faculty development does not further minoritize racially minoritized faculty by applying a single approach on the basis of “all faculty” need development or presenting instructional development that does nothing for inclusive practices in education (Sotto-Santiago et al., 2019). This perspective does not align with the DEI commitment of institutions of higher education, and it does not support culture change. Second, faculty developers will need to support and elevate the cultural wealth within racially minoritized communities. This approach means that faculty developers themselves become an active part of combating oppressive structures. They will need to consider a community cultural wealth approach to surface, leverage, and advance the array of knowledge, skills, abilities, and networks possessed and utilized by communities of color to survive and resist racism, discrimination and other forms of oppression (Yosso & Burciaga, 2016). Yosso examined six forms of cultural capital: aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistance. For example, aspirational capital refers to the ability to maintain hope in the face of barriers. Social capital refers to peers and other social contacts and how these contacts are used to navigate social institutions. Navigational capital refers to individuals’ skills and abilities to navigate social institutions. Resistance capital has its foundations in the experiences of communities of color in securing equal rights (Yosso, 2005). Already, this community cultural wealth approach can be seen in early stages of faculty career as social capital is observed by candidates when considering if they will find a community within the organization. They draw on navigational capital when searching for institutional agents. Lastly, aspirational capital helps maintain hopes and goals despite expected setbacks (Lunn & Ross, 2021). A community wealth approach would require faculty developers to explore, acknowledge, and support racially minoritized faculty’s unique talents, strengths, and experiences, and recognize them as assets to the academic mission. In sum, faculty developers can be vital players in transforming institutional cultures to be inclusive and equity-driven. They have expertise that crosses the

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

471

two aims of faculty development and such knowledge positions them well to develop institutional cultures that support and reward faculty across career stages and in their instructional development. This expertise can also drive changes to the promotion system, not only for tenure-track faculty but also for non-tenure-track faculty whether they work full-time or part-time for an institution. However, it is key that faculty developers understand the cultural wealth of minoritized faculty and how to leverage it as a resource to support faculty and advance the institutional mission.

Closing In this chapter, we have provided insights into the aims and forms of DEI faculty development as it is conducted today. While faculty development is an umbrella term used for all activities that support the growth and work of faculty members, we noted that the literature tends to focus on one of two aims: faculty advancement – support and resources throughout faculty career stages – and instructional development – support and resources to improve faculty’s teaching. For each of these aims, we discussed the way DEI is being attended to and areas that merit further attention. Throughout our discussion of both of these aims, we used the Faculty as Learners framework and the faculty learning pathway model (Refer to Figure 2) to analyze how scholars and practitioners of faculty development are approaching faculty as learners. Within both arms of DEI faculty development, intersectionality is rarely used to examine and advance faculty development. We conclude with recommendations for moving forward that foregrounds the necessity to reconceptualize faculty development to be anchored in DEI, as opposed to having DEI as a separate arm within faculty development. With this reconceptualization in mind, we recommend institutional leaders and faculty developers work to advance holistic faculty development by approaching faculty as learners, enacting a holistic model of faculty development, and engaging faculty development as a mediator of cultural change. What is at stake is an opportunity for faculty development to decenter whiteness and become mediators of institutional change that transforms institutions of higher education into diverse, inclusive, and equitable environments for faculty and students alike.

References Abreu, J. (2020). Enacting and refining critical teaching: A multi-case study on criminology/ criminal justice professors [Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut]. OpenCommons. 2474. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/2474 Abreu, J., Castillo-Montoya, M., & Kortz, K. (2019). Community college English instructors’ perceptions of learning and enacting culturally-sustaining teaching strategies. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 30(1), 27–50. Acevedo, N., & Solorzano, D. G. (2021). An overview of community cultural wealth: Toward a protective factor against racism. Urban Education, https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859211016531.

472

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Ackerman-Barger, K., Jacobs, N. N., Orozco, R., & London, M. (2021). Addressing microaggressions in academic health: A workshop for inclusive excellence. Meded Portal: The Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources, 17(11103). https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_23748265.11103. Addy, T. M., Reeves, P. M., Dube, D., & Mitchell, K. A. (2021). What really matters for instructors implementing equitable and inclusive teaching approaches. To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, 40(1). https://doi.org/10.3998/tia.182. Amaro-Jimenez, C., Martinez-Cosio, M., Patterson, O., Clark, K., & Luken-Sutton, J. (2020). “Feel like more than a number in the classroom:” faculty perceptions of professional development for student success. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 21(3), 247–260. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1538192720950863. American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE). (2022). Faculty Fellows Program. https://www.aahhe.org/faculty-fellows-program American University. (2022). Antiracist research & policy center. https://www.american.edu/ centers/antiracism/ American University. (n.d.). American university tenure, promotion, and reappointment guidelines updates, resource 4: Teaching. https://www.american.edu/provost/academicaffairs/upload/tprupdate_4_teaching.pdf Antony, J. S., & Hayden, R. A. (2011). Job satisfaction of American part-time college faculty: Results from a national study a decade later. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 35(9), 689–709. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920801949513. Arao, B., & Clemens, K. (2013). From safe spaces to brave spaces. In L. M. Landreman (Ed.), The art of effective facilitation: Reflections from social justice educators. Stylus. Aristovnik, A., Keržič, D., Ravšelj, D., Tomaževič, N., & Umek, L. (2020). Impacts of the COVID19 pandemic on life of higher education students: A global perspective. Sustainability, 12(20), 8438. MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12208438. Aronson, E. (2021, May 3). An update on Princeton’s ongoing efforts to address systemic racism. Office of Communications, Princeton University. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/05/03/ update-princetons-ongoing-efforts-address-systemic-racism Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). (2022). Minority faculty leadership development seminar. https://www.aamc.org/professional-development/leadership-development/ minfac Baker, L., Leslie, K., Panisko, D., Walsh, A., Wong, A., Stubbs, B., & Mylopoulos, M. (2018). Exploring faculty developers’ experiences to inform our understanding of competence in faculty development. Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 93(2), 265–273. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000001821. Bartell, D. S., & Boswell, C. (2019). Developing the whole teacher: Collaborative engagement as faculty development within a first-year experience program. Journal of Faculty Development, 33(3), 25–32. Beach, A. L., Sorcinelli, M. D., Austin, A. E., & Rivard, J. K. (2016). Faculty development in the age of evidence. Stylus. Bensimon, E. M. (2018). Reclaiming racial justice in equity. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 50(3), 95–98. Blithe, S., & Fidelibus, B. (2021). Faculty-undergraduate course curriculum collaboration. College Teaching, 70(2), 237–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2021.1920879. Bolitzer, L. (2017). Adjuncts as teachers: A study of how and what adjunct faculty learn while teaching general education courses to diverse undergraduate students (Order No.10285281) [Doctoral dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University]. Proquest Dissertations Publishing. Bolitzer, L. A. (2019a). I really wanted to attend but it never happened: Instructional development for adjunct faculty. The Journal of Faculty Development, 33(2), 69–76. Bolitzer, L. A. (2019b). What we know (and don’t know) about adjunct faculty as teachers: An analytic literature review. The Review of Higher Education, 43(1), 113–142. https://doi.org/10. 1353/rhe.2019.0092.

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

473

Bolitzer, L. A. (2021). “A two-way street”: Adjunct faculty’s learning from and with students about subject matter. College Teaching, 70(1), 82–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2021.1901067. Borboa-Peterson, S., Ozaki, C. C., & Kelsch, A. (2021). Adoption of a cross-campus community of practice for the implementation of equity-focused faculty development. In L. Parson & C. C. Ozaki (Eds.), Teaching and learning for social justice and equity in higher education (pp. 179–200). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81143-3_10. Bourdieu, P. (2018). The forms of capital. In The sociology of economic life (pp. 78–92). Routledge. Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. National Academy Press. Bryson, B. S., Masland, L., & Colby, S. (2020). Strategic faculty development: Fostering buy-in for inclusive excellence in teaching. The Journal of Faculty Development, 34(3), 107–116. California Lutheran University. (2022). Faculty development and inclusive excellence. https:// www.callutheran.edu/offices/faculty-development/ Castillo-Montoya, M. (2018). Rigor revisited: Scaffolding college student learning by incorporating their lived experiences. In C. Campbell (Ed.), New directions for higher education: Reframing rigor: New understandings for equity and student success (pp. 37–46). Jossey-Bass. https://doi. org/10.1002/he.20269. Castillo-Montoya, M. (2020). The challenges and tensions in equity-minded teaching. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 52(2), 74–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2020.1732791. Castillo-Montoya, M., & Ives, J. (2020). A liberating education: Integrating funds of knowledge and disciplinary knowledge to create tools for students’ lives. In K. C. Culver & T. L. Trolian (Eds.), New directions for teaching and learning: Effective instruction in college classrooms: Research-based approaches to college and university teaching (Vol. 164, pp. 39–48). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20422. Castillo-Montoya, M., & Ives, J. (2021). Instructors’ conceptions of minoritized college students’ prior knowledge and their related teaching practices. Journal of Higher Education, 92(5), 735–759. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2020.1870850. Castro, C. (2014). Characteristics and perceptions of women of color faculty nationally. In K. De Welde & A. Stepnick (Eds.), Disrupting the culture of silence: Confronting gender inequality and making change in higher education (pp. 173–188). Stylus. Ching, C. D. (2018). Confronting the equity “learning problem” through practitioner inquiry. The Review of Higher Education, 41(3), 387–421. Christie, M., Carey, M., Robertson, A., & Grainger, P. (2015). Putting transformative learning theory into practice. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 55(1), 9–30. Clayton, T. (2021). Refocusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion during the pandemic and beyond: Lessons from a community of practice. Higher Education Today. https://www.higheredtoday. org/2021/01/13/refocusing-diversity-equity-inclusion-pandemic-beyond-lessons-communitypractice/ Cohen, A., Brawer, F., & Kisker, C. (2013). The American community college (6th ed.). JosseyBass. Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning. (2020). Guide for inclusive teaching at Columbia. https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/edblogs.columbia.edu/dist/8/1109/files/2020/02/Guide-forInclusive-Teaching-at-Columbia_Accessibility-Revisions_15-January-2020_FINAL.pdf Columbia University. (2022a). Faculty service award. Office of the Provost. https://provost. columbia.edu/content/faculty-service-award Columbia University. (2022b). Anti-Racist pedagogy in action: First steps. Center for Teaching and Learning. https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/anti-racist-pedagogy/ Condon, W., Iverson, E., Manduca, C. A., Rutz, C., & Willett, G. (2016). Faculty development and student learning: Assessing the connections. Indiana University Press. Corneille, M., Lee, A., Allen, S., Cannady, J., & Guess, A. (2019). Barriers to the advancement of women of color faculty in STEM: The need for promoting equity using an intersectional

474

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

framework. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 38(3), 328–348. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0199. Costino, K. (2018). Equity-minded faculty development: An intersectional identity-conscious community of practice model for faculty learning. Metropolitan Universities, 29(1), 117–136. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1, 139–167. http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8 Croom, N. N. (2017). Promotion beyond tenure: Unpacking racism and sexism in the experiences of black Womyn professors. The Review of Higher Education, 40(4), 557–583. Danowitz, M. A., & Tuitt, F. A. (2010). Moving towards inclusive excellence in doctoral studies. In S. Katila, S. Meriläinen, & J. Tienari (Eds.), Making inclusion work: Experiences from academia around the world (pp. 33–47). Edward Elgar. Davey, T. L., Johnson, K. F., Webb, L., & White, E. (2021). Recruitment inclusive champions: Supporting university diversity and inclusion goals. Journal of Faculty Development, 35(2), 50–57. Dawson, D., Mighty, J., & Britnell, J. (2010). Moving from the periphery to the center of the academy: Faculty developers as leaders of change. In J. McDonald & D. Stockley (Eds.), New directions for teaching and learning: Pathways to the professional of educational development (Vol. 122, pp. 69–78). https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.399. Dewey, J. (1997a). How we think. . (Originally work published 1910). Dewey, J. (1997b). Experience and education. Simon & Schuster. (Original work published 1938). Dewsbury, B. M. (2019). Deep teaching in a college STEM classroom. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 15, 169–191. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-018-9891-z. Dewsbury, B. M., & Brame, C. J. (2019). Inclusive teaching. CBE Life Sciences Education, 18(2), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-01-0021. DiYanni, R., & Borst, A. (2020). The craft of college teaching: A practical guide. Princeton University Press. Dowd, A. C., & Bensimon, E. M. (2015). Engaging the “race question”: Accountability and equity in U.S. higher education. Teachers College Press. Esmonde, I., & Booker, A. N. (2017). Power and privilege in the learning sciences: Critical and sociocultural theories of learning. Routledge. Fine, E., & Handelsman, J. (2012a). Reviewing applicants: Research on bias and assumptions. Board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System. http://wiselu.engr.wisc.edu/docs/ BiasBrochure_3rdEd.pdf. Fine, E., & Handelsman, J. (2012b). A guide for search committees. Board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System. http://wiselu.engr.wisc.edu/docs/BiasBrochure_3rdEd.pdf Finkelstein, M. J., Conley, V. M., & Schuster, J. H. (2016a). The faculty factor: Reassessing the American academy in a turbulent era. John Hopkins Press. Finkelstein, M. J., Conley, V. M., & Schuster, J. H. (2016b). Taking the measure of faculty diversity. TIAA Institute. https://www.tiaainstitute.org/publication/taking-measure-faculty-diversity Flaherty, C. (2016, August 22). More faculty diversity, not on tenure track. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/22/study-finds-gains-faculty-diversity-not-ten ure-track Flaherty, C. (2019, June 4). Undue burden. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/ news/2019/06/04/whos-doing-heavy-lifting-terms-diversity-and-inclusion-work Flaherty, C. (2021, May 14). IUPUI creates a path to promotion and tenure based on DEI work. Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Career Advice, Jobs. https://www.insidehighered. com/news/2021/05/14/iupui-creates-path-promotion-and-tenure-based-dei-work Fletcher, J. J., & Patrick, S. K. (1998). Not just workshops any more: The role of faculty development in reframing academic priorities. The International Journal for Academic Development, 3(1), 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144980030106. Flores Nieman, Y. (2020). In G. Gutiérrez y Muhs & C. G. González (Eds.), Presumed incompetent II: Race, class, power, and resistance of women in academia. Utah State University Press.

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

475

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed (20th anniversary ed.). Continuum. Continuum. (Original work published 1970). Fries-Britt, S. L., Rowan-Kenyon, H. T., Perna, L. W., Milem, J. F., & Howard, D. G. (2011). Underrepresentation in the academy and the institutional climate for faculty diversity. Journal of the Professoriate, 5(1), 1–34. Gasman, M., Kim, J., & Nguyen, T. H. (2011). Effectively recruiting faculty of color at highly selective institutions: A school of education case study. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 4(4), 212. Gillaume, R., & Apodaca, E. (2020). Early career faculty of color and promotion and tenure: The intersection of advancement in the academy and cultural taxation. Race Ethnicity and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2020.1718084. Gillespie, K., & Robertson, D. (2010). A guide to faculty development (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. Gonzales, L. D., & Terosky, A. L. (2016). From the faculty perspective: Defining, earning, and maintaining legitimacy across academia. Teachers College Record, 118(7), 1–44. https://doi. org/10.1177/016146811611800704. Gonzalez, C. M., Walker, S. A., Rodriguez, N., Noah, Y. S., & Marantz, P. R. (2021). Implicit bias recognition and management in interpersonal encounters and the learning environment: A skillsbased curriculum for medical students. Meded Portal: The Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources, 17(11168). https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11168. González, N., Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Grant, A. D., Swan, K., Wu, K., Plenty Sweetgrass-She Kills, R., Hill, S., & Kinch, A. (2022). A research publication and grant preparation program for native American faculty in STEM: Implementation of the six R’s indigenous framework. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.734290. Guevara, J. P., Adanga, E., Avakame, E., & Carthon, M. B. (2013). Minority faculty development programs and underrepresented minority faculty representation at US medical schools. Journal of the American Medical Association, 310(21), 2297–2304. Gutierrez Keeton, R., Mendoza, Y., Zarate, M. E., & Magruder, E. D. (2021). Teaching faculty to reach first-generation college students: The impacts of a professional development course on faculty. College Teaching, 70(2), 152–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2021.1909526. Haras, C. (2018, January 17). Faculty development as an authentic professional rractice. Higher Education Today. American Council on Education. https://www.higheredtoday.org/2018/01/17/ faculty-development-authentic-professional-practice/ Harlap, Y. (2014). Preparing university educators for hot moments: Theater for educational development about difference, power, and privilege. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(3), 217–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2013.860098. Harper, E. P., Baldwin, R. G., Gansneder, B. G., & Chronister, J. L. (2001). Full-time women faculty off the tenure track: Profile and practice. The Review of Higher Education, 24(3), 237–257. Harris, J. C., & Patton, L. D. (2019). Un/Doing intersectionality through higher education research. The Journal of Higher Education, 90(3), 347–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1536936. Hatch, R. (2020). New framework to infuse diversity, equity, and inclusion into faculty professional development. Illinois State University. https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2020/04/new-frameworkto-infuse-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-into-faculty-professional-development/ Haynes, C. (2016). Critical and inclusive pedagogy: Why the classroom is all it’s cracked up to be. In F. Tuitt, C. Haynes, & S. Stewart (Eds.), Race, equity and the learning environment: The global relevance of critical and inclusive pedagogies in higher education (pp. 1–8). Stylus. Haynes, C. (2017). Dismantling the white supremacy embedded in our classrooms: White faculty in pursuit of more equitable educational outcomes for racially minoritized students. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 29(1), 87–107. Haynes, C., & Bazner, J. (2019). A message for faculty from the present-day movement for Black lives. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(9), 1146–1161. https://doi. org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1645909.

476

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

Haynes, C., Joseph, N. M., Patton, L. D., Stewart, S., & Allen, E. L. (2020). Toward an understanding of intersectionality methodology: A 30-year literature synthesis of black women’s experiences in higher education. Review of Educational Research, 90(6), 751–787. Haynes, C., Stewart, S., Allen Moore, E. L., Joseph, N. M., & Patton, L. D. (2022). Intersectionality methodology and the Black women committed to “Write-Us” resistance. In C. J. Porter, V. T. Sulé, & N. N. Croom, Black feminist epistemology, research, and praxis. Routledge. Hearn, J. C., & Anderson, M. S. (2002). Conflict in academic departments: An analysis of disputes over faculty promotion and tenure. Research in Higher Education, 43(5), 503–529. http://www. jstor.org/stable/40197270 Hearn, J. C., & Burns, R. (2021). Contingent faculty employment and financial stress in public universities. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(3), 331–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00221546.2020.1851570. Higher Education Resources Services (HERS). (2022, March 1). Mission and values. HERS Women in Higher Education Leadership Program. https://www.hersnetwork.org/who-we-are/ mission-and-values/ House, S. C., Spencer, K. C., & Pfund, C. (2018). Understanding how diversity training impacts faculty mentors’ awareness and behavior. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 7(1), 72–86. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-03-2017-0020. Hutchins, D., & Goldstein Hode, M. (2019). Exploring faculty and staff development of cultural competence through communicative learning in an online diversity course. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 14(4), 468–479. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000162. Illinois State University. (2022). Framework for inclusive teaching excellence. Office of the Provost. https://provost.illinoisstate.edu/success/fite/ Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). (n.d.). Enhanced mentoring program with opportunities for ways to excel in research (EMPOWER). EMPOWER. https://empower. iupui.edu Ithaca College. (2022). Faculty mentoring and advocacy. Mentoring and Advocacy Network. https://www.ithaca.edu/faculty-hub/faculty-development-programs/faculty-color-mentoringadvocacy Ives, J. (2022). College students making sense of equity pedagogy in racially diverse STEM classrooms. [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Connecticut]. Open Commons. Jackson, S. (Ed.). (2018). Developing transformative spaces in higher education: Learning to transgress (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315182421. Jimenez, M. F., Laverty, T. M., Bombaci, S. P., Wilkins, K., Bennett, D. E., & Pejchar, L. (2019). Underrepresented faculty play a disproportionate role in advancing diversity and inclusion. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3, 1030–1033. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0911-5. Johnson Jr., M. (2019, August 30). Retaining faculty of color: Costs and consequences. Inside Higher Education. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/08/30/specific-ways-institu tions-can-improve-their-campus-climate-and-quality-life Kezar, A., & Sam, C. (2010). In K. Ward & L. Wolf-Wendel (Eds.), Non-tenure track faculty in higher education: Theories and tensions (Vol. 36, 5, pp. 1–91). Jossey-Bass. Khalid, A & Snyder, J. (2021, April 29). Don’t mistake training for education. Inside Higher Ed. insidehighered.com/views/2021/04/29/colleges-should-focus-education-more-training-aboutdei-issues-opinion Kishimoto, K. (2018). Anti-racist pedagogy: From faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(4), 540–554. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13613324.2016.1248824. Kiyama, J., & Rios-Aguilar, C. (Eds.). (2018). Funds of knowledge in higher education: Honoring students’ cultural experiences and resources as strengths. Routledge. Korte, R. F. (2007). The socialization of newcomers into organizations: Integrating learning and social exchange processes. Paper presented at the International Research Conference in The Americas of the Academy of Human Resource Development (Indianapolis, IN, Feb 28-Mar 4, 2007). https:// eric.ed.gov/?id¼ED504550

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

477

Lee, C. (2007). Culture, literacy and learning: Taking bloom in the midst and the whirlwind. Teachers College Press. Lee, V. (2010). Program types and prototypes. In K. Gillespie & D. Robertson (Eds.), A guide to faculty development (2nd ed., pp. 21–33). Jossey-Bass. Lewis, G., & Tong, T. (2021, June 16). Here’s what candidates really think about the diversity statements in your job posts. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talentacquisition/what-candidates-really-think-about-diversity-statements Lunn, S., & Ross, M. (2021). Ready to work: Evaluating the role of community cultural wealth during the hiring process in computing. In 2021 conference on research in equitable and sustained participation in engineering, computing, and technology (RESPECT) (pp. 1–11). IEEE. Macaluso, R., Amaro-Jiménez, C., Patterson, O. K., Martinez-Cosio, M., Veerabathina, N., Clark, K., & Luken-Sutton, J. (2020). Engaging faculty in student success: The promise of active learning in STEM faculty in professional development. College Teaching, 69(2), 113–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2020.1837063. Magalhães, R. M., & Hane, E. (2020). Building inclusive classroom practices: A curriculum for faculty learning communities based on metacognition. Journal of Faculty Development, 34(3), 124–131. Martinez, A., Castillo-Montoya, M., & Bolitzer, L. A. (2019). Learning within teaching: Insights faculty gain from their interactions with students around subject matter. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 30(1), 5–26. Matthew, P. A. (Ed.). (2016). Written/unwritten: Diversity and the hidden truths of tenure. UNC Press Books. McAlpine, L., & Weston, C. (2002). Reflection: Issues related to improving professors’ teaching and students’ learning. In N. Havita & P. Goodyear (Eds.), Teacher thinking, beliefs and knowledge in higher education (pp. 59–77). Kluwer. Mendez, A. (2021). What does dei in research look like? Medical School. https://med.umn.edu/ news-events/what-does-dei-research-look Merriam-Webster. (2022). Safe space. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved June 8, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/safe%20space Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adults and Continuing Education, 1997(74), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401. Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 3–33). Jossey-Bass. Mezirow, J. (2003). Transformative learning as discourse. Journal of Transformative Education, 1(1), 58–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344603252172. Milem, J. F., Chang, M. J., & Antonio, A. L. (2005). Making diversity work on campus: A researchbased perspective. Association American Colleges and Universities. Miller, A. J., & O’Daniel, A. (2019). Scaffolding space to speak: Student storytelling as long-term strategy for developing faculty cultural competence. Journal of Faculty Development, 33(2), 63–68. Mills, N. (2011). Teaching assistants’ self-efficacy in teaching literature: Sources, personal assessments, and consequences. The Modern Language Journal, 95(1), 61–80. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/41262311 Moreno, J. F., Smith, D. G., Clayton-Pedersen, A. R., Parker, S., & Hiroyuki Teraguchi, D. (2006). The revolving door for underrepresented minority faculty in higher education: An analysis from the campus diversity initiative. The James Irvine Foundation. https://www.slcc.edu/inclusivity/ docs/the-revolving-door-for-underrepresented-minority-faculty-in-higher-education.pdf Museus, S. D., & Neville, K. M. (2012). Delineating the ways that key institutional agents provide racial minority students with access to social capital in college. Journal of College Student Development, 53(3), 436–452. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2012.0042. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). (2022). Programs to enhance workforce diversity. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). https://www.nimh.nih.gov/funding/training/ programs-to-enhance-workforce-diversity

478

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

National Institutes of Health (NIH). (2022). DEIA mentorship supplements. Scientific Workforce Diversity at NIH. https://diversity.nih.gov/sustaining-diversity/deia-mentorship-supplements National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN). (2017). NRMN announces culturally aware mentorship (CAM) training. https://nrmnet.net/blog/administrator/2017/04/23/nrmnannounces-culturally-aware-mentorship-cam-training-module/ Neumann, A. (2005). Observations: Taking seriously the topic of learning in studies of faculty work and careers. In E. G. Creamer & L. Lattuca (Eds.), New directions for teaching and learning: No. 102. Advancing faculty learning through interdisciplinary collaboration (pp. 63–83). Jossey-Bass. Neumann, A. (2006). Professing passion: Emotion in the scholarship of professors at research universities. American Educational Research Journal, 43(3), 381–424. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 00028312043003381. Neumann, A. (2009). Professing to learn. Johns Hopkins University Press. Oleson, A., & Hora, M. T. (2014). Teaching the way we were taught? Revisiting the sources of teaching knowledge and the role of prior experience in shaping faculty teaching practices. Higher Education, 68, 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9678-9. O’Meara, K., Nyunt, G., Templeton, L., & Kuvaeva, A. (2019). Meeting to transgress: The role of faculty learning communities in shaping more inclusive organizational cultures. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 38(3), 286–304. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0184. Ouellett, M. (2010). Overview of faculty development: History and choices. In K. Gillespie & D. Robertson (Eds.), A guide to faculty development (2nd ed., pp. 3–20). Jossey-Bass. Palermo, A. G., Soto-Greene, M. L., Taylor, V. S., Cornbill, R., Johnson, J., Mindt, M. R., Bryd, D., Butts, G. C., Herbert-Carter, J., Fry-Johnson, Y. W., Smith, Q. T., Rust, G., & Strelnick, A. H. (2009). Diversity in academic medicine no. 5 successful programs in minority faculty development: Overview. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 75(6), 523–532. https://doi.org/10.1002/ msj.20083. Pallas, A. M., & Neumann, A. (2019). Convergent teaching: Tools to spark deeper learning in college. Johns Hopkins University Press. Pallas, A. M., Neumann, A., & Campbell, C. M. (2017). Policies and practices to support undergraduate teaching improvement. An occasional paper for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education. https://acue.org/ wp-content/uploads/2018/08/CFUE_Undergraduate-Teaching.pdf Patton, L. D., & Nadrea, N. R. (2019). Theorizing black women’s experiences with institutionsanctioned violence: A #BlackLivesMatter imperative toward black liberation on campus. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(9), 1162–1182. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/09518398.2019.1645908. Railey, M. T., Railey, K. M., & Hauptman, P. J. (2016). Reducing bias in academic search committees. Journal of the American Medical Association, 316(24), 2595–2596. https://doi. org/10.1001/jama.2016.17540. Rhoades, G. (2020). Taking college teachers’ working conditions seriously: Adjunct faculty and negotiating a labor-based conception of quality. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(3), 327–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2019.1664196. Rodriguez, J. E., Campbell, K. M., Fogarty, J. P., & Williams, R. L. (2014). Underrepresented minority faculty in academic medicine: A systematic review of URM faculty development. Family Medicine, 46(2), 100–104. Schuster, J., & Finkelstein, M. (2006). The American faculty: The restructuring of academic work and careers. Johns Hopkins University Press. Schwab, J. J. (1973). The practical 3: Translation into curriculum. The School Review, 81(4), 501–522. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1084423 Servage, L. (2008). Critical and transformative practices in professional learning communities. Teacher Education Quarterly, 35, 63–77. Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X015002004.

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

479

Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2020). Diversity, equity & inclusion. https:// www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/pages/diversity-equity-and-inclusion.aspx Sotto Santiago, S. (2017). What gets lost in the numbers: A case study of the experiences and perspectives of Black and Latino faculty in academic medicine [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Denver]. http://digitalcommons.du.edu/he_doctoral/1 Sotto-Santiago, S. (2018). Value my culture, value me: The importance of culturally relevant mentoring. Lecture at the 2nd annual Dr. Patricia treadwell women in medicine series lectureship. Indiana University School of Medicine. Sotto-Santiago, S. (2020). “Am I really good enough?”: Black and Latinx experiences with faculty development. To Improve the Academy: Journal of Educational Development, 39(2), 107–128. Sotto-Santiago, S., Mac, J., Duncan, F., & Smith, J. (2020). “I didn’t know what to say.”: Responding to racism, discrimination, and microaggressions with the OWTFD approach. Meded Portal: The Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources, 16(10971). https://doi.org/ 10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10971. Sotto-Santiago, S., Poll-Hunter, N., Trice, T., Buenconsejo-Lum, L., Golden, S., Howell, J., Jacobs, N., Lee, W., Mason, H., Ogunyemi, D., Crespo, W., & Lamba, S. (2021). A framework for developing antiracist medical educators and practitioner-scholars. Academic Medicine, 97(1), 41–47. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000004385. Sotto-Santiago, S., Tuitt, F., & Saelua, N. (2019). All faculty matter: The continued search for culturally relevant practices in faculty development. The Journal of Faculty Development, 33(3), 83–93. Sotto-Santiago, S., & Vigil, D. (2021). Racist nativism in academic medicine: An analysis of Latinx faculty experiences. International Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 09518398.2021.1956617. Steinert, Y. (2012). Perspectives on faculty development: Aiming for 6/6 by 2020. Perspectives on Medical Education, 1, 31–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-012-0006-3. Steinert, Y. (Ed.). (2014). Faculty development in the health professions: A focus on research and practice (Vol. 11). Springer. Steinert, Y., Cruess, R. L., Cruess, S. R., Boudreau, J., & Fuks, A. (2007). Faculty development as an instrument of change: A case study on teaching professionalism. Academic Medicine, 82(11), 1057–1064. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.ACM.0000285346.87708.67. Stewart, A. J., & Valian, V. (2018). An inclusive academy: Achieving diversity and excellence. MIT Press. Taylor, E. W. (1997). Building upon the theoretical debate: A critical review of the empirical studies of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. Adult Education Quarterly, 48(1), 34–59. Taylor, E. W., Cranton, P., & Associates. (2012). The handbook of transformative learning: Theory, research and practice. Jossey-Bass. Terosky, A., & Conway, K. (2020). Learning to change and changing to learn: Conceptions of teaching improvement through a faculty-centered lens. In L. W. Perna (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 35, pp. 1–50). Thelin, J. (2019). A history of American higher education (3rd). Johns Hopkins Press. Tierney, W. G. (1997). Organizational socialization in higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 68(1), 1–16. Toldson, I. A. (2019). Cultivating STEM talent at minority serving institutions: Challenges and opportunities to broaden participation in STEM at historically black colleges and universities. In L. L. Winfield, G. Thomas, L. M. Watkins, & Z. S. Wilson-Kennedy (Eds.), Growing diverse STEM communities: Methodology, impact, and evidence (ACS symposium series) (pp. 1–8). American Chemical Society. Tomlinson, B. (2021, July). Princeton moves ahead with some anti-racism initiatives. On the Campus. https://paw.princeton.edu/article/princeton-moves-ahead-some-anti-racism-initiatives Tucker Edmonds, B., Neal, C., Shanks, A., Scott, N., Robertson, S., Rouse, C. E., Bernard, C., & Sotto-Santiago, S. (2021). Allies welcomed to advance racial equity (AWARE) faculty seminar

480

M. Castillo-Montoya et al.

series: Program design and implementation. Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development, 8. https://doi.org/10.1177/23821205211034940. Tuitt, F. (2016). Making excellence inclusive in challenging times. Liberal Education, 102(2), 64–68. Tuitt, F., Haynes, C., & Stewart, S. (2016). Race, equity, and the learning environment: The global relevance of critical and inclusive pedagogies in higher education. Stylus. Tuitt, Haynes, C., & Stewart, S. (2018). Transforming the classroom at traditionally white institutions to make to make Black Lives Matter. To Improve the Academy, 37(1), 63–76. https://doi. org/10.1002/tia2.20071. Turner, C. (2002). Women of color in academe: Living with multiple marginality. The Journal of Higher Education, 73(1), 74–93. Turner, C., Gonzalez, J., & Wood, J. (2008). Faculty of color in academe: What 20 years of literature tells us. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 1(3), 139–168. https://doi.org/10.1037/ a0012837. U.S. Department of Education. (2008). Table 249. Full-time instructional faculty in degreegranting institutions, by race/ethnicity, sex, and academic rank: Fall 2003, fall 2005, and fall 2007. 2003, 2005 and 2007 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), Winter 2003–04, Winter 2005–06, and Winter 2007–08. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_249.asp U.S. Department of Education. (2020). Race/ethnicity of college faculty. Fast facts. The Condition of Education 2020 (NCES 2020–144), Characteristics of Postsecondary Faculty. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id¼61 University of California, Berkeley. (2022). Strategic plan. Division of Equity & Inclusion. https:// diversity.berkeley.edu/about/strategic-plan University of California Review and Appraisal Committee. (2022, April). Appointment and promotion: APM – 210: Review and appraisal committees index. https://ucop.edu/academicpersonnel-programs/_files/apm/apm-210.pdf University of California, San Diego. (2022). Faculty development, faculty webinars. Center for Faculty Diversity and Inclusion. https://facultydiversity.ucsd.edu/development/index. html#Faculty-Webinars University of Central Florida. BIPOC & First Generation assistant professor mentoring community. Faculty Excellence. https://facultyexcellence.ucf.edu/development/bipoc-first-generationassistant-professor-mentoring-community/ University of Connecticut. (2022a). U.S. anti-black racism course. Office of the Provost. https:// provost.uconn.edu/us-anti-black-racism-course/ University of Connecticut. (2022b). May days: Professional development for faculty, graduate assistants, and staff. Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. https://cetl.uconn.edu/ maydays University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (2022). Anti-racism faculty development series. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. https://blogs.umass.edu/diversitynsb/anti-racism-faculty-developmentseries/ University of Michigan. (2022a). Women of color in the academy project. Advocacy Initiatives. http://www.cew.umich.edu/advocacy-initiatives/women-of-color-in-the-academy-project/ University of Michigan. (2022b). DEI 2.0 transition. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. https:// diversity.umich.edu/strategic-plan/dei-2/ University of Pittsburgh. (2022). Anti-black racism: History, ideology, and resistance (PITT0210). Office of the Provost. https://www.provost.pitt.edu/anti-black-racism-history-ideology-andresistance-final-course-syllabus Vican, S., Friedman, A., & Andreasen, R. (2020). Metrics, money, and managerialism: Faculty experiences of competing logics in higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(1), 139–164. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2019.1615332. Virginia Tech. (2022). Faculty women of color in the Academy conference. InclusiveVT. https:// www.inclusive.vt.edu/Programs/FWCA.html

8

Reimagining Faculty Development: Activating Faculty Learning. . .

481

Wagner, A. E. (2005). Unsettling the academy: Working through the challenges of anti‐racist pedagogy. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(3), 261–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13613320500174333. Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. (n.d.). Faculty of color crossinstitutional mentorship program. https://www.sbctc.edu/colleges-staff/programs-services/fac ulty-of-color-mentorship/default.aspx Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Womack, V. Y., Wood, C. V., House, S. C., Quinn, S. C., Thomas, S. B., McGee, R., & ByarsWinston, A. (2020). Culturally aware mentorship: Lasting impacts of a novel intervention on academic administrators and faculty. PLoS One, 15(8), e0236983. Wyatt, B. N., Magalhães, R. M., Michel, L. V., & Newman, D. L. (2021). Development of a faculty learning community to foster inclusive research mentoring. Journal of Faculty Development, 35(2), 44–49. Xie, J., Gulinna, A., & Rice, M. (2021). Instructional designers’ roles in emergency remote teaching during COVID-19. Distance Education, 42(1), 70–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2020. 1869526. Yale University. (2021). Antiracist pedagogy. The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Antiracist-Pedagogy Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. Yosso, T. J., & Burciaga, R. (2016). Reclaiming our histories, recovering community cultural wealth. Center for Critical Race Studies at UCLA: Research Briefs, 5. http://www.ccrse.gseis. ucla.edu/publications Zambrana, R. E. (2018). Toxic ivory towers: The consequences of work stress on underrepresented minority faculty. Rutgers University Press.

Milagros Castillo-Montoya is an Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs in the Department of Education Leadership at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on equitable teaching and learning in higher education with a focus on first-generation and racially minoritized college students. She also studies policies and practices that impact the experiences of racially minoritized faculty in US higher education. Liza Ann Bolitzer is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Kean University in Union New Jersey. Her research focuses on professional learning, and how college faculty, institutional leaders, and higher education professionals learn to advance college students’ academic learning and professional development. Sylk Sotto-Santiago is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on equity in higher education and academic medicine with a focus on historically marginalized groups. Her interests are in faculty and professional development, inclusive learning and organizational environments, and the intersection of research ethics and health equity.

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences Catherine Hartman

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transfer as an Undergraduate Student Pathway: An Overview of Terminology, History, and Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exploring How Students Navigate Transfer Pathways to Receiving Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transfer Choice and Search Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Demographic Factors Associated with Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Structural Forces Impacting Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional Barriers to Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exploring Students’ Post-transfer Experiences at the Receiving Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transfer Shock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Students’ Adjustment, Integration, and Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sense of Belonging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transfer Student Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frameworks Used in Previous Research About Transfer Students’ Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transfer Student Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Validation Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transfer Receptive Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moving Transfer Research and Practice into New Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Need for Recognizing Variations Within Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Importance of Utilizing Asset-Based Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion: Next Steps to Consider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

484 485 487 488 489 491 493 496 497 499 505 507 510 511 513 515 516 519 520 521 524 526

Pamela Eddy was the Associate Editor for this chapter. C. Hartman (*) National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_7

483

484

C. Hartman

Abstract

Transfer students are a growing yet understudied group of students within higher education in the USA. Throughout their pre- and post-transfer experiences, transfer students often undergo difficulties through the transition process to a new, or receiving, institution, including challenges with navigating transfer admission requirements, applying academic credits toward their bachelor’s degrees, and acclimating into the new, or receiving, institution. This chapter explored the issues and challenges associated with transfer by providing a comprehensive overview of transfer student experiences and transitions, including as students navigate the process and as they adjust to their receiving institutions. Specifically, the experiences of students departing from community colleges to 4-year institutions (vertical transfer students) and students transitioning from one 4-year institution to another (horizontal transfer students) were examined through a comprehensive review of existing literature. In addition, an agenda and suggestions for future researchers and practitioners to consider in their work and support for transfer students are provided at the conclusion of the chapter. Keywords

Transfer · Undergraduate students · Vertical transfer · Horizontal transfer · Community college · Transitions · Student success · Engagement · Sense of belonging · Integration

Introduction Despite their increased presence at colleges and universities across the USA, transfer students have been and remain an understudied group of students within higher education (Jenkins & Fink, 2016; Shapiro et al., 2018). Nationally representative data (Jenkins & Fink, 2016; Shapiro et al., 2018) has shown that transfer is often an integral part of the undergraduate experience for many students, providing students opportunities for degree attainment (Cohen et al., 2013), flexible pathways for achieving goals (Cohen et al., 2013), and economic and social mobility (Autor et al., 2008). Throughout their pre- and post-transfer experiences, transfer students often undergo difficulties through the transition process to a new, or receiving, institution (Bahr et al., 2013), including challenges with navigating transfer admission requirements (DeilAmen, 2011; Schudde et al., 2021a, 2021b), applying academic credits toward their bachelor’s degrees (Kirk-Kuwaye & Kirk-Kuwaye, 2007), and acclimating into the new, or receiving, institution (Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Tinto, 1993). A significant focus in existing transfer literature has unveiled that the previously mentioned challenges often impact students’ adjustment (Kurt-Kuwaye & KurtKuwaye, 2007; Solis & Durán, 2022; Townsend et al., 1993), forms of engagement (Dougherty & Kienzl, 2006; Greene et al., 2008; Mu & Fosnacht, 2019; Nora &

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

485

Rendon, 1990), affiliation and belonging (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Tinto, 1993), and their identity development (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Núñez & Yoshimi, 2016; Rodriguez & Kerrigan, 2019). In addition, transfer students often are forced to make sense of institutional environments that were not intentionally created to support them (Jain et al., 2020; Tobowlosky & Cox, 2012), which also plays a significant role in their experiences throughout the transfer process. These broad findings beg questions about what transfers encounter during their educational journeys and what forces impact students’ transfer and progress toward bachelor’s degree completion. To address these questions, in this chapter, I explored the issues and challenges associated with transfer by providing a comprehensive overview of transfer student experiences and transitions, including as students navigate the process and as they adjust to their receiving institutions. While the term “transfer students” can refer to multiple pathways and forms of mobility that students take during their undergraduate careers (this discussion will be further detailed in the subsequent section), I examined the experiences of students departing from community colleges to 4-year institutions (vertical transfer students) and students transitioning from one 4-year institution to another (horizontal transfer students); this focus is intentional in order to understand prevalent transfer pathways and to understand more about the heterogeneity within the overall transfer student population. The analysis conducted in this chapter was accomplished through a systematic review of existing literature on the subject, including a discussion about prior research findings and frameworks researchers have employed to examine transfer experiences. Additionally, an agenda and suggestions for future research are provided at the conclusion.

Transfer as an Undergraduate Student Pathway: An Overview of Terminology, History, and Mission In the US postsecondary education, transfer students constitute a sizeable proportion of undergraduate students. According to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center that longitudinally examined a cohort of students enrolling in postsecondary education during fall 2011 (Shapiro et al., 2018), 38% of all undergraduate students within this cohort transferred at some point during the 6-year period of observation. Upon closer examination, the transfer rate for students in the cohort who began at a 4-year institution, regardless of sector (i.e., public or private), was 38.5%. Additionally, among students who started their educational pathways at a community or technical college, the transfer rate was slightly lower, at 37%. The primary transfer destination for students departing community colleges was a 4-year institution (with 59% of students transferring to one; Shapiro et al., 2018), a finding which aligns with the importance of transfer within the mission and aims of community colleges (Cohen et al., 2013). To more comprehensively understand forms of student transfer, it is important to explore the heterogeneous pathways among the transfer student population and forms of student mobility and enrollment. To start, vertical transfer, also referred

486

C. Hartman

to as “upward transfer,” occurs when students move from a community/technical college to a 4-year institution. This form of transfer may take place with or without the conferral of an associate degree or other credentials (Taylor & Jain, 2017). Another type of transfer includes lateral, or horizontal, transfer, which is student movement across the same institution type (e.g., transfer from one community/ technical college to another or one 4-year institution to another); when used in contrast to vertical transfer, horizontal transfer often refers to transfer from one 4-year institution to another (Taylor & Jain, 2017), and this is how I operationalize its use in this chapter. Vertical transfer is a crucial component of community colleges, supporting the transfer function of these institutions (Cohen et al., 2013; Taylor & Jain, 2017). Overall, greater attention in existing research has been paid to vertical transfer students (Bahr et al., 2013; Taylor & Jain, 2017), despite horizontal transfer occurring slightly more frequently, leaving much to be understood about the pathways and experiences of horizontal transfers. While this chapter focuses on vertical and horizontal transfer students, additional transfer pathways exist. An example includes reverse transfer, or transfer from a 4-year institution to a community/technical college, which may include students taking courses at a community college during the summer semester (Taylor & Jain, 2017). Reverse transfer may also apply specifically to students’ earned academic credit, particularly if they are seeking to retroactively apply credit earned at the 4-year institution toward the requirements needed to earn an associate degree from a community college (Taylor, 2016). Another significant form of student mobility comes in the form of swirling students. Swirling includes attendance at and transfer to and from more than two institutions during students’ course taking toward earning a bachelor’s degree (Johnson & Muse, 2012; Selingo, 2015). Transfer may also take course through concurrent enrollment, or attendance at more than one institution simultaneously, which facilitates opportunities for students to transfer credit earned from one institution to the other. Transient, or visiting students, may also be referred to as transfer students, as they apply credit earned at their visiting school to their home institution. Lastly, another growing form of transfer includes dual enrollment, or the enrollment, completion, and transfer of college-level coursework for academic credit while students are enrolled in high school. The number of dually enrolled students has increased significantly across the USA within the last 20 years (Field, 2021). Dual enrollment is an especially attractive option to students seeking to gain knowledge and skills associated with college and career readiness and earn credit they can apply toward their high school and postsecondary degrees (Grubb et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2012). It is important to highlight, as Taylor and Jain (2017) noted in their review of transfer literature, that the forms of transfer previously mentioned do not comprise a complete list of transfer-related terminology and behavior, especially as this listing does not address issues of transfer related to (including the transfer of academic credit from) military and/or experiential learning (American Council on Education, 2022) or international institutions (Helms, 2014). However, the variation within the transfer student population reveals that students transfer in diverse ways, which are associated with a variety of reasons. Understanding students’ intentions and reasons

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

487

for transferring are important in understanding how to support them and improve transfer-related policies and pathways (Buenaflor et al., 2021; Peter & Cataldi, 2005; Wickersham, 2020). While some forms of transfer, such as reverse transfer and dual enrollment, may be the result of more contemporary educational policies and practices, transfer is not a new phenomenon within higher education. Transfer is an intentionally created educational pathway that was established in the early twentieth century as a result of an initiative established between Joliet Junior College (the first junior college in the USA) and the neighboring University of Chicago. Specifically, transfer was a means for students to take lower division coursework at the junior college and then continue their coursework at the 4-year institution, where they would take their upper-division and major-specific coursework (Cohen et al., 2013). This pathway shaped the missions of community colleges, as these institutions seek to support vertical transfer pathways for students (Cohen et al., 2013; Taylor & Jain, 2017). During the 2019–2020 academic year, approximately 35% of undergraduates in the USA were enrolled in community colleges; this share may even be closer to 44% when adjusting for community colleges that award bachelor’s degrees (Community College Research Center, 2022). As open-access institutions, community colleges are vital in closing educational attainment gaps as they increase access to higher education by offering low tuition rates, flexible course options, and specialized support and instructional services (Nora & Rendon, 1990; Schudde & GoldrickRab, 2015). Community colleges are also crucial in supporting educational, economic, and social mobility (Cohen et al., 2013; Romano & Eddy, 2017). The transfer function complements these aims, as millions of community college students rely upon and utilize transfer to earn bachelor’s degrees and credentials, including many systematically minoritized students, such as those that are low-income, Black, and Latina/o/x (Community College Research Center, 2022). In the following section, I further explore the transfer function while also focusing on research findings related to students’ navigation of transfer.

Exploring How Students Navigate Transfer Pathways to Receiving Institutions Multiple challenges can manifest as horizontal (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Kurt-Kuwaye & Kurt-Kuwaye, 2007) and vertical transfers navigate the transfer and transition process. For students departing community colleges, additional barriers may exist, despite institutional missions explicitly focusing on and promoting transfer (Cohen et al., 2013). Multiple studies (e.g., Bahr, 2008; Cohen et al., 2013; Taylor & Jain, 2017; Wassmer et al., 2004) have discussed community college students’ experiences preparing for the transfer process, but there is little understanding of these areas of inquiry among horizontal transfers (Bahr, 2009; Taylor & Jain, 2017); this is perhaps unsurprising given the desire of 4-year institutions to retain their students, indicating there is little institutional support for students seeking to departure through a horizontal pathway. As such, while I provide greater

488

C. Hartman

detail about students’ experiences navigating transfer in the following sections, beginning with contextual information about factors associated with transfer and students’ transfer choice and selection process, much of this review consequently focuses on community college transfer.

Transfer Choice and Search Process Students decide to transfer from and to different postsecondary institutions based on a multitude of reasons. Among vertical transfers, some students intentionally begin their educational journeys at community colleges so that they can utilize designated transfer pathways and articulation agreements (admissions partnerships between community colleges and 4-year institutions) to complete their bachelor’s degrees (Cohen et al., 2013; Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming). Horizontal transfer students may seek to transfer for reasons often related to fit between themselves, their educational goals, and the institution (Bowman & Denson, 2014). Some examples of why students may transfer horizontally include: wanting to enroll at a 4-year institution that offers more affordable tuition, fees, and other expenses, identifying and pursuing an academic major of study offered at a different 4-year school that aligns with their educational and career goals (Ishitani & Flood, 2018; Li, 2010), and also needing to respond to a life event that might require them to physically move and/or find an institution with greater flexibility for their circumstances (Gordon & McDonald, 2004). Goldrick-Rab and Pfeffer (2009) argued that horizontal transfers are more likely to be from higher socioeconomic status (SES), and “their motivations for [transfer] may be based on expressions of personal preference, possibly striving to move to a ‘better’ school but are clearly not connected to inadequate academic preparation in high school or poor performance in college” (p. 115). Regardless of students’ rationale for and decisions associated with changing institutions, the choice and search process for transfer students, especially those transferring vertically (Buenaflor et al., 2021; Jabbar et al., 2017a, 2017b; Lukszo & Hayes, 2020; Schudde et al., 2021a, 2021b), is often convoluted. Students’ search and choice processes for transfer institutions are informed by a variety of factors, such as: familial relationships, including students’ prioritization of and commitment to their family, validation and advice they receive from family members about navigating transfer, higher education, and careers, and also financial and other support they gain from family (e.g., childcare, housing, and food) (Jabbar et al., 2017a); geography, including desiring to stay in or leave their current location, wanting to attend a particular institution, familial and financial factors (including institution costs and transportation) that influence students’ choices to move (Buenaflor et al., 2021; Jabbar et al., 2017b); students’ information-seeking approaches, including access to resources and the quality of information about transfer (Schudde et al., 2021a); and students’ social networks with family (including the emotional and financial support they received), friends (including knowledge and motivation friends provided), institutional agents at community colleges and 4-year schools (including relevant information and resources offered; Jabbar et al., 2021), and classmates and coworkers (including transfer information and major and career advice) (Yücel et al., 2022).

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

489

Demographic Factors Associated with Transfer Demographic characteristics have also been found to be associated with students’ transfer pathways. Notably, a frequently cited term in previous transfer literature is the vertical transfer gap (Horn & Skomsvold, 2011; Jenkins & Fink, 2016). The existence of this is evident as data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicated that only about 33% of community college students across the USA transferred to a 4-year institution within 6 years of enrollment, despite evidence that 81% of incoming community college students indicated that they intended to pursue a bachelor’s degree or higher (Horn & Skomsvold, 2011; Jenkins & Fink, 2016). Further, of those students that did transfer within 6 years of enrollment, only 42% completed a bachelor’s degree (Jenkins & Fink, 2016). Low student transfer and bachelor’s degree completion rates indicate a leaky transfer pipeline, which can result from multiple issues, including the effects of institutional neglect of and a lack of dedicated support for transfer and transfer-intending students (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). Relatedly, attendance at a community college has also been found to be associated with lower probability of earning a bachelor’s degree (Lockwood Reynolds, 2012; Schudde & Brown, 2019). The effects of institutional mistreatment may be exacerbated among systematically minoritized students, perpetuating inequities in students’ educational and career outcomes (Wang, 2020). In addition, students’ level of academic preparation or readiness, as determined by institutional assessment and placement policies, has also been found to be related to transfer (Crisp et al., 2022; Wassmer et al., 2004). Using institutional-level data from the California Community College Chancellor’s Office, Wassmer et al. (2004) found that the most academically prepared community college students (as determined by institutions) transferred at higher rates than those deemed academically underprepared. More recently, Crisp et al. (2022) also found that academic coursework and preparation played a role in the reverse and horizontal transfer of students starting at 4-year schools; students who enrolled in developmental coursework and/or whose high school grade point averages (GPAs) were considered low were more likely to leave their initial 4-year institution when compared to peers. Further, greater numbers of first-generation and low-income students beginning at 4-year institutions were more likely to withdraw through reverse or horizontal transfer to another 4-year school (Crisp et al., 2022), which is consequential for students’ educational success. In addition to academic preparedness, full-time student enrollment upon starting college and a high secondary school GPA were found by Eddy et al. (2006) to be determinants of successful student transfer. Ultimately, students who enrolled in greater credit hours (Doyle, 2011; Eddy et al., 2006) are considered academically successful by their institutions (Wassmer et al., 2004), and who have requisite knowledge of institutional processes and transfer-related requirements (Crisp et al., 2022; Deil-Amen, 2011; Schudde et al., 2021a) have been found to be more likely to successfully transfer than their peers. Studies have indicated that students’ race/ethnicity and SES are associated with transfer (Dougherty & Kienzel, 2006; Melguizo & Dowd, 2009). Overall, postsecondary completion rates and long-term expectation rates for earning bachelor’s

490

C. Hartman

degrees among racially/ethnically marginalized students have increased over the last several decades (Goldrick-Rab, 2010). While degree attainment has increased, Black and Hispanic or Latina/o/x students are still disproportionally underrepresented in higher education (Bailey et al., 2005) and are overrepresented at community colleges (Community College Research Center, 2022). Research has also indicated differences in student transfer by race/ethnicity (Crisp & Núñez, 2014; Crisp et al., 2020b; Shapiro et al., 2018; Solórzano et al., 2005; Wassmer et al., 2004). A racial transfer gap exists, one in which racial or ethnic minoritized students transfer from community colleges at lower rates than White students (Crisp & Núñez, 2014; Crisp et al., 2020b). More fully, in 2018–2019, racially/ethnically marginalized students (including 55% of Hispanic or Latina/o/x, 44% of Black, and 45% of Asian undergraduates) were enrolled in the US community colleges at disproportionate rates to White undergraduates (41%; Community College Research Center, 2022). Among students who began higher education at a community college in the 2003–2004 academic year, data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/ 09) indicated that non-White students expected to earn a bachelor’s degree (Black students: 37.5%, Asian/Pacific Islander students: 27.8%, Hispanic students: 35.8%, and American Indian/Alaska Native: 27.8%) or higher than a bachelor’s degree (Black students: 45.5%, Asian/Pacific Islander students: 61.0%, Hispanic students: 49.6%, and American Indian/Alaska Native: 55.5%) at rates comparable to or greater than White students (38.6% expected to earn a bachelor’s degree and 40.5% expected to earn a degree above a bachelor’s; Horn & Skomsvold, 2011). Despite students’ goals, National Student Clearinghouse data (Shapiro et al., 2018) has shown that White community college entrants transfer more frequently to 4-year institutions than Black and Hispanic students; 62% of White students transferred to a public or private (nonprofit) 4-year college or university within 6 years of starting college (Shapiro et al., 2018). Forty percent of Black community college entrants and 45% of Hispanic students transferred to similar destinations. In addition, data indicated that Black (46%), Hispanic (49%), and Asian (41%) students disproportionately transfer from one public community college to another, and Black and Hispanic students transfer to these institutions more frequently than 4-year schools (Shapiro et al., 2018). In particular, Black (Shapiro et al., 2018; Wang, 2012), Latina/o/x (Shapiro et al., 2018; Solórzano et al., 2005), and low SES students (Wang, 2012; Wassmer et al., 2004) have been found to transfer at lower rates than their peers. The type of institution that low SES students begin their postsecondary career at may not ultimately affect their bachelor’s degree attainment rates though, as Melguizo and Dowd (2009) found after using national student-level survey data to analyze differences in degree completion rates among community college transfer students and non-transfers at 4-year institutions. This finding may indicate that students’ degree completion might not necessarily be as significant of an issue compared to their navigation of transfer from the community college to the 4-year institution. Dougherty and Kienzel’s (2006) research supports this assertion, as the authors also used nationally representative data to analyze transfer, and discovered that, after controlling for social background, educational preparation and aspirations,

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

491

external demands, and college experiences, SES strongly predicted transfer. Low SES and racially/ethnically marginalized students were unlikely to transfer from community colleges to 4-year schools, even if these students “are comparable with their peers in educational preparation and aspirations” (Dougherty & Kienzel, 2006, p. 36). In short, these findings ultimately highlight that low SES students do not transfer at comparable rates to their higher SES peers. They may also indicate that research examining students’ experiences and success outcomes at 4-year institutions may not include a focus on low SES students in study designs, purpose, and implications due to the population of students that do transfer. Considering relationships between student mobility, race/ethnicity, and SES, transfer is a complex process that often requires students to understand a “hidden curriculum” in order to navigate requirements and bureaucratic hurdles (Rosenbaum et al., 2006, p. 63). The “hidden curriculum” refers to tacit knowledge (about initiatives, procedures, and expectations and understandings of institutional, structural, and social norms) that is necessary to access and navigate educational spaces and the transfer process (Rosenbaum et al., 2006; Schudde et al., 2021a). This curriculum is frequently maintained by and communicated to transfer or transferintending students by faculty or staff (Allen et al., 2014) and is rooted in White, middle-class norms (Castro & Cortez, 2016). The effects of these features can push systematically minoritized students out of transfer pathways and impact students’ degree attainment, as data has indicated that Black and Hispanic or Latina/o/x students are more likely to transfer earlier than White students (Crisp et al., 2020b), indicating that students may not be receiving important knowledge about transfer policies and services. Relatedly, leaving the community college without a credential could be consequential, as the earning of one has been positively associated with transferring to a 4-year institution (Kopko & Crosta, 2016) and labor market returns (Belfield & Bailey, 2011) but not necessarily bachelor’s degree attainment (Turk, 2018; Wang et al., 2017). Racially/ethnically minoritized students have also been found to be less likely to attempt to transfer credit across institutions, which has implications for students’ academic progress toward degree completion (Crisp et al., 2020b). The “hidden curriculum” may also impact the pathways and retention of students beginning at 4-year institutions, as Black and Hispanic or Latino/a/x students have been found to transfer to community colleges at higher rates than White students (Shapiro et al., 2018). In addition to demographic factors, structural and institutional issues have also been found to impact student transfer. The subsequent sections provide additional information about such forces.

Structural Forces Impacting Transfer Barriers to transfer exist at the structural level, meaning that there are overarching economic, social, and political factors that impact students’ access to, navigation of, and outcomes associated with higher education. As community colleges are key actors in the transfer function in the US postsecondary settings, sociological

492

C. Hartman

arguments that illustrate the structure and function of these institutions are important to recognize. Pointedly, while community colleges are often described as “open access” (Cohen et al., 2013) and democratizing higher education for multiple populations of students (Rouse, 2012), these institutions are also key sites for reproducing societal inequalities by reinforcing social and educational stratification (Brint & Karabel, 1989; Rosenbaum et al., 2006; Rouse, 2012; Schudde & GoldrickRab, 2015). A major tenet of sociological arguments notes that community college students could be diverted from attending 4-year institutions (Rouse, 2012) and also potentially funneled into vocational programs and away from bachelor degree-oriented programs, altering students’ paths and plans for attaining a higher level of education. The “cooling-out hypothesis” is one of the key theories used to describe this funneling process that marginalized students may experience (Clark, 1960a, 1960b). This theory posited that students who enter college with ambitions to transfer and complete bachelor’s degrees may be tempered by institutional agents, notably academic advisors or counselors, as they encourage students to adjust their expectations and plans often based on their perceptions of students’ academic preparedness (Rosenbaum et al., 2006). These staff members may suggest that students instead pursue terminal degrees, like those offered in vocational programs at community colleges (Bahr, 2008; Brint & Karabel, 1989; Clark, 1960a, 1960b; Dougherty, 1994; Wang 2015, 2016). Such diversion often occurs as a result of multiple factors, including the large volume of students seeking to attend college, the desire of 4-year institutions to maintain prestige over community colleges by limiting students’ access and enrollment (through which transfer serves as the primary means for such; Clark 1960a; Goldrick-Rab, 2010), and the low admission rates of transfers at 4-year institutions (Schudde et al., 2021a). While the “coolingout” hypothesis has been frequently discussed in relation to community college students, it could have implications for horizontal transfers, as well. Diversion from educational goals is not a phenomenon unique to community colleges and can happen in multiple educational spaces, including in K-12 settings. High school counselors and teachers have been found to perpetuate a “college-for-all” narrative through which students are encouraged to enroll in some form of postsecondary education (Deil-Amen & Rosenbaum, 2002, p. 252). Within conversations with students about postsecondary plans, counselors may also discuss the need for an adjustment of educational expectations for and goals associated with postsecondary education based on how academically prepared they believe students to be (this diversion often manifests in the form of educational tracking; Deil-Amen & Rosenbaum, 2002; Rosenbaum, 1976). As such, students could initially enroll in 4-year colleges or universities that do not support their goals and/or their educational plans may evolve, resulting in a desire to transfer to a different institution that supports these ambitions or, perhaps, reverse transfer to a community college that provides flexibility for them to determine their next steps. Racial/ethnic marginalized and low SES students tend to be at most risk of such sorting (Schudde & Goldrick-Rab, 2015), and diversion ultimately results in lower educational and economic attainment. However, recent research by Bahr (2008)

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

493

indicated that advisors may not play an active role in “cooling-out” at community colleges. Alternately, Rosenbaum et al. (2006) noted that “warming up” (p. 41), or the raising of educational aspirations, likely occurs at similar or greater rates to “cooling out.” Also, forms of purposeful diversion could be unlikely due to the resource constraints (including limited numbers of academic advisors) at community colleges (Rosenbaum et al., 2006). Whether or not “cooling-out” does take place, the hypothesis and its associated arguments indicate that barriers to democratization exist and manifest during transfer, especially among systematically minoritized students, which ultimately, may shift the trajectories of these students away from their initial educational intentions. Structural forces have also been found to impact transfer among certain student populations. Students who identify as immigrants (Alexander et al., 2007; Sutherland, 2011), first-generation, and low SES may have limited access to college-related information about navigating higher education and transfer (Cohen et al., 2013; Nieves, 1977; Nora & Rendon, 1990). Additionally, systematically minoritized students may not possess the knowledge, support, and social and cultural capital that institutions establish and perpetuate as necessary in order to navigate the college selection, application, curricular, financial aid, and transfer processes (Bourdieu, 1993; Castro & Cortez, 2016; Olivas, 1986). In addition, research shows that students and families, including many Hispanic or Latina/o/x students (Alexander et al., 2007), often do not have sufficient funds to support students while in college and to pay for tuition, fees, and other educational expenses (Goldrick-Rab, 2016) and may be reluctant to take on educational debt (such as loans) to fund college (Boatman et al., 2017). Thus, many students may maintain a full-time job while attending school on a part-time basis, which can slow their progress toward transfer and degree completion (Alexander et al., 2007; Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2017; Salinas & Llanes, 2003).

Institutional Barriers to Transfer In addition to structural impediments, institutional barriers to transfer exist, and these are associated with processes, procedures, and practices that exist within colleges and universities. Institutional policies, practices, and procedures that implicitly or explicitly exclude transfer students or marginalize them have been described as forms of institutional neglect (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). Institutional staff may (un)intentionally participate in the perpetuation of such neglect by not providing transfer and transfer-intending students with tailored services and supports to aid them throughout their transitions. Transfer issues may begin at the recruitment stage, as 4-year schools tend to recruit students from high schools, rather than from 2-year schools; in addition, when 4-year schools do advertise at or send admissions representatives to community colleges, they tend to focus on academically oriented and suburban community colleges, which typically do not enroll large numbers of racial and ethnically marginalized students (Cuseo, 1998). These recruitment practices may subsequently limit students’ knowledge of the community college and

494

C. Hartman

transfer as a viable pathway to baccalaureate degree attainment. In addition, without purposeful outreach, students may also not be aware of information that could impact their curricular decisions in secondary settings. For example, in an ethnographic study about transfer among Hispanic community college students enrolled in the Dallas County Community College District, Alexander et al. (2007) found that many students who did not enroll in college-preparatory courses while in high school were subsequently required to enroll in development coursework at their community colleges, lengthening their time to degree completion and transfer. After enrolling in the community college, students frequently must manage additional obstacles. Deli-Amen and Rosenbaum (2003) identified multiple barriers to success for community college students, including: “bureaucratic hurdles, confusing choices, student-initiated” rather than staff-initiated guidance, “limited counselor availability, poor advice from staff,” delayed “detection of costly mistakes” (like course scheduling and selection) and “poor handling of conflicting demands” (p. 120). Students from low SES backgrounds, institutionally deemed academically underprepared students, and first-generation students may not have the requisite skills or resources their institutions require of students in order to persist. Having to make choices, about curriculum, courses and financial aid, among other factors, can be overwhelming for all community college students and especially for marginalized students, as Deil-Amen and Rosenbaum (2003) noted: [Students] do not know how to get the information they need, and small amounts of confusion can evolve into large problems of wasted time and poor decisions. Students often come from public schools where counseling services are limited, and they lack the know-how they need to make the required choices. (p. 123)

Possessing capital, or the relevant knowledge of norms, processes, and requirements (Bourdieu & Passerson, 1977), entails being aware of which institutional agents to talk to and where to access information, both of which are crucial to students’ successful navigation of transfer and will be explored in greater detail in a subsequent section. Other issues can arise for transfer-intending community college students but may be more salient for marginalized students lacking social networks and supports needed to navigate institutional norms and policies. Community college students seeking information about transferring coursework may find that a lack of communication between both community colleges and 4-year schools exists; this disconnection can result in students bouncing from conversations with staff at both 2- and 4-year schools and conflicting accounts of information from the parties (Jenkins & Fink, 2016). In addition, the information that institutional agents share with students may be inaccurate (Bailey et al., 2017; Hodara et al., 2017; Schudde et al., 2021a), and advisors may not have the resources or time (as the result of organizational constraints) to provide students with comprehensive information about transfer processes (Schudde et al., 2021a, 2021b). Students seeking to learn more about transfer, including institutional admissions requirements, transfer pathways, and credit transfer and applicability processes may find minimal and/or unclear resources (Schudde et al., 2021b). The

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

495

information students find and how students make sense of these sources can subsequently influence their transfer-related decisions, including coursework taken, institutions considered to which they apply, the timing of transfer, and even intentions to transfer (Schudde et al., 2021b). Transfer-intending and transfer students frequently must also navigate financial aid policies and procedures to secure funding to pay for their education (Goldrick-Rab, 2016). These processes often present barriers and challenges, as students and families must often make sense of convoluted and jargon-heavy language on financial aid-related forms (Taylor & Bicak, 2020) and potentially plan for new expenses (such as room and board, which previously may not have been a budget consideration for vertical transfers) the requirements for financial aid (Long, 2005). Some students, such as those who are undocumented immigrants or DACAmented (in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program), may also be ineligible for federal and state financial aid (Federal Student Aid, 2021). Overarching these concerns are increasing tuition and fee costs (that continue to rise at the expense of students [Long, 2005]) and institutional financial aid practices that often award firsttime-in-college students greater aid than transfers (Fernandez, 2014). Institutional agents, including faculty and staff, can serve as crucial sources of support for students navigating transfer pathways (Bensimon & Dowd, 2009). Specifically, advisors are designated institutional agents whose roles are designed to assist students with several of the previously discussed issues, increasing students’ access to and knowledge of information about the transfer process. Moreover, exposure of community college students to faculty and advisors at 4-year institutions and the associated support they receive from these agents has been found to be positively associated with vertical transfer (Fay et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2021). Yet, national data from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (2018) indicated that half of returning community college students never utilized transfer advising and planning services while enrolled at their institution. There are benefits for students who do engage with these services though, as students who met with a transfer advisor reported overall higher levels of engagement (e.g., student-faculty interaction, interaction with and effort exerted toward coursework and learning, and more) with the institution (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2018). Despite gains associated with advisor interactions, challenges to sustaining such relationships exist, particularly as advising offices are often short-staffed (Szelenyi & Chang, 2002). Additionally, students may need support from staff that requires additional time and expertise, particularly with completing financial aid applications and other documents, such as visa- and immigration-related forms for international students (Szelenyi & Chang, 2002). As advising is an especially notable component of transfer, consequently, poor academic advising is an impediment to student mobility (Gard et al., 2012; Wang, 2020). In terms of what forms of advising have been found to be most useful to students, pre- and post-transfer community college students in Allen et al.’s (2013) research indicated that they wanted “advisors to assist them in connecting their academic, career, and life goals to each other and to choices in their major or program of study” (p. 340). Additionally, transfer-intending students at community colleges have indicated a desire for advisors to help them with curating and making sense of information about transfer,

496

C. Hartman

including how courses will transfer and articulate into the receiving institution’s degree curriculums and what degree plans align with their academic and professional goals (Schudde et al., 2021a; Yücel et al., 2022). For example, transfer-intending students at community colleges may have difficulty accessing and navigating information about transfer from institutional resources, including college or university websites and/or relevant policy documents, like articulation agreements (Schudde et al., 2020). Additionally, while advisors have been described as crucial forms of support at community colleges, students may still encounter unhelpful information provided to students by academic advisors, unclear program or transfer maps, and confusing policies associated with degree completion (Schudde et al., 2021a, 2021b). Purposeful, timely, and accurate accounts of transfer-related information may be especially impactful for racially/ethnically minoritized students, as Crisp et al. (2020b) found that these learners are more likely to transfer earlier than their peers, often leaving community colleges without an associate degree or other credential. These findings have implications for support staff and point to opportunities for researchers to uncover how advisors can better help students navigate and understand transfer policies. In addition, advising, particularly at community colleges, may also not be as beneficial for racially/ethnically marginalized students as it is for White students. For example, Bahr (2008) examined data related to transfer-intending, first-time in college freshmen enrolled in California community colleges, seeking to understand the effects that institutional advising has on students’ likelihood of transferring to 4-year schools. Study results showed that while the number of Hispanic students enrolled in college increased, there was a decrease in positive effects of advising for these students; this finding did not indicate that advising was harmful for Hispanics but, rather, that they did not benefit from these institutional services as much as White students did (Bahr, 2008). Further, advisors may also be insensitive to cross-cultural differences and may not know how to respond to the unique needs and goals of students (Zhang, 2016). Considering the shifting demographics of community college students (which indicate an increase in the enrollment of Hispanic or Latino/a/x and students less than 18 years of age, likely dually enrolled students [American Association of Community Colleges, 2019]), institutional policies may need to be adjusted in terms of their articulated responses to and support for those students who intend to transfer. Examples of such policies may include reexamining and addressing issues that emerge around forms of classroom instruction and learning, course placement policies, and English language proficiency exams (Bunch et al., 2011; Llosa & Bunch, 2011). In addition, the sequence of developmental education and English as a Second Language courses (Hodara, 2015) can pose additional hurdles to students’ progress, as these courses often do not transfer and/or count for credit at both 4-year schools (Crisp & Delgado, 2014).

Exploring Students’ Post-transfer Experiences at the Receiving Institution Challenges persist across the transfer pipeline and can be seen post-transfer as vertical and horizontal transfers transition into their receiving institution (Flaga, 2006; Santiago & Stettner, 2013; Townsend & Wilson, 2006). A notable challenge that students

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

497

face upon transfer is the loss of academic credit and/or the inapplicability of previously earned credit toward major or degree requirements at their receiving institution (Laanan, 2007); this can result in students having to repeat courses, prolonging progress toward completion of their bachelor’s degrees. Institutional services (or lack thereof) can also impact students’ adjustment (Laanan et al., 2010) and academic progress (Melguizo et al., 2011; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). Recent data from the National Survey of Transfer Student Initiatives from the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition (which included a focus on pre- and post-transfer supports) indicated that most colleges and universities offer at least one transfer-related initiative, service, or program for students (Hartman & Mayo, 2022). While this finding is promising for transfer success, it begs the following questions, among others: what kind of transfer services are available, and in what ways do these initiatives actually support students? Such inquiries are significant for researchers and practitioners to grapple with, as institutions have been found to lack potentially helpful resources for transfer students (Roberts et al., 2019), including asset-based mentoring experiences (Crisp et al., 2020a) and social support opportunities (Hernández et al., 2017), especially those for racially and ethnically marginalized students. These resources and others may be associated with helping transfer/transfer-intending students develop a sense of belonging to campus (Blaney & Barrett, 2021), and support impacts on students’ satisfaction with their decisions to transfer and desire to remain at the receiving institution (Pedler et al., 2022). Insufficient institutional support for transfers can have consequences on their success (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). If students do not have resources that aid their academic and social transitions, their persistence toward their educational goals may falter (Melguizo et al., 2011). Facilitating impactful services requires institutional agents to engage in activities that allow them to understand students’ experiences during their transitions. If such reflection and assessment is not practiced, these actions may contribute to a non-transfer receptive culture, meaning that there are weak or nonexistent structures and commitments designed to recognize and validate transfer students and their educational choices and improve students’ transitions (Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Jain et al., 2011). Further, negative experiences that transfer students have with the transfer process, including interactions with institutional agents (including faculty, staff, and peers) and their environments, may lead them to believe that their institutions are unreceptive to their needs, that they do not matter to faculty and staff and their institutions overall (Núñez & Yoshimi, 2016), and that they are different from and less worthy than their non-transfer peers (Castro & Cortez, 2016). In the sections below, I further discuss students’ post-transfer experiences by highlighting several consistently discussed concepts in the existing transfer-related literature that have been found to play a role in students’ experiences and success broadly.

Transfer Shock The “transfer shock” phenomenon is a frequently discussed concept related to students’ post-transfer academic performance (Eggleston & Laanan, 2001; Hills, 1965). Prior research has indicated that transfers, particularly those from community

498

C. Hartman

colleges, may experience “transfer shock,” or distress as they encounter a new environment and culture (Townsend & Wilson, 2006). Most often, transfer shock is evidenced through dips in students’ academic performance, specifically through their GPAs, a measure frequently used in research and practice to be a measure of students’ academic integration (Kuh et al., 2006). Declines in GPA may also result in faculty doubting transfer students’ potential to be successful. More broadly, transfer shock could be indicative of potential misalignment between their expectations and performance upon transferring to the receiving institution (Eggleston & Laanan, 2001; Hills, 1965). Transfer shock has been found to abate after students spend some time adjusting to the receiving institution (D’Amico et al., 2014). Additionally, transfer shock may be more prevalent among transfers studying certain academic majors, including math and science programs (Cejda et al., 1998). While Townsend et al. (1993) indicated that transfer shock may be a crucial reason contributing to why students do not graduate with a bachelor’s degree, more recent examinations of students’ adjustment and transfer shock indicated that students might not actually undergo this distress and/or continue to persist toward graduation at rates comparable to non-transfer students (Glynn, 2019; Melguizo et al., 2011; Xu et al., 2018). Additionally, transfer shock traditionally has not been inclusive of the multiple forms of turmoil students may face as they transition into their new institutional contexts, including difficulties they may encounter with making peer connections, finding community, and identifying supportive faculty, all of which can impact students’ academic adjustment (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming). For example, Solis and Durán’s (2022) examination of Latinx community college transfers’ transitions to a research-intensive university indicated that students’ expectations of academic rigor, the structure of the academic year (i.e., the use of a quarter system vs. semester), and students’ perceptions of the helpfulness of their faculty factored into the distress students felt and the damage to their mental and physical health they experienced. There is also a considerable amount of variation in the types of shock felt and the duration of these forms among the transfer student population. While most previous examinations of transfer shock have focused on the vertical transfer student experience (Hills, 1965; Townsend et al., 1993), horizontal transfer students may also feel such sensations. The experiences of these students are often overlooked though as practitioners may believe these transfer students are more knowledgeable and potentially more prepared for the transfer process (because they have already spent time in postsecondary education, albeit at a different 4-year school [Kurt-Kuwaye & Kurt-Kuwaye, 2007]). While the shock that horizontal transfers undergo is not necessarily specific to changes in academic success (as measured by GPA), it is related to students’ expectations upon transfer. For example, Kurt-Kuwaye and KurtKuwaye’s (2007) research revealed that despite having experiences in a 4-year college, some horizontal transfers described a “complete difference” (p. 17) in the environment and expectations of their receiving institutions. Some factors that contributed to this feeling included: differences in class sizes when comparing those of the previous and receiving institutions; variations in the availability of

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

499

and perceived interest in students among instructors; and new classroom experiences, including novel and unfamiliar content covered in discussions and pedagogical approaches instructors used to engage students. Ultimately, while research has indicated that both vertical and horizontal transfer students undergo some form of shock (Hills, 1965; Kurt-Kuwaye & Kurt-Kuwaye, 2007; Solis & Durán, 2022; Townsend et al., 1993), as broadly defined by distress associated with navigating a new institutional environment, traditional measures (including examining differences in students’ GPA when compared to their pre-transfer performance) may not be most comprehensive or indicative of the forms of distress they actually experience. Without additional data and evidence, such as qualitative data (e.g., Kurt-Kuwaye & Kurt-Kuwaye, 2007; Solis & Durán, 2022), that substantiate why students’ academic performance may differ after transfer or why students may not persist, GPA alone can no longer serve as a primary indicator of students’ experiences (Hurtado, 2007). Instead, being attentive to the multiple and often confounding feelings, perceptions, and stress students undergo during their transitions (including differences in students’ expectations versus their realities and impacts on their overall mental health) can be a way to illuminate a more holistic picture of students’ state of being and their adjustment, which will be explored in the following section.

Students’ Adjustment, Integration, and Engagement Across both vertical and horizontal forms of transfer, students have been found to undergo some form of readjustment upon entering their receiving institutions. For community college transfer students, differences in the curriculum and expectations misaligning with reality (Lukszo & Hayes, 2020; Townsend & Wilson, 2006) have been found to contribute to this. Transfer also introduces horizontal transfer students to a new environment with processes, resources (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Kurt-Kuwaye & Kurt Kuwaye, 2007), and cultures with which they may be unfamiliar (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012), despite having some prior experience and knowledge of postsecondary settings. In response to the challenges posed by this orientation to the new institution, research and practice have frequently advocated for the examination of students’ adjustment by tending to the concepts of integration and engagement. While interrelated, these concepts are distinct, as Bahr et al. (2013) and Wolf-Wendel et al. (2009) noted in their respective systematic reviews of existing literature. To start, engagement can be defined as “the amount of time and effort students put into their studies and other activities that lead to the experiences and outcomes that constitute student success” and also “how institutions of higher education allocate their human and other resources and organize learning opportunities and services to encourage students to participate in and benefit from such activities” (Wolf-Wendel et al., 2009, p. 412). Integration considers students’ departure from a previous space (e.g., former postsecondary institutions) and their transitions into the environment and culture of the new (or receiving) institution and its associated community and culture. Frequently, integration is conceptualized socially

500

C. Hartman

(through “personal affiliation”) and intellectually (through the “sharing of values”) (Wolf-Wendel et al., 2009, p. 414). In the subsections below, I review prior research that has sought to understand how engagement and integration have been measured and understood among transfers, particularly as these concepts are associated with multiple educational outcomes, including students’ satisfaction (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Zhang et al., 2018), retention (Tinto, 1975, 1993), and progress (as measured through persistence and momentum) (Ishitani, 2008; Wang, 2017, 2020) toward transfer and degree completion (Bahr, 2008; Karp et al., 2010; Pascarella et al., 1996).

Integrating into a New Environment Throughout the transition process to the receiving institution, transfers are faced with multiple forms of adjustment, notably to their new environment and its associated norms and culture through integration (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Tinto, 1993). As a part of integration, transfers must interact with institutional agents and peers. These connections are important, as relationships with staff both pre- and posttransfer, particularly among community college transfers, have been found to be influential in students’ progress and in their development of knowledge about institutional support resources (Schudde et al., 2021a; Smith et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2021). Other useful interactions that support students’ integration include peer connections, such as those that encourage networking for academic and career success (Deil-Amen, 2011; Rios-Aguilar & Deil-Amen, 2012) and that students perceive as being relevant to themselves (Tinto, 1993), and support from faculty, staff, and other institutional agents, such as meaningful and supportive interactions inside and outside of the classroom (Tinto, 1993) and the validation and mentorship students receive from these relationships (Crisp et al., 2020a; Rendón, 1994). These and other forms of engagement (often determined by the frequency of students’ interactions with institutional staff and services, the amount of time and effort they put toward school-related work and activities, and their satisfaction with the institution, staff, and faculty) can help support integration, or transfer students’ connectedness to and incorporation into their receiving institution. Integration traditionally has been bifurcated into academic or social forms, but these conceptualizations may not be most representative of transfer students’ integration. Instead, Deil-Amen (2011) advocated for understanding and utilizing socio-academic integration as a way to explore how students (particularly community college students) become a part of the institution. Socio-academic integrative moments was defined as a way “to describe opportunities for specific instances of interaction in which components of social and academic integration are simultaneously combined” (Deil-Amen, 2011, p. 72). Lester et al. (2013) identified some examples of this, as they found that community college students tended to use classroom spaces as opportunities to engage both academically and socially while at their 4-year school. This behavior was in large part due to students’ prior patterns of engagement at their community college, where commuting to campus and interacting in classrooms were their primary forms of engagement. These activities were due to students’ multiple responsibilities and identities that impacted their ability and desire to interact; some

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

501

of these roles and identities included working for pay, being a parent, and/or a student older than peers (typically inclusive of those over the age of 24). As part of the integration process, transfers are expected to eventually become a part of the campus community by engaging in norms and expectations specific to the institution. Students’ expectations can play a role in this process and impact their desire to interact with institutional services, actors, and peers. Specifically, Laanan (2007) found that if community college transfer students held negative perceptions of their receiving 4-year institution, they were more likely to experience poor academic adjustment to the institution. Subsequently, students’ post-transfer GPAs and their self-confidence in their intellectual abilities were also found to influence and be influenced by students’ integration (Laanan, 2007). Ultimately, successful vertical transfer students were identified as those who interacted with the campus through participation in campus organizations and activities with peers, supporting their transitions and incorporation into the institutional culture (Laanan, 2007). Similarly, social integration has been identified as a positive factor in horizontal transfer students’ degree completion (Li, 2010). Ishitani and Flood’s (2018) work also revealed social integration (including students’ participation in cocurricular activities with peers) and academic integration (as evidenced by students’ GPAs) as important to the reduction in the likelihood of students’ horizontally transferring. It is important to note that existing conceptualizations of integration may be problematic for transfers, especially considering the mounting evidence that students experience institutional neglect (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). For instance, Laanan’s (2007) research indicated that students’ demographic and background characteristics were not found to be predictors of their adjustment to the receiving institution, indicating that their success was more likely to be associated with “what the student does once he/she arrives,” which would “determine the extent to which a successful adjustment experience will be achieved” (p. 55). Yet, upon transfer, students may find that they are excluded, implicitly and explicitly from events and spaces, which can reinforce feelings of marginalization; this outsider status is particularly evident if transfers are not invited to and/or included in campus welcoming events (e.g., convocation) and academic engagement and support opportunities (including studying abroad, financial aid and scholarships, and/or undergraduate research) (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). These and other instances of disadvantage against transfers contribute to what Solis and Durán (2022) called a “transfer tax,” or the burden and slights that students are faced to undergo because of their transfer status (p. 56). Specifically, a “transfer tax” is exacerbated by feelings of lost or limited time at their receiving institution; little or no information about social and academic norms and engagement opportunities on campus; a perceived lack of care and attention from institutional staff to transfers; and course enrollment and transfer credit and articulation policies, including those that require students to retake coursework at the receiving institution (Solis & Durán, 2022). Students may also experience a stigma associated with being a transfer student if they are met with judgment and negative responses upon sharing with others that they are transfers (Laanan et al., 2010), especially if they transfer from a community college (Shaw et al., 2019), which can impact any sense of pride associated with being a transfer

502

C. Hartman

student (Jain et al., 2017). Additionally, if students do not receive helpful advising services during the transfer process (Bahr, 2008) or encounter advisors who are culturally insensitive (Zhang, 2016), their adjustment could be negatively impacted in multiple ways, including academically and socially (which could subsequently impact students’ persistence toward their educational goals).

Engagement Among Transfer Students In an attempt to understand student persistence and transfer, prior research has explored and identified student engagement, or the energy and effort exerted toward activities and interactions with others on campus, as a key factor associated with student success (Astin, 1993a, 1993b; Bahr, 2008; Braxton et al., 2004; Karp et al., 2010; Pascarella et al., 1996). For example, engagement with institutional services offered at the community college is related to persistence and momentum (Wang, 2017, 2020) toward transfer and degree completion (Bahr, 2008; Karp et al., 2010; Pascarella et al., 1996). To this end, students who report greater campus connectivity, engage with staff, peers, and support services, and actively put forth effort in their coursework are more likely to be satisfied with their decisions to transfer (including vertical and horizontal transfer students [Zhang et al., 2018]) and persist toward their educational goals more often than students who do not (Braxton et al., 2004). Meaningful connections between transfers and their institutions are important, as previous research has demonstrated that engagement can be positively associated with students’ intentions to transfer (Hartman et al., 2021; Wood & Palmer, 2013, 2016) and their academic success (Fauria & Fuller, 2015). Some examples of such interactions include those that enable students to feel that they belong and matter, including when faculty or staff greet them on campus, talk to them about their interests, and engage with them meaningfully outside of the classroom (Núñez & Yoshimi, 2016; Rendón, 1994). There are several models used to explore and explain undergraduate student engagement. Astin’s (1993a, 1993b) input-environment-outcome (I-E-O) framework is often used to understand the effort that learners exert in educational spaces and how investment positively impacts persistence toward degree completion. The IE-O model evaluates the input (I) variables that students bring with them to an institution, like sociodemographic characteristics and desire to transfer. Engagement (E), including faculty interactions, investment in schoolwork and learning, and utilization of support services, then affects how the input variables interact with each other and what outputs (O) are produced, including transfer to a 4-year school. Existing transfer-related studies that have utilized the I-E-O framework have identified the positive impact of social integration on African American community college males’ satisfaction with and retention at community colleges (which has ramifications for their potential transfer to 4-year institutions [Strayhorn, 2012b]), the effects of engagement in study abroad opportunities on community college transfer to 4-year institutions (Whatley & González Canché, 2022), and even the negative association students’ transfer status has had on their self-perceived academic knowledge and personal development (including analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, communication in the form of writing and reading, and

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

503

interpersonal interactions and understandings [Mu & Fosnacht, 2019]). Ultimately, while these studies indicate that engagement may be promising for transfer- and student success-related outcomes, these effects are not universally positive, and students’ transfer status may actually complicate potential benefits. Traditional approaches to involvement and engagement have primarily focused on actions enacted by students and do not necessarily capture the influence of the environment and institution. Tinto’s (1975, 1993) model of student departure has also been used as a framework for researchers seeking to understand the relationships that exist among integration, engagement, persistence, and retention (Dougherty & Kienzl, 2006; Greene et al., 2008; Nora & Rendon, 1990). The length of time that transfers have been enrolled in their receiving institutions (Ishitani, 2008) and their engagement in educational activities that support academic and social integration can aid with persistence. Specifically, Dougherty and Kienzl (2006) determined through an analysis of nationally representative data that community college students’ participation in a study group with peers was positively related to vertical transfer, indicating the benefits of social and academic integration on student outcomes. However, racially/ethnically marginalized students may not reap the same benefits from engagement as White students. For instance, in their study, Greene et al. (2008) identified that Black students engaged more frequently in preparing for class, working on assignments, and applying critical thinking and analysis skills, yet they did not experience the same gains in terms of earned course grades and passing of developmental and gateway courses, which are necessary to achieve in order to vertically transfer. In addition, Zhang et al. (2018) found that horizontal and vertical transfer students who do not identify as White were less likely to be satisfied with their decisions to transfer. An “effort-outcome gap” (Greene et al., 2008, p. 529) or one in which students find that they have to exert greater effort into learning in order to succeed may exist, and this gap could be the result of institutional barriers and unwelcoming campus climates (Jain et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018). Ultimately, the work of Tinto and other scholars on student retention indicates that students who are more integrated into the academic and social spheres of their campuses are more likely to be successful than students who do not interact. While Tinto’s model may speak more to integration, there is much overlap between integration and engagement, as these terms describe how students interpret and follow the norms, expectations, and rules of an institution (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Tinto, 1993). Further, the role of institutional actors, their commitment to and expectations of student success, and associated policies, leadership, and initiatives (Tinto & Pusser, 2006) cannot be ignored, especially considering the role these factors play in the reproduction of structural and institutional inequities. Ultimately, existing frameworks, such as Tinto’s (1993), enforce the idea that engagement and integration affect students’ intentions and efforts and vice versa; either way, interaction with and adjustment to an institution is linked to persistence (Eddy et al., 2006). In addition to Greene et al.’s (2008) findings related to the effort-outcome gap, other critiques have questioned the effectiveness of using previous conceptualizations of engagement for understanding community college students. Some researchers have suggested that historical conceptions of engagement may be an inappropriate way to

504

C. Hartman

explore engagement among systematically minoritized students (Crisp & Núñez, 2014; Nora, 2004). Specifically, Nora’s (2004) student/institutional engagement model has been used by researchers like Crisp and Núñez (2014) to challenge the lack of focus on diversity in Tinto’s model by arguing that existing models privilege White norms. As Castro and Cortez (2016) noted, “dominant notions of engagement in postsecondary education reflect White middle-class assumptions and values” (p. 85). Further, findings from Nora (2004) and Crisp and Núñez (2014) suggested that systematically minoritized students have distinct needs for engagement. The lack of attention to the unique needs of marginalized learners reinforces the need for additional research that explores the behaviors and needs of students, including the sort of supports on campus that would facilitate increased transfer, retention, and satisfaction of these students. In addition, systematically minoritized students may not reap the same benefits from institutional forms of engagement when compared to their peers (Greene et al., 2008). Such differences may be the result of institutional environments, as students encounter culturally and/or linguistically insensitive instructors and campus climates (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). More significantly, racially/ethnically minoritized transfer students have encountered racism across institutional types. Students may also experience isolation within classroom settings as the result of being one of or the only person of color in their classes (Jain et al., 2017). Sensations resulting from an unwelcoming campus climate toward students of color and blatant instances of racism, including being racially profiled by members of the campus police force (Jain et al., 2017), also have indelible and deleterious effects on students’ adjustment and belonging. These events also contribute to “an additional racial dimension of transfer shock,” (Jain et al., 2017, p. 180), to which institutional agents may be ill-equipped to support and blasé in their responses to. Given evidence around sociodemographic variation in the effects of engagement (Castro & Cortez, 2016; Crisp & Núñez, 2014; Nora, 2004), racially/ethnically marginalized students may encounter increased challenges, often posed by institutional actors (Tinto & Pusser, 2006), and, as such, their engagement and progress toward transfer may diminish. Overwhelmingly, studies have shown that institutions may not understand and recognize transfer students’ unique forms of engagement (Deil-Amen, 2011; Lester et al., 2013; McCormick et al., 2009). Characteristics that have been found to be positively associated with transfer include full-time enrollment status, having friends who attend college and/or are supportive of students’ going to college, having a high college GPA, and earning an associate degree prior to transferring (Eddy et al., 2006). All of these factors involve or require some form of participation from students (e.g., studying, attending class, completing assignments) in learning activities at their institutions. Yet, data from the National Survey of Student Engagement has revealed a “transfer deficit” (McCormick et al., 2009, p. 22), in which transfers were found to be less likely than their non-transfer peers to engage in educational and social activities at their institutions, including interactions with faculty, highimpact educational practices, academic advising, and peers. This “deficit” may instead indicate a mismatch between occasions for engagement provided by the colleges and universities and those that transfer students want to and actually do pursue, as research has shown that transfers, particularly those coming from

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

505

community colleges, may not interact in the same ways as non-transfer students (Lester et al., 2013). Examples of engagement include transfers participating in activities and maintaining relationships off-campus, such as through spending time with their families and children and/or working for pay; these interactions may be more frequent among students commuting to campus, those who live off-campus, and/or part-time enrolled students (Deil-Amen, 2011; Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Ishitani & McKitrick, 2010; McLester et al., 2013). Additionally, because of the multiple nonstudent commitments and roles many transfer students hold, many of these students (particularly vertical transfers) blur the lines between social and academic engagement and utilize time spent in classes as their primary means for interactions with peers, faculty, and staff, creating socio-academically integrated experiences (Deil-Amen, 2011; Wang et al., 2021). In addition to distinct forms of engagement among the overall transfer student population, research (e.g., Kurt-Kwuaye & Kurt-Kwuaye, 2007) has also shown differences in interactions among horizontal and vertical transfers. Horizontal transfer students engaged more frequently than vertical transfers in student-faculty interactions and less frequently in the following factors: active and collaborative learning; maintaining relationships with students, faculty, and staff; and participating in co-curricular activities. One might assume that distinct actions and participation may perhaps be the result of differences in age between horizontal and vertical transfers; considering the average age of a community college student is 27 years, vertical transfers could more likely be considered adult learners (American Association of Community Colleges, 2022) and potentially less likely to engage in multiple campus activities (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming). However, transfer shock and adjustment are important factors to consider when interpreting these findings, as Kurt-Kwuaye and Kurt-Kwuaye (2007) indicated that “because vertical transfer students expected their new campus to be different, they were more prepared to make the effort to adjust” (p. 23) whereas horizontal transfers may “[think] little about how their campus might be different from their previous ones” (p. 24). In addition to expectations and adjustment, student and faculty interactions have appeared to be a significantly impactful form of engagement among both horizontal (York & Fernandez, 2018) and vertical transfers (Moser, 2013). Among vertical transfer students, data from the National Survey of Student Engagement has shown that student-faculty relationships can facilitate student participation in high-impact and engagement-oriented practices, such as research opportunities, service-learning, internships, and capstone experiences (Zilvinskis & Dumford, 2018). Ultimately, distinct forms of engagement illustrate that transfers require support initiatives and objectives tailored specifically to their strengths and needs.

Momentum Engagement may also be related to students’ momentum, or forward direction toward educational goals, including transfer and degree attainment (Adelman, 2006; Wang, 2017, 2020), particularly in STEM-related academic programs (Wang

506

C. Hartman

2015, 2017, 2020). Students’ interactions with educational activities can help them meet certain academic milestones, including passing gateway courses and earning a substantive amount of academic credit, which can subsequently lead to their successful transfer (Lin et al., 2020); these findings are particularly salient for Black and Hispanic or Latina/o/x students, indicating that the achievement of momentum markers has implications for the advancement of equitable outcomes (Belfield et al., 2019). In her systematic review of existing momentum literature, Wang (2017) indicated that research has approached momentum in a variety of ways, and some of these conceptualizations may or may not comprehensively consider students’ engagement and its association with transfer. Students’ academic intensity is one way of thinking about momentum, and this approach focuses on students’ credit load per semester, particularly for the first year of college (e.g., Adelman, 2006), their enrollment intensity (i.e., whether or not they remained continuously enrolled; e.g., Bahr, 2013), or students’ full- or part-time or mixed attendance (e.g., Crosta, 2014). The premise behind intensity-based momentum is that students who are enrolled continuously and full-time are more likely to complete degrees and transfer than students who are not (Wang, 2017). An additional conception of momentum is a milestone-based approach (Belfield et al., 2016). Through this approach, momentum is captured by student completion of certain academic milestones, such as developmental education courses or portions of academic degree programs (as determined by the number of credits accumulated). For example, findings from Calcagno et al. (2007) indicated that completion of a certain proportion of a degree program increased students’ likelihood of earning a credential at the community college. Later work by Roska and Calcagno (2010) yielded similar findings, noting that achieving certain milestones, such as earning an associate degree, passing college-level math and English classes, and credit accumulation, were positively associated with vertical transfer to 4-year schools. For some students, having to complete required developmental English and ESL course sequences further exacerbate the transfer gap (Hodara, 2015), as students often do not complete these classes and persist toward college-level courses (Bailey et al., 2010; Hagedorn & Prather, 2006). In addition to intensity- and milestone-based approaches, pattern-based approaches to momentum exist (Wang, 2017), which involve using students’ academic transcripts to determine their course taking, program enrollment, and attendance patterns and how patterns across these areas impact their momentum (but not necessarily to success outcomes). As a concept, Wang (2017) indicated that momentum should encompass several factors that may impact students’ progression, including institutional policies or actions, environmental pulls, and individual characteristics. In addition, elements of the pre-transfer student experience (e.g., at the community college) may be missing from prior momentum models, including students’ engagement in teaching and learning activities in classroom spaces (e.g., as Deil-Amen, (2011) and Lester et al. (2013) discovered). As such, Wang created a theoretical model that added several additional factors to understanding momentum in order to advance a holistic understanding of momentum beyond students’ achievement of particular milestones and the intensity of their course taking. To consider the needs of community college

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

507

students and students’ future plans (including transfer), Wang’s model includes multiple engagement elements, such as: students’ precollege motivational factors, classroom experiences, and enrollment patterns and intensity. These factors are categorized into three domains: teaching/learning, curricular, and motivational. Indicators of momentum within the teaching/learning domain are associated with students’ ability to master and apply content, such as through active and collaborative learning. This momentum domain may be particularly important for community college students seeking to transfer, as Wang acknowledged that the majority of student engagement within the college context takes place in classrooms (as discussed in Deil-Amen’s (2011) work on “socio-academic moments”). The second domain, motivational momentum, describes students’ persistence, aspirations, and mindset as they engage at their community college. Lastly, the curriculum momentum domain is associated with students’ course and program alignment with their goals and whether they are actively completing degree program requirements; Wang measured this through students’ enrollment status (i.e., full- or part-time or mixed attendance) and their enrollment intensity (whether they are continuously enrolled each semester or quarter). In addition to the three momentum areas, “other forces” (Wang, 2017, p. 289) may impact students’ progression, including familial obligations and life events impacting their decisions and enrollment. Also, “counter momentum friction” (Wang, 2017, p. 289) can hinder progress, and examples of this include multiple institutional barriers, including financial aid-related issues, poor or inadequate advising, and unclear degree alignment or pathways. Lastly, students’ “carry-over” momentum – the aspirations and prior academic experiences and knowledge that they bring with them into college – can also relate to students’ persistence (Wang, 2017, p. 282). The links between momentum and student progress, including toward transfer, underscore the important roles that comprise engagement: commitment from the student toward their education and the purposeful and relevant support that institutions provide for students during their transitions.

Sense of Belonging Sense of belonging has been identified as a concept that is related to a myriad of benefits for students and gains across multiple outcomes (Mallett et al., 2011), including students’ academic performance (Ostrove & Long, 2007), persistence (Hausmann et al., 2007), and social connectiveness (Walton & Cohen, 2007). Sense of belonging is defined as how students identify with their institution (Hurtado & Carter, 1997), the ways in which they perceive whether they are connected and matter to their campus community, and if students believe that others on campus perceive them to be valuable members of the institution (Strayhorn, 2012a). In regard to its use, Tinto (1993) advocated that a sense of belonging could be a substitute for integration, as the latter term has been criticized for perpetuating assimilation, exclusion, and segregation. Hurtado (2007) argued that sense of belonging is actually a step beyond integration, as it describes transitions into the receiving institutions, adaptions of the values and norms of campus, and supports movement toward “perceived social

508

C. Hartman

cohesion” (or the relationships students foster with campuses and people within the environment; p. 98). The meaning-making that students engage in with others and the campus can enhance their connections and affinity to the institution and their desire to engage in educational and social activities, which may support students’ retention (Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado & Carter, 1997). Despite its importance and relation to postsecondary student success, few prior studies have examined how transfer students specifically develop a sense of belonging. As previously indicated, studies have used transfers’ integration and engagement as ways to understand how students made sense of their transitions and their connections with their receiving institutions (e.g., Lester et al., 2013). Relatedly, York and Fernandez (2018) indicated that service-learning opportunities could serve as ways to facilitate sense of belonging among vertical and horizontal transfers into the new environment of their receiving institutions. In their analysis, York and Fernandez conceptualized sense of belonging through a construct created by the Diverse Learning Environments Survey from the Higher Education Research Institute, which included the following items: I feel that I am a member of the campus community; I see myself as a part of the campus community; and I feel a sense of belonging to my campus. Service-learning was found to be positively associated with students’ sense of belonging, and there were no statistically significant differences between findings across transfer types. The gains that York and Fernandez (2018) observed were likely the result of the increased opportunities for students to interact with faculty and the critically and social justice-oriented pedagogy of these courses, underscoring the importance of classroom spaces as sites of connection for transfer students (Deil-Amen, 2011; Lester et al., 2013). In addition, research from Andrade (2018) pointed to the importance of campus physical spaces and people who occupy these spaces as influential in Latina/o community college transfer students’ comfort with and belonging to their receiving institution. Campus spaces can present opportunities for students to meet with and form and/or strengthen relationships with peers, recharge, and focus, and engage in academically oriented activities (such as studying and visiting laboratories and other places relevant to their major of study), as Andrade (2018) discovered. Campuses that do not provide institutional services and spaces for transfer students can perpetuate unequal and inequitable policies and practices; transfers that encounter these challenges may believe that they are less worthy than and not as important as their non-transfer peers (Castro & Cortez, 2016; Ishitani & McKitrick, 2010) and that they do not matter to faculty and staff (Núñez & Yoshimi, 2016). As a result, transfer students can experience disconnection from their institutions. Feelings of isolation, diminished sense of belonging, and decreased engagement in educational activities may be more pronounced among systematically minoritized transfer students, particularly if staff and faculty are unsupportive and services are irrelevant to their needs (Ishitani & McKitrick, 2010; Solis & Durán, 2022). Ultimately, if students believe that they are not supported during their transitions and that they are not valued members of their institution’s community, their connectedness to their institution may flounder (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Strayhorn, 2012a), which can impact persistence toward their educational goals (Melguizo et al., 2011).

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

509

Given the role of institutions and associated agents on transfer students’ connectedness to the receiving college or university, there is a need to explore the role of campus services on students’ sense of belonging. As previously discussed, extant research has indicated that transfer students can experience marginalization at their institutions (Jain et al., 2017; Tobowlowsky & Cox, 2012), which has been found to be negatively related to their adjustment (Laanan et al., 2010) and potentially their belonging. It would be worthwhile to critically examine the sense of belonging among subpopulations of transfer students, including among systematically minoritized students. As Stokes (2021) pointedly begged: why do institutions continue to advocate for the importance of a sense of belonging if agents, environments, and initiatives may actually be more harmful than helpful to systematically minoritized students? This question is especially significant to consider within the historical context of higher education, as many of these spaces were initially conceptualized as means to exclude such students (Ray, 2019). The question of what a sense of belonging may look like for transfer students is also important to reflect upon and answer when considering the racial/ethnic composition of the transfer and transfer-intending student population (Shapiro et al., 2018), the racial transfer gap (Crisp & Núñez, 2014), and the multiple forms of institutional neglect the literature has indicated that transfers encounter (Jain et al., 2011; Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012). Relatedly, questions about sense of belonging also call to light associated concepts and frameworks, including imposter phenomenon. Tachine (2022) noted that imposter syndrome has roots in Whiteness, and, subsequently, is dismissive of structures that reinforce feelings of a lack of belonging and community, including racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. Further, the use of the word “syndrome” can perpetuate the pathologizing of imposterism as something that begins and metastasizes within the individual; yet, feeling different from others and experiencing a lack of belonging instead stems from the constant and consistent signals from contextual forces and people, and these messages can reinforce sensations among students that they do not belong. Instead of using imposter phenomenon as a way to understand students’ disconnection, Tachine (2022) noted that students may instead face a superiority syndrome complex, through which peers, institutional agents, and campus spaces may reinforce hegemony, power, and Whiteness, and this can extend to the transfer student experience (Castro & Cortez, 2016). Bolstering transfer students’ sense of belonging requires an institutional commitment to providing transfers through tailored asset-based support (Jain et al., 2020; Jain et al., 2011). The efforts of faculty, staff, and leaders are even more crucial now in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has unearthed and exacerbated multiple disparities that impact transfers’ well-being and sense of belonging, including food and housing insecurity, financial uncertainty, lack of access to technology and internet resources, and increased familial caretaking responsibilities (Fishman & Nguyen, 2021). Additionally, with transitions to virtual instruction and interaction, transfers have likely spent a significant portion of their academic and social activities online, during which they may have struggled with developing an affinity and connection to their institutions, feeling as though they have lost valuable time to

510

C. Hartman

do so (Smith, 2021). Transfers have also experienced multiple psychosocial barriers associated with virtual transitions during the pandemic, including heightened feelings of loneliness and lack of motivation to engage academically and socially (Cepeda et al., 2021). Combined, these may reinforce beliefs among transfers that they may not belong to their campus community.

Transfer Student Identity Transfer student identity is another emerging concept associated with students’ interactions, experiences, and success. This concept can broadly be understood as how students associate with being a transfer student and how this affiliation relates to their sense of self (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Núñez & Yoshimi, 2016; Rodriguez & Kerrigan, 2019). Rodriguez and Kerrigan (2019) explored the experiences of community college transfer students and found that their identities were informed by their academic intentions, the campus culture and environment, and family and peer relationships. While on campus, several students reported showcasing a primarily academically driven “alter ego” (Rodriguez & Kerrigan, 2019, p. 463). As part of the adoption of this persona, students selected networking and cocurricular engagement activities that were related to accomplishing their degreeand career-related goals. It was through academically focused activities that students supported their academic and social integration. Managing multiple egos required students to utilize time management and organizational skills to balance their commitments and goals, which ultimately supported their academically driven on-campus identity. Recent research by Hartman and Mayo (Forthcoming) also explored transfer identity, specifically among both vertical and horizontal transfer students, finding that students in the study made meaning of transfer in multiple ways. For example, some crafted their transfer identity because of external factors, like selective university admissions rates for transfer students, and, as such, felt pride and accomplishment in being a transfer. Other students felt shame and disconnection with being a transfer, largely because they believed that their experiences were noticeably different (and lesser than) those of peers who had been enrolled at the institution since their first year of college. Another key finding from this work included that, when examining for differences across transfer types (i.e., vertical and horizontal forms), near parity in students’ forms of engagement at the receiving institution, satisfaction with their posttransfer experiences, and affiliations with transfer existed. There were, however, variations in narratives among post-traditional transfer students, a term that refers to students that higher education institutions have long considered to be “non-traditional” students (including those older than 24 years of age, working full time, and taking care of families; SHP, 2019). Several post-traditional and/or systematically minoritized students held multiple responsibilities and non-transfer identities (e.g., racially/ethnically marginalized students and/or those who identified as parents, veterans, caretakers, older than 24 years of age, and more). These other identities were more relevant to themselves and their self-concept and, ultimately, shaped the ways in which they

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

511

engaged with peers, faculty, and institutional initiatives after transferring. As such, several of these learners did not identify as transfer students, despite undergoing the transfer process. Also, students indicted that engagement in institutional supports and services was not necessary for them to achieve their academic goals, and the ways in which they did interact appeared to be associated with primarily a desire to succeed academically and connect with peers who shared similar non-transfer identities (including students over the age of 24 and fellow veterans). These findings align with those from prior studies (e.g., Deil-Amen, 2011; Lester et al., 2013; Rodriguez & Kerrigan, 2019; Townsend & Wilson, 2009) that showed that transfer students (particularly vertical transfers) tend to invest their time in activities that aligned with and supported their academic goals, maintaining a “transfer mentality” (Solis & Durán, 2022, p. 54) that plays a significant role in their engagement and integration at the receiving institution. In addition, regardless of the extent of their engagement, older transfer students (across both vertical and horizontal types) may be more likely to be satisfied with their receiving institution (Zhang et al., 2018), indicating that students’ goals and identities may play a greater role in their retention than their interactions with the institution. Intersectional approaches to understanding the experiences of transfer students have also highlighted the influence of race/ethnicity- and gender-related identities on transfer. For example, Rodriguez et al.’s (2021) research indicated that masculinity played a role in Latino men’s meaning-making process of their transfer experiences. Students utilized affinity groups, particularly those for men on campus, to help navigate and make sense of their intersectional identities and expectations (such as machismo, or masculine pride), which often limited them from seeking help with processes and steps they needed to undertake in order to successfully transfer. Ultimately, students’ personal, academic, and vocational goals along with their identities and other characteristics shape each other and can subsequently influence their engagement, connectedness to the institution, and understanding of themselves as transfer students.

Frameworks Used in Previous Research About Transfer Students’ Experiences Student transfer has been examined through several different lenses and methodological approaches. Within the last decade, multiple studies have provided information about the experiences of community college transfer students at receiving institutions. As mentioned, because of its importance to the mission of community colleges, vertical transfer often dominates transfer discourse, resulting in little information about other forms of transfer (Taylor & Jain, 2017). Subsequently, little attention has been paid to horizontal transfer students, leaving a significant gap in the literature about how the experiences of these particular transfers may be different than those moving vertically. In addition to the focus on vertical transfer, sociological approaches, including Tinto’s (1993) interactionist theory, have been frequently cited within student success literature at large (Kuh et al., 2006), seeking to understand how to

512

C. Hartman

support students’ persistence and retention. Sociological approaches may continue to be useful as the public and state legislators continue to demand accountability for community colleges (Cohen et al., 2013), largely in response to consistently low transfer and degree completion rates (Jenkins & Fink, 2016). Particularly, there is a need for sustained focus on the ways in which institutional and state-level policies perpetuate stratification and disproportionate achievement in educational outcomes (including transfer rates) and also how structural and institutional forces shape transfer (Schudde & Goldrick-Rab, 2015; Schudde et al., 2021a). Patterns related to the scope and methodologies of existing studies are also notable. Research has tended to focus on one end of the transfer pipeline in relation to students’ experiences, specifically as they prepare to transfer (e.g., Crisp et al., 2020a; Deil-Amen, 2011; Hartman et al., 2021; Greene et al., 2008; Padilla et al., 2019; Wood & Palmer, 2013, 2016) or after they successfully transfer (e.g., Castro & Cortez, 2016; D’Amico et al., 2014; Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Flaga, 2006; Ishitani & McKitrick, 2010; Laanan, 2004, 2007; Laanan et al., 2010; Lester et al., 2013; Lukszo & Hayes, 2020; McCormick et al., 2009; Moser, 2013; Rodriguez & Kerrigan, 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2021; Solis & Durán, 2022; York & Fernandez, 2018; Zhang & Ozuna, 2015; Zilvinskis and Dumford, 2018). Little work exists that tracks students longitudinally (Moser, 2013), including pre- and post-transfer during the vertical transfer process (e.g., Jabbar et al., 2017a, 2017b; Schudde et al., 2021a, 2021b; Wang, 2020; Wassmer et al., 2004; Yücel et al., 2022) and even less during the horizontal transfer process. Lastly, recent scholarship has highlighted the lack of asset-based approaches in transfer-related research (e.g., Jain et al., 2011; Jain et al., 2020). Calls for asset-based work advocate for research to build upon the wealth of knowledge that students bring with them throughout their educational journeys (Yosso, 2005) and the ways in which institutions and systemic forces impact students’ adjustment, satisfaction, and perceived belonging and purpose. Research on students’ progress through the transfer pipeline and toward their degree has begun to shift considerably in purpose and methods within the last decade. Pointedly, Bahr (2013) advocated for researchers to use deconstructive approaches to understand community college student success and transfer. The deconstructive view is a departure from input-output approaches (e.g., Astin’s [1993a, 1993b] I-E-O model), which tend to examine student outcomes and position these “as a function of students’ precollege or early-college characteristics (e.g., sex, age, race or ethnicity, placement test scores) that were measured at an initial enrollment or shortly after” (Bahr, 2013, p. 139). A crucial limitation of utilizing an input-output approach is that it does not describe how and why students progress in the ways that they do and the relationships between pathways and outcomes, which a deconstructive lens requires and seeks to illuminate. Bahr (2013) indicated several ways for quantitative and qualitative scholars to utilize this deconstructive approach. Within studies employing quantitative methods, researchers can examine transcript data to uncover students’ progress and steps toward degree completion and/or transfer. Qualitative studies may ask questions that seek to uncover how students navigate postsecondary and transfer pathways, what barriers they encounter along the way, and the role that their pathways play on their persistence, degree

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

513

completion, and transfer. Bahr noted that, at the time of publication of his article in 2013, “the fraction of research on community college students that is qualitative in nature is distressingly small” (p. 148), and the lack of in-depth information about students’ pathways impacts the ability of quantitative researchers to accurately and confidently understand why students’ pathways and success take the shape that they do. Since the time of Bahr’s (2013) writing, several qualitative studies on community college students’ experiences have been published that address this call, particularly those related to the vertical transfer experience (e.g., Castro & Cortez, 2016; Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Jabbar et al., 2017a, 2017b; Lester et al., 2013; Lukszo & Hayes, 2020; Padilla et al., 2019; Rodriguez & Kerrigan, 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2021; Schudde et al., 2021a, 2021b; Solis & Durán, 2022; Wang, 2020; Yücel et al., 2022; Zhang & Ozuna, 2015). Reviewing existing literature on the transitions and experiences of vertical and horizontal transfers with this notion of deconstruction in mind may aid in illuminating the successes and challenges students encounter toward bachelor’s degree completion and unearth new directions for future research that would expand upon this understanding. To this end, in the sections below, I highlight frameworks that hold promise in accomplishing this goal of expanding frameworks to study transfer and discuss the implications of these approaches for future research.

Transfer Student Capital Various forms of capital (e.g., social, cultural, transfer, and other forms) have also frequently served as frameworks within existing transfer student literature (Laanan et al., 2010; Moser, 2013; Lukszo & Hayes, 2020; Wang, 2017). One prominent theory is the transfer student capital framework, posited by Laanan et al., (2010). In short, transfer student capital encompasses the attitudes, knowledge, and methods used to navigate and make sense of the transfer process. Transfer student capital was used by Laanan et al., (2010) to build from existing research that highlighted the emergence of “transfer shock” (Hills, 1965) among community college transfers by examining the experiences of students both prior to and after transfer to a research university. By considering students’ background characteristics (including reasons for transferring and demographic information), pre-transfer experiences at their community college (including coursework and learning), their transfer capital (which includes students’ advising experiences, perceptions of their transitions and the transfer process to the receiving institution, interactions with faculty, and learning and study techniques), and their experiences post-transfer (encompassing students’ perspectives of faculty and learning, satisfaction with their receiving institution, and stigma encountered that is associated with being a transfer student), Laanan et al., (2010) created a model that encompassed a contextualized and more holistic approach to understanding the impact of these experiences and knowledge on students’ academic adjustment. Ultimately, transfer student capital has been found to have a positive influence on students’ academic adjustment upon transfer.

514

C. Hartman

Building from Laanan et al.’s (2010) work, Moser (2013) added factors to the transfer student capital framework, creating the Moser Transfer Student Capital Construct, which included: motivation and self-efficacy; academic counseling experiences; learning and study skills at the community college; informal contact and also formal collaboration with faculty at the community college; and financial knowledge. Moser (2013) found three forms of transfer student capital predicted community college transfer students’ GPAs: “formal collaboration and informal contact with faculty at the community college and student motivation/self-efficacy. . .indicat [ed that] the student-faculty relationship at the community college was central to student achievement at the university” (p. 69). Additionally, mentoring relationships at the community college positively impacted students’ ability to cope with problems after transfer, and knowledge of financial aid was positively related to students’ satisfaction with their transfer experience (Moser, 2013). More recently, Lukszo and Hayes (2020) sought to understand how community college transfer students accumulated transfer student capital and used these gains to successfully transition into a 4-year institution. Students obtained capital from peers and family members, including information about financial aid and policies and procedures associated with the transfer process, a finding which has also been confirmed by Yücel et al. (2022). Transfers also gathered transfer student capital during their time in high school, including from school counselors and community college recruiters, who introduce them to the community college and transfer as a postsecondary pathway. Another source of capital included community college faculty (which Zhang and Ozuna [2015] also identified in their work), who helped to motivate students, provide feedback on their curricular pathways, and write letters of recommendation needed for transfer. In terms of how students employed transfer student capital during the transfer process, this knowledge was valuable for students’ planning processes, including course scheduling and sequencing and academic pathways they took. Transfer student capital was also important for creating self-efficacy, or students’ own belief and confidence in their abilities to transfer and in their academic potential (Buenaflor, 2021; Moser, 2013; Wang, 2020). Finally, forms of transfer student capital were also found to impact students’ expectations of their experiences at the receiving institution. For instance, information students obtained from peers, family members, and community college staff about the procedures and events at the 4-year institution led them to anticipate certain events as did the attitudes of peers and faculty post-transfer, which shifted their behaviors in anticipation of the transition. In sum, studies that have applied transfer student capital as a framework have shown that students’ accumulation of capital can significantly and positively impact their academic and social adjustment to the receiving institution. Additionally, findings underscore that institutional agents, such as faculty and advisors, play a key role in the development of students’ transfer capital and how students make sense of their transitions. As such, if students do not have connections and positive relationships with agents and access to clear and useful information about transfer, their pathways to transfer and their post-transfer experiences may be more laborious and marked with institutional barriers. This finding is especially valuable for several

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

515

reasons. First, systematically minoritized students, such as first-generation students and racially/ethnically marginalized students (Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Greene et al., 2008; Jain et al., 2020; Solis & Durán, 2022), may not benefit from transfer student capital in the same ways as their peers, particularly as these students may encounter discriminatory staff and/or may not be made aware of the value of such relationships on their postsecondary success (Jain et al., 2017). Additionally, students who may be unable or do not want to spend time on campus interacting with faculty and staff, such as parents and/or students working for pay, may also not reap the benefits and obtain capital from these interactions (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2018; Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming). Another significant implication of transfer student capital is that this framework implies that students must seek out institutional resources and knowledge, and if they do not, then they are deficient in the capital needed to successfully navigate transfer pathways. This approach places a burden on students to interact with the institution, shifting the responsibility from institutional leaders to build meaningful programs and outreach methods to serve students (Tinto & Pusser, 2006; Yosso, 2005).

Validation Theory Another framework that can illuminate students’ perceptions of, expectations associated with, and experiences in transfer pathways is validation theory (Rendón, 1994). Rendón (1994) described validation as “an enabling, confirming, and supportive process initiated by in- and out-of-class agents that foster academic and interpersonal development” (p. 44). The framework has been used by researchers to understand the ways in which systematically minoritized students, such as those that identify as Latina/o/x or Hispanic, work to overcome barriers throughout their educational pathways and the role that institutional agents and services play in this navigation. Validation can serve as a valuable form of support, as it can help to mitigate the effects of discrimination and negative campus climates, which can help boost students’ sense of belonging (Hurtado & Guillermo-Wann, 2013). Validation theory is academic and social (or interpersonal) in nature. In terms of the former type, students may experience academic validation from positive and affirming interactions with faculty and staff that acknowledge the wealth of knowledge that they bring with them into learning spaces. Students may receive interpersonal validation from institutional agents and peers, and it recognizes students’ holistic needs. More specifically, validation theory is: An enabling, confirming and supportive process initiated by in- and out-of-class agents that fosters academic and interpersonal development; when validation is present, students feel capable of learning, [and] they experience a feeling of self worth and feel that they and everything they bring to the college experience is accepted and recognized as valuable;. . .like involvement, validation is a prerequisite to student development; validation can occur both inand out-of-class;. . .validation suggests a developmental process, [and] it is not an end in itself;. . .validation is most effective when offered early on in the student’s college experience, during the first year of college and during the first weeks of class. (Rendón, 1994, pp. 16–17)

516

C. Hartman

In relation to transfer students, validation theory has been applied through quantitative inquiry (e.g., in Moser’s (2013) transfer student capital model) and qualitative approaches (e.g., Zhang & Ozuna, 2015). For vertical transfer students, the community college and its association with validation was highlighted by Zhang and Ozuna (2015) in their research about the experiences of community college transfer students studying engineering. The authors’ findings showed that students encountered greater instances of validation from community college faculty, who were described as “more accessible, personable, and dedicated to teaching” (Zhang & Ozuna, 2015, p. 360) than faculty at the receiving institution. These positive characteristics associated with faculty encouraged students to build relationships with them, and their interactions inspired confidence in their potential to transfer and be academically successful post transfer. Similar findings have been identified among horizontal transfers (e.g., Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Kurt-Kuwaye & Kurt-Kuwaye, 2007), who also seek validation from faculty at their receiving institution through their academic performance and who want staff to acknowledge the relevant postsecondary information they possess while simultaneously providing adequate support to navigate their new environment. In addition to faculty, flexible curricular options and academic plans available at community colleges may afford students opportunities to explore a variety of fields, and through this search, students can more confidently select and pursue their intended area of study (Zhang & Ozuna, 2015). As a result, students can develop a sense of selfefficacy, which they can then carry throughout their transition process to their receiving institutions. Zhang and Ozuna’s (2015) work underscores the crucial role of community colleges and institutional agents in shaping students’ aspirations for transfer by uplifting students and boosting their self-efficacy through their relationships with students. This research also underscores the increasingly default and longterm role that community colleges play in student success, as the impact of studentfaculty interactions and their associated support can prompt sustained relationships even after students leave the institution (e.g., after transferring). Emotional support from community college faculty can serve as an additional dimension of validation, especially as these agents frequently “invest in teaching, student success, and the college with near boundless commitment and empathy” (Aguilar-Smith & Gonzales, 2021, p. 191). Ultimately, imbalances in power and support structures for transfers can exist across the transfer pipeline (particularly with community colleges bearing greater responsibility and providing greater validation experiences). In addition, the extent to which validation for transfer is present (through interactions with institutional services, spaces, actors, and peers) may be a harbinger for a transfer receptive culture, which is discussed in greater detail in the following section.

Transfer Receptive Culture Transfer receptive culture foregrounds students’ assets, strengths, and other various forms of wealth (Jain et al., 2011; Jain et al., 2020), shifting the responsibility for successful transfer from student to the institutions they attend. As Jain et al. (2011) wrote:

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

517

Central to the concept of a transfer receptive culture at a selective institution is the belief that students will be successful because they are transfer students. This is in opposition to the belief that they are successful despite being a transfer student. (p. 253)

This focus is intentional, particularly as transfer receptive culture is informed by critical race theory (Jain et al., 2011; Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Del Real Viramontes & Jain, 2021) and centers the “intersectionality of race and racism; the challenge to dominant ideology; the commitment to social justice; the centrality of experiential knowledge; [and] the interdisciplinary perspective” (Solórzano, 1998, p. 122–123). Through transfer receptive culture, transfer is viewed as a racialized phenomenon, as evidenced by the existence of the racial transfer gap (Crisp & Núñez, 2014), the underserving of systematically minoritized students throughout the transfer process (Jain et al., 2017), and the influence of systemic forces, including racism, elitism, and White norms (Castro & Cortez, 2016; Del Real Viramontes & Jain, 2021; Jain et al., 2017; Wang, 2020). Through the transfer receptive culture framework, both transfer-sending and transfer-receiving institutions must accept and establish their role and responsibility in promoting transfer student success. Ultimately, a transfer receptive culture seeks to aid institutional agents to elicit information about how institutional services and spaces may or may not center transfer students’ needs, aspirations, and identities. This approach counters previous dominant approaches to understanding transfer students that are deficit-based, or those that perceive students as outputs of an educational system and do not accept the role of the institution in shaping or influencing outcomes. For instance, recent research using the transfer receptive culture framework has attributed Latinx community college students’ capacity for post-transfer academic success to their cultural capital, placing the burden of any real or perceived achievement gap squarely on receiving institutions and their (in)ability to foster a transfer receptive culture (Del Real Viramontes & Jain, 2021). To facilitate a transfer receptive culture, institutional agents must consider not only students’ interactions with educational services and engagement opportunities pre- and post-transfer but also how institutional initiatives build upon the wealth of students and provide support beyond mere access to a 4-year college or university. Research on admissions policies and practices, academic support, transition programming, and first-year experiences could benefit from this framework’s call for receiving institutions to help students, especially those with racially/ethnically marginalized identities, combat the “real and perceived disadvantages” they may encounter, including challenges with integration and a potential lack of opportunities to pursue based on their transfer or other identities (Jain et al., 2011, p. 263). More specifically, Jain et al. (2011) outlined five elements of a transfer receptive culture across the transfer student experience that institutional staff can use for improvement. While transfer receptive culture may have initially been conceptualized as promoting vertical student persistence, the framework has relevance for horizontal transfer students, too, as these students may face similar challenges as those departing community colleges (Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Kurt-Kuwaye & Kurt-Kuwaye, 2007). In order to uphold a transfer receptive culture, during the pre-transfer phase institutions should:

518

C. Hartman

• “Establish the transfer of students, especially nontraditional, first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students, as a high institutional priority that ensures stable accessibility, retention, and graduation. • Provide outreach and resources that focus on the specific needs of transfer students while complimenting the community college mission of transfer.” (Jain et al., 2011, p. 258)

After students transfer to the 4-year institution, staff at the receiving institution should: • “Offer financial and academic support through distinct opportunities for nontraditional/ reentry transfer students where they are stimulated to achieve at high academic levels. • Acknowledge the lived experiences that students bring and the intersectionality between community and family. • Create an appropriate and organic framework from which to assess, evaluate, and enhance transfer receptive programs and initiatives that can lead to further scholarship on transfer students.” (Jain et al., 2011, p. 258)

In terms of research, the transfer receptive culture framework has been used in recent work by Del Real Viramontes (2020) to examine the perceptions and experiences of Latina/o community college students transitioning into a predominately White university in Texas. Notably, by using this approach in combination with Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth model, Del Real Viramontes discovered that Latina/o community college transfers often were not awarded sufficient financial aid award packages to cover their cost of attendance at the receiving institution, so students often worked for pay in addition to attending school. As a result, students often forewent engaging in social activities and academic opportunities. Students still maintained focus and persistence toward their academic goals though because working afforded them a chance support their families. Students also received validation and encouragement from their families that was influential in their desire to persist; as such, familial support was a valuable form of wealth they held. Additional studies that have utilized transfer receptive culture as a framework have inquired about students’ sentiments at their receiving institutions and how these students’ experiences might inform the cultivation of a transfer receptive culture. For example, Castro and Cortez’s (2016) inquiry into transfer among Mexican community college transfer students used students’ recollections of navigating transfer to better understand how intersectionality and lived experiences are recognized by the institution. The identification of these factors was used to determine and gauge the commitment of the receiving institution to transfers. Castro and Cortez (2016) underscored the importance of intersectionality to transfer receptive culture, noting that it established “a platform to more accurately understand how identities – such as race, gender, class, and sexuality, among others, for example – are not individual accounts of identity as much as they are reflections of larger organizational systems of power and oppression” (p. 80–81). In addition, the authors found that the receiving institution did not consider or design initiatives for students through an intersectional lens, or one that considers the multiple systems of oppression that characterize students’ identities. Castro and Cortez’s (2016) work may also point to

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

519

the effects of an underdeveloped transfer receptive culture, particularly as family members played a crucial role in students’ preparation to transfer and their transition process, supporting students financially and emotionally while also influencing students’ choice and search processes and their decisions to engage in institutional activities (similar to findings from Del Real Viramontes [2020]; Jabbar et al. [2017a]; and Zhang and Ozuna [2015]). In short, if institutions do not cultivate a transfer receptive culture and support students’ financial, academic, and personal needs, then students, families, peers, and others may need to compensate for this lack by gathering and employing their own resources to combat institutional injustices (Tinto & Pusser, 2006).

Moving Transfer Research and Practice into New Directions As evidenced by this review, research has indicated that transfer pathways and experiences are diverse and complex (Schudde et al., 2021a; Shapiro et al., 2018; Taylor & Jain, 2017). Much of what is known about transfer students’ transitions derives from studies that have focused on the student perspective (Wang et al., 2017). Understanding how students’ actions and characteristics impact their adjustment, integration, and success can and has provided fruitful information about transfer, but coupling this information with examinations of transfer from the institutional perspective and response could prove to be particularly useful, especially as transfer pathways are often riddled with a multitude of challenges that often manifest in the form of institutionally and systemically induced barriers. It is certain that evidence of neglect (Tobolowsky & Cox, 2012) and students’ accounts of disadvantaging experiences (Jain et al., 2011) remain constant forces in the transfer student experience, yet the role that institutions play in the development of these have not historically been a focus of transfer literature over the years. Recently though, there has been a growing focus on persistent and wicked forces that impact students’ pathways, notably including the effects of systemic racism (Jain et al., 2017; Laanan & Jain, 2017; Solis & Durán, 2022). Future inquiries and support efforts must continue to expand beyond only centering students’ voices and experiences and simultaneously devote significant attention to the role that institutions play in supporting students’ holistic well-being (including financially, academically, socially, and psychologically). In addition to a need for an expanded focus on different factors associated with transfer, research must also explore the experiences of various subpopulations of transfers in order to broaden understandings of transfer and transfer-intending students, particularly as student demographics shift (Sedmak, 2020; Shapiro et al., 2018). There is also a need for the use of asset-based and critically oriented approaches to understanding transfer (Laanan & Jain, 2017); doing so can help researchers and practitioners illuminate and, subsequently, work toward eradicating barriers and promoting equitable outcomes for students. These points and others are discussed in greater detail in the subsequent sections.

520

C. Hartman

The Need for Recognizing Variations Within Transfer As mentioned, previous research has largely paid attention to student transfer from community colleges to 4-year schools (Taylor & Jain, 2017; Wang et al., 2016). When searching for transfer-related studies, the term “transfer students” has often been left undefined in article titles, abstracts, purpose statements, and other areas that signal the intent of a paper. Upon closer investigation and reading of several of these works, “transfer students” has frequently referenced community college transfer students; as such, the use of the term “transfer students” may then become somewhat of a synecdoche, serving as a substitute for “community college transfer students.” While this operationalization of the term is perhaps unsurprising due to pervasive narratives about the transfer function of community colleges (Taylor & Jain, 2017), leaving the term “transfer students” undefined can be problematic. First, it could propagate an assumption that vertical transfer is the most prevalent and dominant form of transfer (despite research showing that it is not [Shapiro et al., 2018]). In addition, the non-specificity of the term does not acknowledge the heterogeneity and diversity of students within the overall transfer population. Future researchers should add descriptors to this term to be more specific about the particular subset of transfer students their work is about; doing so will help to dismantle the particularly problematic homogenous treatment of these students, which might essentialize students’ experiences. This task may prove difficult for researchers though, as challenges exist with tracking students’ behaviors and accurately identifying and classifying their transfer type. For instance, evidence that accurately details transfer pathways is not always available and evident in administrative or institutional data. In addition, qualitative approaches to gathering more descriptive information (e.g., Shealy et al., 2013) can also prove challenging in terms of understanding and making sense of how students perceive and identify their own pathways. In addition to being specific about transfer populations, research must seek to understand the intersectional nature of students’ identities. This intersection is particularly important to consider in relation to transfer given the demographics of transfer students and the multiple affiliations they hold (e.g., being a veteran, parent, caretaker, and more; Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Núñez & Yoshimi, 2016; Rodriguez & Kerrigan, 2019). Intersectionality is complex and can impact students’ transitions, as evidenced by Castro and Cortez’s (2016) research about Mexican community college transfer students, who reported feeling discomfort, isolation, and dissimilarity from peers as a result of their race/ethnicity, and these emotions were strong upon transfer to the receiving institution. To build upon this and other critically oriented work (e.g., Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Jain et al., 2011, 2017, 2020), future researchers can utilize intersectionality as a framework. Expeditions into the role of students’ identities on their experiences must also acknowledge the potentially harmful role that systems of oppression, including institutional and society, have on students (Iloh, 2018). Doing so prompts institutional leaders to interrogate their role in student success and work toward reconceptualizing students as assets to the institution. As Castro and Cortez (2016) noted: “acknowledging students’ lived realities and intersectionality between community and family

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

521

requires that institutional agents understand the complexity of student experience and the varying ways that students’ positionalities shift in response to and in combination with the receiving institution” (p. 88). Considering the role of identity on students’ engagement and sense of belonging, future research must grapple with understanding these relationships. This research may require redefining what engagement means (as associated with institutional goals and priorities) and recreating measurements and assessments associated with student engagement, including departing from the use of surveys and toward more descriptive qualitative methods that would allow for students to explain their nuanced selves (Bensimon, 2007; Hartman & Mayo, Forthcoming; Laanan & Jain, 2017). As part of this call, there is a need for research that seeks to understand posttraditional and systematically minoritized students (such as racial/ethnic minoritized students, first-generation students, and students from low SES backgrounds). A growing portion of research has focused on these students’ transfer experiences, particularly from community colleges (e.g., Castro & Cortez, 2016; Crisp & Núñez, 2014; Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Hartman et al., 2021; Jain et al., 2011, 2017, 2020; Padilia et al., 2019; Solis & Durán, 2022; Wood & Palmer, 2013, 2016). There is much left to be learned about these students’ pre- and post-transfer transitions, including those of English learners (Hartman et al., 2021), immigrants (Padilia et al., 2019; Ruiz-de-Velasco & Fix, 2000), Black students (Wood & Palmer, 2013, 2016), LGBTQIA+ students (Gonzalez & Duran, forthcoming; Teut et al., 2019), men of color (Urias et al., 2017), international students (Zhang, 2017), students with (dis) abilities (Cox et al., 2020), veterans (McKinnon-Crowley et al., 2019), and more. It is also worthwhile to underscore that little research about these subpopulations’ experience with horizontal transfer exists, leaving gaps in understandings about how best to support this significant proportion of transfer students (Shapiro et al., 2018). Similarly, there is a need for a greater understanding of transfer and transitions among post-traditional students, including adult learners (Bahr et al., 2021; Schwehm, 2017), especially as this research is especially important in the wake of multiple statewide policy agendas that focus on supporting adult learners’ returns to higher education (Jeffers et al., forthcoming).

The Importance of Utilizing Asset-Based Approaches It is important to underscore that transfer is an equity issue (Crisp & Núñez, 2014; Jain et al., 2011, 2020; Wang, 2020), and it is paramount that this truth be considered and centered within future research related to transfer. If research focuses only on how institutions promote access to higher education but does not consider how support is sustained throughout students’ postsecondary careers, these inquiries alone will not illuminate how inequities across racial and ethnic groups continue to persist and push students from the transfer pipeline. There are multiple questions and possibilities for research to answer and consider. To start, building a transfer receptive culture (Jain et al., 2011, 2020) encourages institutions to consider the role of students’ families on their educational experiences throughout the transfer

522

C. Hartman

process. Particularly in studies related to Latina/o/x community college transfer students, familismo, or dedication to one’s family, has been identified as a factor influencing students’ transfer choice and search process (Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Jabbar et al., 2017a), their engagement and identity as transfer students (Hartman et al., Forthcoming), their commitment to their education (Del Real Viramontes, 2020), and their conceptualizations of success (Rodriguez et al., 2021). Future research can continue to explore the role of family within the transfer process, particularly the extent of the impact of families on students’ persistence throughout the transfer process (including pre- and post-transfer). Additionally, the role that families have on transfer students’ sense of belonging can be a valuable area of inquiry, as research by Hartman et al. (Forthcoming) found that students’ identities as parents and their need and want to spend time outside of class with their children impacted their desire to engage in academic support and co-curricular activities. As a result, students were disengaged from their institutions, but they did not perceive this to be something negative; rather, their self-identity was more informed by their roles as parents than as undergraduate students. Building from this research, examining relationships between families and students’ sense of belonging could help institutional agents to understand that families are influential forces, determine how they can be incorporated into educational activities, and question how institutional initiatives can be designed to better support students and their families. In addition, it is important to reframe research questions and intent to focus on not just the challenges students encounter with transfer but also the strengths they possess to persist in the face of these. Using a community cultural wealth framework (Yosso, 2005) could help illuminate such information. An example of a transferrelated study that applied this framework includes Del Real Viramontes’ (2020) work, in which he discovered that vertical transfer student parents encountered insufficient institutional support at their receiving university, including a lack of childcare options and availability for family housing and services. While students may persist despite these challenges by using their familial and aspirational capital, as Del Real Viramontes (2020) discovered, transfer students should not have to compensate for these events and identities nor should they have to fight to fit into systems that do not intentionally care for their needs, as this approach to understanding student success perpetuates a deficit-oriented model. As such, asset-based and critically oriented approaches and frameworks, including the use of critical race theory (Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Laanan & Jain, 2017; Jain et al., 2011. 2020), are apt for supporting our understanding of the effects of institutional commitment to transfer on students’ experiences (Tinto & Pusser, 2006). Asset-based approaches and the “acknowledgment of lived experiences cannot simply be an awareness of what individual students bring with them into the institution, but an insight into what these experiences mean as well as what they produce” (Castro & Cortez, 2016, p. 88). The use of non-deficit applications is even more crucial now in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic started in 2020, transfer rates have declined (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2022; Sedmak, 2020). During the spring 2022 semester, transfer decreased by nearly 7% within 1 year and

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

523

16% in 2 years. The majority of this decline has been seen among vertical transfer students, including across all race/ethnicity and age groups, indicating that any prior progress in working toward equitable success may be significantly thwarted (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2022). There is much to be learned about students’ experiences related to transfer, including how the pandemic affected their search and choice process and their educational and career decisions (Schudde et al., 2022). Another key point of learning may come from examinations of first-year experience initiatives and supports for transfer and transfer-intending students. Some students may have spent their entire first year (or longer) virtually learning at a new institution (Smith, 2021). As students transition physically to campus, first-year programming may be relevant for these students as they are tasked with navigating campus spaces and relationships. Research can work toward identifying strategies to help students build capital related to this while also honoring their existing knowledge about higher education. Considering the ways in which the pandemic has impacted students’ goals, learning, and physical and mental health (Brohawn et al., 2021), research should continue to highlight the challenges that students face through an asset-based approach and not blaming students for seemingly diminished engagement as they work to survive and persist in challenging and damaging educational, health, and social systems. Through an asset-based approach, research can continue to center on the humanity of students, learn more about students’ needs, and begin to work toward improving systemic barriers and improved change. As part of this framework, new approaches to transfer work must move beyond arguing that transfer students are valuable for institutions because of their enrollment or that community college student transfer is primarily valuable because of its potential to contribute to local and state economies (Ayers, 2017). While these assertions may certainly be valid and true, such calls commodify students as outputs within a system that is often discriminatory and unsupportive. In addition, these narratives beg questions about how institutions will provide for students, including after they leave the institution (i.e., after transferring and/or graduating). Institutions frequently fail students by inadequately preparing them to enter labor markets and systems that are informed by and propagate systemic racism and discrimination. Consequentially, many higher education institutions fail to participate in the dismantling of these structures, as doing so would undercut their function in maintaining prestige. Research that seeks to answer the following asset-based questions could be valuable to a number of transfer-related audiences, including faculty, practitioners, and policymakers: • What institutional priorities related to transfer exist? • How are institutional services built upon the strengths, identities, and goals of these transfer or transfer-intending students? • In what ways do institutional spaces, services, and agents invalidate and exclude transfer and transfer-intending students?

524

C. Hartman

• How can institutions create, operationalize, and sustain targeted and intentional services for transfers in ways that acknowledge and honor the journeys of these students? • What relationships exist among initiatives and institutional missions, goals, and objectives, and how can these be revised through an asset-based approach? While transfer and degree completion may frequently be counted by colleges and universities as successes, especially within a neoliberal approach, research should consider the complexity of students’ pathways and goals and outcomes used to measure these. Particularly, questions about how transfer (and student mobility) equates to success are important. Movement alone does not necessarily indicate something positive from the student perspective, particularly as students’ goals and realities may shift over time. As such, institutional and student perspectives of transfer may be misaligned and demonstrate competing goals. In addition, research should examine how transfer students are supported holistically, digging deeper past whether or not students achieve certain benchmark measures and outcomes of success (Bahr, 2013). If education is truly supposed to be a means for social mobility and advancement, transfer-sending and transfer-receiving institutions must consider the ways in which they center equity and holistic student support within their initiatives and services for transfer students. Consequences for not doing so include continued damage to the already faulty and leaky transfer pipeline (Jenkins & Fink, 2016), widening of the racial transfer gap (Crisp & Núñez, 2014), and failure to support millions of learners and their contributions to the workforce and our democracy (Cohen et al., 2013).

Conclusion: Next Steps to Consider Transfer student success has been and will continue to be an important topic for researchers and practitioners alike. Future scholars should continue to seek ways to understand the variations and strengths among transfer students and work toward identifying ways that institutional leaders and agents can create, coordinate, and sustain asset-based practices and initiatives to support these learners. As this review has demonstrated, conversations about transfer cannot happen without discussing equity. As such, utilizing critically oriented methods and approaches to studying transfer and transitions can provide valuable insight, particularly into why transfers undergo feelings of shock, adjustment, and misalignment. Critically oriented frameworks can be valuable in illuminating such information (Laanan & Jain, 2017), including community cultural wealth (Del Real Viramontes, 2020; Yosso, 2005) and transfer student capital (Laanan et al., 2010; Moser, 2013; Lukszo & Hayes, 2020). An additional tool to utilize in understandings of transfers’ experiences may include education journey mapping (EJM). EJM is a method that seeks to center the experiences of marginalized students (Annamma, 2017). To apply this method, interviewers ask participants to draw and explain a self-designed map that visually

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

525

illustrates their pathways to their present position at their receiving institutions, including people, places, and events they encountered along the way. The use of EMJ can prompt an opportunity for researchers to engage in conversations with transfer and transfer-intending about how the following factors may have impacted intended and/or actual transfer trajectories: the role of various life events (e.g., educational, work, and family histories and experiences during the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and continued racial injustice); identities (e.g., being a parent, a veteran, a full- or part-time student or students’ race/ethnicity and/or gender identity); and interactions with the transfer-sending and/or transfer-receiving institution (e.g., use of and satisfaction with institutional support services and campus spaces and students’ experiences with engaging at their campus). Using this method could promote a multidimensional and comprehensive understanding of how multiple facets of students’ lives and the forces they have encountered throughout them play a role in their intentions to transfer, educational and career decisions, and engagement and sense of belonging during the transfer process. These are important components to examine together, as Rodriguez et al. (2021) aptly underscored that more research should examine the connections between institutional environments, students’ existing knowledge, and transfer pathways in order to determine how these forces shape and impact transfer progress. Additionally, future research about how transfer agents work crossinterdisciplinarity and cross-institutionally to sustain opportunities for student transfer would be useful to consider innovative approaches to understanding student pathways. Cross-institutional examinations may include studies focused on transfer initiatives and policies working toward creating more seamless pathways (such as credit transfer [Spencer, 2021]) and that promote students’ engagement and success (e.g., through high impact practices [McCormick et al., 2009]). Also, research (particularly in the form of longitudinal studies) that continues to explore the ways in which institutional agents shape students’ expectations and progress could be helpful in understanding the fostering of self-efficacy among students seeking to transfer (Buenaflor, 2021; Lukszo & Hayes, 2020). The role of institutional culture and how it affects students is also important to consider when discussing student engagement and transfer, particularly among systematically minoritized students (Wassmer et al., 2004). Research on transfer receptive culture (Jain et al., 2011, 2020) is one of the few ways to conceptualize and explore these links, and future research could apply this framework toward understanding how the extent of transfer receptivity on campus impacts students’ transfer choices, satisfaction, and engagement, and sense of belonging. Future research can expand on transfer receptive culture by determining how this is enacted and operationalized across different institutional types, such as at Minority Serving Institutions (including Hispanic Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Tribal Colleges and Universities) and private colleges and universities (Del Real Viramontes, 2020). These areas of inquiry can help illuminate the experiences of students whose voices may have been overlooked and ignored while also working to advance toward an equity-minded future intentionally designed for and supportive of all transfer students.

526

C. Hartman

References Adelman, C. (2006). The toolbox revisited: Paths to degree completion from high school through college. U.S. Department of Education. Aguilar-Smith, S., & Gonzales, L. D. (2021). A study of community college faculty work expectations: Generous educators and their managed generosity. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 45(3), 184–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2019.1666062 Alexander, B. C., Garcia, V., Gonzalez, L., Grimes, G., & O’Brien, D. (2007). Barriers in the transfer process for Hispanic and Hispanic immigrant students. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 6(2), 174–184. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192706297440 Allen, J. M., Smith, C. L., & Muehleck, J. K. (2013). What kinds of advising are important to community college pre- and posttransfer students? Community College Review, 41(4), 330–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552113505320 Allen, J. M., Smith, C. L., & Muehleck, J. K. (2014). Pre- and post-transfer academic advising: What students say are the similarities and differences. Journal of College Student Development, 55(4), 353–367. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2014.0034 American Association of Community Colleges. (2019). Community college enrollment crisis? Historical trends in community college enrollment. https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/ uploads/2019/08/Crisis-in-Enrollment-2019.pdf. American Association of Community Colleges. (2022). Fast facts. https://www.aacc.nche.edu/ research-trends/fast-facts/. American Council on Education. (2022). The ACE military guide. https://www.acenet.edu/ Programs-Services/Pages/Credit-Transcripts/Military-Guide-Online.aspx Andrade, L. M. (2018). Latina/o transfer students’ selective integration and spatial awareness of university spaces. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 17(4), 347–374. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1538192717701252 Annamma, S. A. (2017). Mapping consequential geographies in the carceral state: Education journey mapping as a qualitative method with girls of color with dis/abilities. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(1), 20–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417728962 Astin, A. (1993a). Diversity and multiculturalism on the campus: How are students affected? Change, 25(2), 44–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1993.9940617 Astin, A. (1993b). What matters in college? Liberal Education, 79(4), 4–17. Autor, D. H., Katz, L. F., & Kearney, M. S. (2008). Trends in US wage inequality: Revising the revisionists. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2), 300–323. Ayers, D. (2017). Three functions of the community college mission statement. New Directions for Community Colleges, 180(2017), 9–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.20276 Bahr, P. R. (2008). Cooling out in the community college: What is the effect of academic advising on students’ chances of success? Research in Higher Education, 49, 704–732. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s11162-008-9100-0 Bahr, P. R. (2009). College hopping: Exploring the occurrence, frequency, and consequences of lateral transfer. Community College Review, 36(4), 271–298. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0091552108330903 Bahr, P. R. (2013). The deconstructive approach to understanding community college students’ pathways and outcomes. Community College Review, 41, 137–153. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0091552113486341 Bahr, B. R., Toth, C., Thirolf, K., & Massé, J. C. (2013). A review and critique of the literature on community college students’ transition processes and outcomes in four-year institutions. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 459–511). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5836-0_10 Bahr, P. R., Boeck, C. A., & Cummins, P. A. (2021). Strengthening outcomes of adult students in community colleges. In L. W. Perna (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 217–273). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44007-7_3

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

527

Bailey, T. R., Jenkins, D., & Leinbach, D. T. (2005). What we know about community college low-income and minority student outcomes. Community College Research Center, Columbia University. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/low-income-minority-student-outcomes. html Bailey, T., Jeong, D. W., & Cho, S. W. (2010). Referral, enrollment, and completion in developmental education sequences in community colleges. Economics of Education Review, 29, 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2009.09.002 Bailey, T. R., Jenkins, D., Fink, J., Cullinane, J., & Schudde, L. (2017). Policy levers to strengthen community college transfer student success in Texas. Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED573075.pdf Belfield, C. R., & Bailey, T. (2011). The benefits of attending community college: A review of the evidence. Community College Review, 39(1), 46–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0091552110395575 Belfield, C., Jenkins, D., & Lahr, H. (2016, June). Momentum: The academic and economic value of a 15-credit first-semester course load for college students in Tennessee (CCRC Working Paper No. 88). Community College Research Center. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/ momentum-15-credit-course-load.html Belfield, C. R., Jenkins, D., & Fink, J. (2019). Early momentum metrics: Leading indicators for community college improvement (CCRC research brief). Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/ early-momentum-metrics-leading-indicators.pdf Bensimon, E. M. (2007). The underestimated significance of practitioner knowledge in the scholarship on student success. The Review of Higher Education, 30(4), 441–469. https://doi.org/10. 1353/rhe.2007.0032 Bensimon, E. M., & Dowd, A. (2009). Dimensions of the transfer choice gap: Experiences of Latina and Latino students who navigated transfer pathways. Harvard Educational Review, 79(4), 632–659. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.79.4.05w66u23662k1444 Blaney, J. M., & Barrett, J. (2021). Advancing gender equity and sense of belonging in computing: Are documenting best practices representative of upward transfer students? Community College Journal of Research and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2021.1896396 Boatman, A., Evans, B. J., & Soliz, A. (2017). Understanding loan aversion in education: Evidence from high school seniors, community college students, and adults. AERA Open, 3(1). https://doi. org/10.1177/233/2858416683649 Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production. Columbia University Press. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. Sage. Bowman, N. A., & Denson, N. (2014). A missing piece of the departure puzzle: Student-institution fit and intent to persist. Research in Higher Education, 55(2), 123–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11162-013-9320-9 Braxton, J. M., Hirschy, A. S., & McClendon, S. A. (2004). Understanding and reducing college student departure. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 30(3). Brint, S., & Karabel, J. (1989). The diverted dream: Community colleges and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. Oxford University Press. Brohawn, K., Cooper, D., Karandjeff, K., Nguyen, A., & White, M. (2021). The impact of the pandemic on students’ transfer journeys: A technical report from a systemwide study of California community college students. The RP Group. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ ED615411.pdf Buenaflor, S. H. (2021). Transfer student self-efficacy: A success-oriented narrative of the transfer student experience. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 1–16. https://doi. org/10.1080/10668926.2021.1967226. Buenaflor, S. H., Lukszo, C. M., & LaFave, A. (2021). What makes transfer decisions unique: Reexamining the role of finances, geography, and academics in the choice process. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 28(1), 47–61.

528

C. Hartman

Bunch, G. C., Endris, A., Panayotova, D., Romero, M., & Llosa, L. (2011). Mapping the terrain: Language testing and placement for US-educated language minority students in California’s community colleges. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/ 3nn1c8xs Calcagno, J. C., Crosta, P., Bailey, T., & Jenkins, D. (2007). Stepping stones to a degree: The impact of enrollment pathways and milestones on community college student outcomes. Research in Higher Education, 48(7), 775–801. https://doi.org/10.1007/s1162-007-9052-8 Castro, E. L., & Cortez, E. (2016). Exploring the lived experiences and intersectionalities of Mexican community college transfer students: Qualitative insights toward expanding a transfer receptive culture. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 41(2), 77–92. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2016.1158672 Cejda, B. D., Kaylor, A. J., & Rewey, K. L. (1998). Transfer shock in an academic discipline: The relationship between students’ majors and their academic performance. Community College Review, 26(3), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/009155219802600301 Center for Community College Student Engagement. (2017). Even one semester: Full-time enrollment and student success. The University of Texas at Austin, College of Education, Department of Educational Administration, Program in Higher Education Leadership. https://www.ccsse. org/docs/Even_One_Semester.pdf Center for Community College Student Engagement. (2018). Show me the way: The power of advising in community colleges. The University of Texas at Austin, College of Education, Department of Educational Administration, Program in Higher Education Leadership. https:// www.ccsse.org/nr2018/Show_Me_The_Way.pdf Cepeda, R., Rivera, M. D., Jaggars, S. S., & Buelow, M. T. (2021). Transfer during COVID-19: Understanding student experiences in a shifting context. National Resource Center for the FirstYear Experience and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina. https://sc.edu/nrc/ system/pub_files/1635428607_0.pdf Clark, B. (1960a). The cooling-out function in higher education. American Journal of Sociology, 65, 569–576. https://doi.org/10.1086/222787 Clark, B. (1960b). The open door college: A case study. McGraw-Hill. Cohen, A. M., Brawer, F. B., & Kisker, C. B. (2013). The American community college (6th ed.). Jossey-Bass. Community College Research Center. (2022). Community college FAQs. https://ccrc.tc.columbia. edu/community-college-faqs.html. Cox, B. E., Nachman, B. R., Thompson, K., Dawson, S., Edelstein, J. A., & Breeden, C. (2020). An exploration of actionable insights regarding college students with autism: A review of the literature. The Review of Higher Education, 43(4), 935–966. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2020.0026 Crisp, G., & Delgado, C. (2014). The impact of developmental education on community college persistence and vertical transfer. Community College Review, 42(2), 99–117. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0091552113516488 Crisp, G., & Núñez, A.-M. (2014). Understanding the racial transfer gap: Modeling underrepresented minority and nonminority students’ pathways from two- to four-year schools. The Review of Higher Education, 37(3), 291–320. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2014.0017 Crisp, G., Doran, E., Carales, V., & Potts, C. (2020a). Disrupting the dominant discourse: Exploring the mentoring experiences of Latinx community college students. Journal for the Study of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education, 5, 57–78. https://doi.org/10.28945/4510 Crisp, G., Potter, C., Robertson, R., & Carales, V. (2020b, 2020). Empirical and practical implications for documenting early racial transfer gaps. New Directions for Community Colleges, (192), 55–65. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.20423 Crisp, G., Potter, C., & Taggart, A. (2022). Characteristics and predictors of transfer and withdrawal among students who begin college at bachelor’s granting institutions. Research in Higher Education, 63, 481–513. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09657-5

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

529

Crosta, P. M. (2014). Intensity and attachment: How the chaotic enrollment patterns of community college students relate to educational outcomes. Community College Review, 42(2), 118–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552113518233 Cuseo, J. B. (1998). The transfer transition: A summary of key issues, target areas and tactics for reform. (ERIC document reproduction service no. ED 425 771). https://eric.ed.gov/? id¼ED425771 D’Amico, M. M., Dika, S. L., Elling, T. W., Algozzine, B., & Ginn, D. J. (2014). Early integration and other outcomes for community college transfer students. Research in Higher Education, 55, 370–399. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-013-9316-5 Deil-Amen, R. (2011). Socio-academic integrative moments: Rethinking academic and social integration among two-year college students in career-related programs. Journal of Higher Education, 82(1), 54–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2011.11779085 Deil-Amen, R., & Rosenbaum, J. E. (2002). The unintended consequences of stigma-free remediation. Sociology of Education, 75(3), 249–268. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3090268 Deil-Amen, R., & Rosenbaum, J. E. (2003). The social prerequisites of success: Can college structure reduce the need for social know-how? The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 586, 120–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716202250216 Del Real Viramontes, J. R. (2020). Latina/o transfer students and community cultural wealth: Expanding the transfer receptive culture framework. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 45(12), 855–870. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2020.1824828 Del Real Viramontes, J. R., & Jain, D. (2021). Utilizing transformative theoretical frameworks for transfer students of color. In J. N. Gardner, M. J. Rosenberg, & A. K. Koch (Eds.), The transfer experience: A handbook for creating a more equitable and successful postsecondary system (pp. 69–84). Stylus Publishing. Dougherty, K. J. (1994). The contradictory college: Conflicting origins, impacts, and the futures of community colleges. State University of New York Press. Dougherty, K. J., & Kienzl, G. S. (2006). It’s not enough to get through the open door: Inequalities by social background in transfer from community colleges to four-year colleges. Teachers College Record, 108(3), 452–487. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00658.x Doyle, W. R. (2011). Effect of increased academic momentum on transfer rates: An application of the generalized propensity score. Economics of Education Review, 30(2011), 191–200. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2010.08.004 Eddy, P. L., Christie, R., & Rao, M. (2006). Factors affecting transfer of “traditional” community college students. The Community College Enterprise, 12(1), 73–92. Eggleston, L. E., & Laanan, F. S. (2001). Making the transition to the senior institution. New Directions for Community Colleges, 30(2), 87–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.23 Fauria, R. M., & Fuller, M. B. (2015). Transfer student success: Educationally purposeful activities predictive of undergraduate GPA. Research & Practice in Assessment, 10, 39–52. Fay, M. P., Jaggars, S. S., & Farakish, N. (2022). “Lost in the shuffle”: How relationships and personalized advisement shape transfer aspirations and outcomes for community college students. Community College Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/00915521221111468 Federal Student Aid. (2021, April). Financial aid and undocumented students: Questions and answers. https://studentaid.gov/sites/default/files/financial-aid-and-undocumentedstudents.pdf. Fernandez, C. (2014, March). Transfer students, financial aid, and a new perspective on undermatching. Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ ED579953.pdf Field, K. (2021). The rise of dual credit: More and more students take college classes while still in high school. That is boosting degree attainment but also raising doubts about rigor. Education Next, 21(1), 56–62. https://www.educationnext.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ednext_XXI_ 1_field.pdf

530

C. Hartman

Fishman, R., & Nguyen, S. (2021, January 14). Where did all the students go? Understanding the enrollment decline at community colleges during the pandemic. New America. https://www. newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/community-college-enrollment-survey/ Flaga, C. T. (2006). The process of transition for community college transfer students. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 30(1), 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10668920500248845 Gard, D. R., Paton, V., & Gosselin, K. (2012). Student perceptions of factors contributing to community-college-to-university transfer success. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 36(11), 833–848. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920903182666 Glynn, J. (2019, January). Persistence: The success of students who transfer from community colleges to selective four-year institutions. Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. https://www.jkcf. org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Persistance-Jack-Kent-Cooke-Foundation.pdf Goldrick-Rab, S. (2010). Challenges and opportunities for improving community college student success. Review of Educational Research, 80(3), 437–469. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 0034654310370163 Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the price: College costs, financial aid, and the betrayal of the American dream. University of Chicago Press. Goldrick-Rab, S., & Pfeffer, F. T. (2009). Beyond access: Explaining socioeconomic differences in college transfer. Sociology of Education, 82, 101–125. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 003804070908200201 Gonzalez, Á., & Duran, A. (Forthcoming). Charting the scholarship for BIQTPoC at community colleges to advance leadership practices. New Directions for Community Colleges. Gordon, V. N., & McDonald, M. (2004). Advising diverse transfer students. In T. J. Kerr, M. C. King, & T. J. Grites (Eds.), Advising transfer students: Issues and strategies (Monograph No. 12, pp. 39–48). NACADA. Greene, T. G., Marti, C. M., & McClenney, K. (2008). The effort-outcome gap: Differences for African American and Hispanic community college students in student engagement and academic achievement. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(5), 513–539. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/25144691 Grubb, J. M., Scott, P. H., & Good, D. W. (2017). The answer is yes: Dual enrollment benefits students at the community college. Community College Review, 45(2), 79–98. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0091552116682590 Hagedorn, L. S., & Prather, G. (2006). Transitions within the community college: Pathways to access and inclusion. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 13(2), 167–176. Hartman, C., Callahan, R., & Yu, H. (2021). Optimizing intent to transfer: Engagement and community college English learners. Research in Higher Education, 62(6), 789–828. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11162-020-09619-3 Hartman, C., & Mayo, J. (Forthcoming). “It’s like wearing a t-shirt with holes”: Relationships between transfer student experiences and identity. Journal of College Student Development. Hartman, C., & Mayo, J. (2022, February). Examining the landscape of transfer programs: Results from the National Survey of Transfer Student Initiatives. National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students annual conference, virtual. https://sc.edu/nrc/system/pub_files/1658681171_192.pdf Hartman, C., Mayo, J., & DeSantos-Quezada, M. A. (Forthcoming). Exploring identity and transitions among Latinx community college transfer students. In J. D. R. Viramontes & M. Vasquez (Eds.), The Latina/o/x community college transfer experience. Information Age Publishing Inc. Hausmann, L. R. M., Schofield, J. M., & Woods, R. L. (2007). Sense of belonging as a predictor of intentions to persist among African American and White first-year college students. Research in Higher Education, 48(7), 803–839. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-007-9052-9 Helms, R. M. (2014). Mapping international joint and dual degrees: U.S. program profiles and perspectives. American Council on Education. https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/MappingInternational-Joint-and-Dual-Degrees.pdf

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

531

Hernández, I., Hernández, S., & de la Teja M. H. (2017, May). Five things student affairs professionals can do to support Latinx/a/o students in community colleges (Five things issue brief series). NASPA Research and Policy Institute. https://www.naspa.org/files/dmfile/ 5Things_LATINX_DOWNLOAD.pdf Hills, J. R. (1965). Transfer shock: The academic performance of the junior college transfer. The Journal of Experimental Education, 33, 201–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1965. 11010875 Hodara, M. (2015). The effects of English as a second language courses on language minority community college students. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(2), 243–270. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373714540321 Hodara, M., Martinez-Wenzl, M., Stevens, D., & Mazzeo, C. (2017). Exploring credit mobility and major-specific pathways: A policy analysis and student perspective on community college to university transfer. Community College Review, 45(4), 331–349. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0091552117724197 Horn, L., & Skomsvold, P. (2011). Web tables: Community college student outcomes: 1994–2009 (NCES 2012–253). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid¼2012253 Hughes, K. L., Rodriguez, O., Edwards, L., & Belfield, C. (2012). Broadening the benefits of dual enrollment: Reaching underachieving and underrepresented students with career-focused programs. The James Irvine Foundation. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED533756.pdf Hurtado, S. (2007). The sociology of the study of college impact. In P. Gumport (Ed.), The sociology of higher education: Contributions and their contexts (pp. 94–112). Johns Hopkins University Press. Hurtado, S., & Carter, D. F. (1997). Effects of college transition and perceptions of the campus racial climate on Latino college students’ sense of belonging. Sociology of Education, 70(4), 324–345. https://doi.org/10.2307/2673270 Hurtado, S., & Guillermo-Wann, C. (2013). Diverse learning environments: Assessing and creating conditions for student success—Final report to the Ford Foundation. University of California, Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute. https://www.heri.ucla.edu/ford/ DiverseLearningEnvironments.pdf. Iloh, C. (2018). Toward a new model of college “choice” for a twenty-first-century context. Harvard Educational Review, 88(2), 227–244. Ishitani, T. T. (2008). How do transfers survive after “transfer shock?” A longitudinal study of transfer student departure at a four-year institution. Research in Higher Education, 49, 403–419. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-008-9091-x Ishitani, T. T., & Flood, L. D. (2018). Student transfer-out behavior at four-year institutions. Research in Higher Education, 59, 825–846. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9489-4 Ishitani, T. T., & McKitrick, S. A. (2010). After transfer: The engagement of community college students at a four-year collegiate institution. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 34(7), 576–594. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920701831522 Jabbar, H., Serrata, C., Epstein, E., & Sánchez, J. (2017a). “Échale ganas”: Family and community support of Latino/a community college students’ transfer to four-year universities. Journal of Latinos and Education, 18(3), 258–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2017.1390462 Jabbar, H., Sánchez, J., & Epstein, E. (2017b). Getting from here to there: The role of geography in community college students’ transfer decisions. The Urban Review, 49(5), 746–776. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11256-017-0420-2 Jabbar, H., Schudde, L., Garza, M., & McKinnon-Crowley, S. (2021). Bridges or barriers? How institutions condition community college transfer. The Journal of Higher Education, 93(3), 375–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2021.1953339 Jain, D., Herrera, A., Bernal, S., & Solorzano, D. (2011). Critical race theory and the transfer function: Introducing a transfer receptive culture. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 35(3), 252–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2011.526525

532

C. Hartman

Jain, D., Lucerro, I., Bernal, S., Herrera, A., & Solorzano, D. (2017). Developing transfer pride: An exploration of critical race pedagogy and the summer transfer enrichment program. Community College Review, 45(3), 171–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552117716771 Jain, D., Bernal Melendez, S. N., & Herrera, A. R. (2020). Power to the transfer: Critical race theory and a transfer receptive culture. Michigan State University Press. Jeffers, M. R., Collom, G. D., & Cooper, A. R. (Forthcoming). Institutional responses to state policy: Using student voice to prioritize equity. New Directions for Community Colleges. Jenkins, D., & Fink, J. (2016). Tackling transfer: New measures of institutional and state effectiveness in helping community college students attain bachelor’s degrees. Community College Research Center. http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/tracking-transfer-institu tional-state-effectiveness.pdf Johnson, I. Y., & Muse, W. B. (2012). Student swirl at a single institution: The role of timing and student characteristics. Research in Higher Education, 53, 152–181. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11162-011-9253-0 Karp, M. M., Hughes, K. L., & O’Gara, L. (2010). An exploration of Tinto’s integration framework for community college students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 12(1), 69–86. https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.12.1.e Kopko, E. M., & Crosta, P. M. (2016). Should community college students earn an associate degree before transferring to a four-year institution? Research in Higher Education, 57, 190–222. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-015-9383-x Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Buckley, J. A., Bridges, B. K., & Hayek, J. C. (2006). What matters to student success: A review of the literature. National Postsecondary Education Cooperative. https://nces.ed.gov/npec/pdf/Kuh_Team_Report.pdf Kirk-Kuwaye, C., & Kirk-Kuwaye, M. (2007). A study of engagement patterns of lateral and vertical transfer students during their first semester at a public research university. Journal of the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, 19(2), 9–27. Laanan, F. S. (2004). Studying transfer students: Part 1: Instrument design and implications. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 28, 331–351. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10668920490424050 Laanan, F. S. (2007). Studying transfer students: Part II: Dimensions of transfer students’ adjustment. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 31, 37–59. https://doi.org/10. 1080/10668920600859947 Laanan, F. S., Starobin, S. S., & Eggleston, L. E. (2010). Adjustment of community college students at a four-year university: Role and relevance of transfer student capital for student retention. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 12, 175–209. https://doi. org/10.2190/CS.12.2.d Laanan, F. S., & Jain, D. (2017). Advancing a new critical framework for transfer student research: Implications for institutional research. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2016(170), 9–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/IR.20181 Lester, J., Leonard, J. B., & Mathias, D. (2013). Transfer student engagement: Blurring of social and academic engagement. Community College Review, 41(3), 202–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0091552113496141 Li, D. (2010). They need help: Transfer students from four-year to four-year institutions. The Review of Higher Education, 33(2), 207–238. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0131 Lin, Y., Fay, M. P., & Fink, J. (2020). Stratified trajectories: Charting equity gaps in program pathways among community college students (CCRC Working Paper No. 126). Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/ media/k2/attachments/stratified-trajectories-program-pathways.pdf Llosa, L., & Bunch, G. C. (2011). What’s in a test: ESL and English placement tests in California’s community colleges and implications for US-educated minority students. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/10g691cw

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

533

Lockwood Reynolds, C. (2012). Where to attend? Estimating the effects of beginning college at a two-year institution. Economics of Education Review, 31, 345–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/ jeconedurev.2011.12.001 Long, B. T. (2005). State financial aid: Policies to enhance articulation and transfer. Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED494502.pdf. Lukszo, C. M., & Hayes, S. (2020). Facilitating transfer student success: Exploring sources of transfer student capital. Community College Review, 48(1), 31–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0091552119876017 Mallett, R. K., Mello, Z. R., Wagner, D. E., Worrell, F., Burrow, R. N., & Andretta, J. (2011). Do I belong? It depends on when you ask. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17(4), 432–436. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025455 McCormick, A. C., Sarraf, S. A., BrckaLorenz, A., & Haywood, A. M. (2009, November). Examining the transfer student experience: Interactions with faculty, campus relationships, and overall satisfaction. Paper presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education annual meeting, Vancouver, Canada. Melguizo, T., & Dowd, A. C. (2009). Baccalaureate success of transfers and rising 4-year college juniors. Teachers College Record, 111(1), 55–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146810911100104 Melguizo, T., Kienzl, G. S., & Alfonso, M. (2011). Comparing the educational attainment of community college transfer students and four-year college rising juniors using propensity score matching methods. The Journal of Higher Education, 82(3), 265–291. https://www. jstor.org/stable/29789521 McKinnon-Crowley, S., Epstein, E., Jabbar, H., & Schudde, L. (2019). Crossing the shapeless river on a government craft: How military-affiliated students navigate community college transfer. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 43(10–11), 756–769. https://doi.org/10. 1080/10668926.2019.1600613 Moser, K. (2013). Exploring the impact of transfer capital on community college transfer students. Journal of the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, 25, 53–76. Mu, L., & Fosnacht, K. (2019). Effective advising: How academic advising influences student learning outcomes in different institutional contexts. The Review of Higher Education, 42(4), 1283–1307. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0066 National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. (2022, May 3). COVID-19: Transfer, mobility, and progress: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s update on transfer students. https://nscresearchcenter.org/transfer-mobility-and-progress/ Nieves, L. (1977). Coping on campus: The problems of minority college students. Educational Testing Service. Nora, A. (2004). The role of habitus and cultural capital in choosing a college: Transitioning from high school to higher education, and persisting in college among minority and non-minority students. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 3(2), 180–208. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1538192704263189 Nora, A., & Rendon, L. I. (1990). Determinants of predisposition to transfer among community college students: A structural model. Research in Higher Education, 31(3), 235–255. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/40195941 Núñez, A.-M., & Yoshimi, J. (2016). A phenomenology of transfer: Students’ experiences at a receiving institution. Innovative Higher Education, 42(2), 173–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10755-016-9374-7 Olivas, M. A. (1986). Financial aid and self-reports by disadvantaged students: The importance of being earnest. Research in Higher Education, 25, 245–252. https://doi.org/10.1007/ BF00991789 Ostrove, J. M., & Long, S. M. (2007). Social class and belonging: Implications for college adjustment. The Review of Higher Education, 30(4), 363–389. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe. 2007.0028

534

C. Hartman

Padilla, M., Brown, J. C., & Abrica, E. (2019). Evolving narratives about college: Immigrant community college students’ perceptions of the four-year degree in the Great Plains. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 43(10–11), 743–755. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10668926.2019.1600616 Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (1991). How college affects students: Findings and insights from twenty years of research. Jossey-Bass. Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of research. Jossey-Bass. Pascarella, E. T., Edison, M., Nora, A., Hagedorn, L., & Terenzini, P. T. (1996). Influences on students’ openness to diversity and challenge in the first year of college. The Journal of Higher Education, 67(2), 174–195. https://doi.org/10.2307/2943979 Pedler, M. L., Willis, R., & Nieuwoudt, J. E. (2022). A sense of belonging at university: Student retention, motivation and enjoyment. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 46(3), 397–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2021.1955844 Peter, K., & Cataldi, E. F. (2005). The road less traveled? Students who enroll in multiple institutions (NCES 2005–157). U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/ pubsinfo.asp?pubid¼2005157 Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418822335 Rendón, L. I. (1994). Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development. Innovative Higher Education, 19, 33–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/ BF01191156 Rios-Aguilar, C., & Deil-Amen, R. (2012). Beyond getting in and fitting in: An examination of social networks and professionally-relevant social capital among Latina/o university students. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 11, 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1538192711435555 Roberts, L., Welsh, M. E., & Dudek, B. (2019). Instruction and outreach for transfer students: A Colorado case study. College & Research Libraries, 80(1), 94–122. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl. 80.1.94 Rodriguez, S. K., & Kerrigan, M. R. (2019). “A better person coming out than going in”: Community college transfer students and constructivist grounded theory. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 43(6), 455–475. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2018.1490670 Rodriguez, S. L., Blaney, J. M., Vasquez, M. C., & Salinas, C. (2021). Latino men and masculinities: A multi-institutional study of community college transfer experiences. Community College Review, 49(3), 262–289. https://doi.org/10.1177/00915521211002898 Romano, R. M., & Eddy, P. L. (2017). Community colleges and social mobility. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 49(6), 55–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2017.1399041 Rosenbaum, J. E. (1976). Making inequality: The hidden curriculum of high school tracking. Wiley. Rosenbaum, J., Deil-Amen, R., & Person, A. (2006). After admission: From college access to college success. Russell Sage. Roska, J., & Calcagno, J. C. (2010). Catching up in community colleges: Academic preparation and transfer to four-year institutions. Teachers College Record, 112, 260–288. https://doi.org/10. 1177/016146811011200103 Rouse, C. E. (2012). Democratization or diversion? The effect of community colleges on educational attainment. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 13(2), 217–224. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/07350015.1995.10524596 Ruiz-de-Velasco, J., & Fix, M. (2000). Overlooked & underserved: Immigrant students in U.S. secondary schools. Urban Institute. Salinas, A., & Llanes, J. R. (2003). Student attrition, retention, and persistence: The case of the University of Texas Pan American. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 2, 73–97. https://doi. org/10.1177/1538192702238728

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

535

Santiago, D. A., & Stettner, A. (2013). Supporting Latino community college students: An investment in our economic future. Excelencia in Education. https://www.edexcelencia.org/research/ publications/supporting-latino-community-college-students-investment-our-economic-future Schudde, L., & Goldrick-Rab, S. (2015). On second chances and stratification: How sociologists think about community colleges. Community College Review, 43(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0091552114553296 Schudde, L., & Brown, R. S. (2019). Understanding variation in estimates of diversionary effects of community college entrance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sociology of Education, 92(3), 247–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040719848445 Schudde, L., Bradley, D., & Absher, C. (2020). Navigating vertical transfer online: Access to and usefulness of transfer information on community college websites. Community College Review, 48(1), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552119874500 Schudde, L., Jabbar, H., & Hartman, C. (2021a). How political and ecological contexts shape community college transfer. Sociology of Education, 94(1), 65–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0038040720954817 Schudde, L., Jabbar, H., Epstein, E., & Yucel, E. (2021b). Students’ sense making of higher education policies during the vertical transfer process. American Educational Research Journal, 58(5), 921–953. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312211003050 Schudde, L., Castillo, S., Shook, L., & Jabbar, H. (2022). The age of satisficing? Juggling work, education, and competing priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 8, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231221088438 Schwehm, J. S. (2017). Do student demographics and community college experiences influence the adjustment process of adult vertical transfer students? The Community College Enterprise, 23(1), 9–25. Sedmak, T. (2020, December 21). Student transfer decreased sharply during the pandemic, potentially causing a lasting impact on postsecondary attainment. National Student Clearinghouse. https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/blog/student-transfer-decreased-sharply-duringthe-pandemic-potentially-causing-a-lasting-impact-on-postsecondary-attainment/ Selingo, J. J. (2015, July 13). The student swirl becoming more of a norm in higher ed. Ithaka S+R. https://sr.ithaka.org/blog/the-student-swirl-becoming-more-of-a-norm-in-higher-ed/ Shapiro, D., Dundar, A., Huie, F., Wakhungu, P.K., Bhimdiwali, A., Nathan, A., & Youngsik, H. (2018, July). Transfer and mobility: A national view of student movement in postsecondary institutions, fall 2011 cohort (Signature report no. 15). National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Signature-Report-15.pdf Shaw, S. T., Spink, K., & Chin-Newman, C. (2019). “Do I really belong here?”: The stigma of being a community college transfer student at a four-year university. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 43(9), 657–660. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2018.1528907 Shealy, E., Brawner, C. E., Mobley, C., & Layton, R. A. (2013). A descriptive study of engineering transfer students at four institutions: Comparing lateral and vertical transfer pathways. American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition. https://doi.org/10. 18260/1-2-19053. SHP. (2019). The age of the neo-traditional student. Retrieved from https://shp.com/2019/07/22/ the-age-of-the-neo-traditional-student/ Smith, C., Miller, A., & Bermeo, C. A. (2009). Bridging the gaps to success: Promising practices for promoting transfer among low-income and first-generation students. The Pell Institute. Smith, A. A. (2021, June 23). The pandemic cost transfer students vital time on campus: Some want it back. EdSource. https://edsource.org/2021/the-pandemic-cost-transfer-students-vital-time-oncampus-some-want-it-back/656762 Solis, B., & Durán, R. P. (2022). Latinx community college students’ transition to a 4-year public research-intensive university. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 21(1), 49–66. https://doi. org/10.1177/1538192719899628

536

C. Hartman

Solórzano, D. G. (1998). Critical race theory, race and gender microaggressions, and the experience of Chicana and Chicano scholars. Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 121–136. https://doi. org/10.1080/095183998236926 Solórzano, D. G., Rivas, M. A., & Velez, V. N. (2005). Community college as a pathway to Chicana/o doctorate production. University of California, Los Angeles, Chicano Studies Research Center. https://www.chicano.ucla.edu/publications/report-brief/community-collegepathway-chicana-doctorate-production. Spencer, G. (2021). Off the beaten path: Can statewide articulation support students transferring in nonlinear directions? American Educational Research Journal, 58(5), 1070–1102. https://doi. org/10.3102/0002831221999782 Stokes, S. (2021). A sense of belonging within the imaginative constraints of racial realism: A critical race analysis of Latinx students’ racialized experiences during the Trump presidency. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398. 2021.1956632 Strayhorn, T. L. (2012a). College students’ sense of belonging: A key to educational success for all students. Routledge. Strayhorn, T. L. (2012b). Satisfaction and retention among African American men at two-year community colleges. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 36, 358–375. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668920902782508 Sutherland, J. A. (2011). Building an academic nation through social networks: Black immigrant men in community colleges. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 35(3), 267–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2011.528665 Szelenyi, K., & Chang, J. C. (2002). Educating immigrants: The community college role. Community College Review, 30(2), 55–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/009155210203000204 Tachine, A. (2022). Native presence and sovereignty in college: Sustaining indigenous weapons to defeat systemic monsters. Teachers College Press. Taylor, J. L. (2016). Reverse credit transfer policies and programs: Policy rationales, implementation, and implications. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 40(12), 1074–1090. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2016.1213673 Taylor, J. L., & Jain, D. (2017). The multiple dimensions of transfer: Examining the transfer function in American higher education. Community College Review, 45, 273–293. https://doi. org/10.1177/0091552117725177 Taylor, Z. W., & Bicak, I. (2020). First-generation college student financial aid: Results from a national financial aid jargon survey. College Student Affairs Journal, 38(1), 91–109. Teut, J., Reddinger, A., & Hager, L. (2019). Editors’ notes. New Directions for Community Colleges, 2019(188), 5–10. https://doi.org/10.1002/cc/20374 Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45, 89–125. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543045001089 Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press. Tinto, V., & Pusser, B. (2006). Moving from theory to action: Building a model of institutional action for student success. National Postsecondary Education Cooperative. https://nces.ed.gov/ npec/pdf/Tinto_Pusser_Report.pdf Tobolowsky, B. F., & Cox, B. E. (2012). Rationalizing neglect: An institutional response to transfer students. The Journal of Higher Education, 83(3), 389–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546. 2012.11777249 Townsend, B. K., McNerny, N., & Arnold, A. (1993). Will this community college transfer student succeed? Factors affecting transfer student performance. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 17, 433–443. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361697930170504 Townsend, B., & Wilson, K. (2006). “A hand hold for a little bit”: Factors facilitating the success of community college transfer students to a large research university. Journal of College Student Development, 47(4), 439–456. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2006.0052

9

A Review of Vertical and Horizontal Transfer Student Transitions and Experiences

537

Townsend, B. K., & Wilson, K. B. (2009). The academic and social integration of persisting community college transfer students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 10, 405–423. https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.10.4.a Turk, J. M. (2018). The impact of earning an associate degree prior to transfer on bachelor’s degree completion: A look at recent high school graduates. American Council on Education and Hobsons. https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/The-Impact-of-Earing-an-Associate-DegreePrior-to-Transfer.pdf Urias, M. V., Falcon, V., Harris, F., & Wood, J. L. (2017). Narratives of success: A retrospective trajectory analysis of men of color who successfully transferred from the community college. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2016(170), 23–33. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir20182 Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/00223514.92.1.82 Wang, X. (2012). Factors contributing to the upward transfer of baccalaureate aspirants beginning at community colleges. The Journal of Higher Education, 83(6), 851–875. https://doi.org/10. 1080/00221546.2012.11777272 Wang, X. (2015). Pathway to a baccalaureate in STEM fields: Are community colleges a viable route and does early STEM momentum matter? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(3), 376–393. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43773616 Wang, X. (2016). Transfer and selectivity: A multilevel analysis of community college students’ transfer to four-year institutions of varying selectivity. Teachers College Record, 118(12), 1–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811611801202 Wang, X. (2017). Toward a holistic theoretical model for momentum for community college student success. In M. B. Paulsen (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 259–308). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48983-4_6 Wang, X. (2020). On my own: The challenge and promise of building equitable STEM transfer pathways. Harvard University Press. Wang, X., Wickersham, K., & Sun, N. (2016). The evolving landscape of transfer research: Reconciling what we know in preparation for a new era of heightened promise and complexity. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2016(170), 115–121. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir. 20189 Wang, X., Chuang, Y., & Mccready, B. (2017). The effect of earning an associate degree on community college transfer students’ performance and success at four-year institutions. Teachers College Record, 119(2), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811711900206 Wang, X., Lee, S. Y., Nachman, B. R., & Zhu, X. (2021). It matters long before: How early exposure to faculty and advisors at baccalaureate institutions relates to upward transfer. Educational Researcher, 50(2), 105–114. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X20956659 Wassmer, R., Moore, C., & Shulock, N. (2004). Effect of racial/ethnic composition on transfer rates in community colleges: Implications for policy and practice. Research in Higher Education, 45(6), 651–672. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:RIHE.0000040267.68949.d1 Whatley, M., & González Canché, M. S. (2022). A robust estimation of the relationship between study abroad and academic outcomes among community college students. Research in Higher Education, 63, 271–308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09647-7 Wickersham, K. (2020). Where to go from here? Toward a model of 2-year college students’ postsecondary pathway selection. Community College Review, 48(2), 107–132. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0091552119880941 Wolf-Wendel, L., Ward, K., & Kinzie, J. (2009). A tangled web of terms: The overlap and unique contribution of involvement, engagement, and integration to understanding college student success. Journal of College Student Development, 50(4), 407–428. https://doi.org/10.1353/ csd.0.0077 Wood, J. L., & Palmer, R. T. (2013). The likelihood of transfer for Black males in community colleges: Examining the effects of engagement using multilevel, multinomial modeling. The

538

C. Hartman

Journal of Negro Education, 82(3), 272–287. https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.82. 3.0272 Wood, J. L., & Palmer, R. T. (2016). Determinants of intent to transfer among Black male community college students: A multinomial, multilevel investigation of student engagement. Teachers College Record, 118(8), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811611800802 Xu, D., Smith Jaggars, S., Fletcher, J., & Fink, J. E. (2018). Are community college transfer students “a good bet” for 4-year admissions? Comparing academic and labor-market outcomes between transfer and native 4-year college students. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(4), 478–502. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1434280 York, T. T., & Fernandez, F. (2018). The positive effects of service-learning on transfer students’ sense of belonging: A multi-institutional analysis. Journal of College Student Development, 59(5), 579–597. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2018.0054 Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1361332052000341006 Yücel, E., Jabbar, H., & Schudde, L. (2022). Navigating transfer through networks: How community college students seek support from social ties throughout the transfer process. The Review of Higher Education, 45(4), 487–513. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2022.0006 Zhang, Y. L. (2016). An overlooked population in community college: International students’ (in) validation experiences with academic advising. Community College Review, 44(2), 153–170. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552116633293 Zhang, Y. L. (2017). International students in transition: International community college transfer students in a Texas research university. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2017(170), 35–48. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.20183 Zhang, Y., & Ozuna, T. (2015). Pathways to engineering: The validation experiences of transfer students. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 39(4), 355–365. https://doi. org/10.1080/10668926.2014.981892 Zhang, Y. L., Laanan, F. S., & Adamuti-Trache, M. (2018). What matters to students’ satisfaction: A comparative study between vertical and horizontal transfer students at 4-year universities. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 42(12), 878–892. https://doi.org/10. 1080/10668926.2017.1366374 Zilvinskis, J., & Dumford, A. D. (2018). The relationship between transfer student status, student engagement, and high-impact practice participation. Community College Review, 46(4), 368–387. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552118781495

Catherine Hartman is a postdoctoral research associate at the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on community college student success, engagement, and transfer to 4-year institutions.

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

10

Patricia Somers, Z. W. Taylor, and Kelly Soucy

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Rhetoric of Armament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rewriting the Right to Bear (Carry) Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heller and McDonald: SCOTUS Creates Private Right to Bear Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Originalism and English Common Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weapons in the Medieval University and Colonial Colleges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mass Murders on College Campuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The University of Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kent State University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jackson State College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cal State-Fullerton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . University of Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Virginia Tech University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Northern Illinois University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The California Shootings: Oikos, Santa Monica, and UC-Santa Barbara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Umpqua Community College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review of the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Surveys of Students, Faculty, and Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Empirical Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Statistical Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

540 541 542 544 544 546 547 547 548 548 549 549 550 550 551 552 552 553 559 559

Shouping Hu was the Associate Editor for this chapter. P. Somers (*) · K. Soucy The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Z. W. Taylor University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA e-mail: [email protected] © This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the U.S.; foreign copyright protection may apply 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_10

539

540

P. Somers et al.

Single-Site Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Qualitative Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Systematic Reviews of the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Essays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Campus Carry in Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foundational Law Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Legal Perspectives on Campus Carry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where Modern Scholarship All Started: The University of Texas at Austin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Perpetual Cycle: Campus Carry in 2022 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Game Changer: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022) . . . . . . . Post-Bruen Realities for Campus Carry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

560 560 562 563 564 565 566 566 567 569 572 575 577 579

Abstract

This chapter explores the discourse of guns, the archaic legal tools demanded by the constitutional originalists, Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decisions, the history of gun violence on college campuses in the United States, research on the impact of campus carry on students, faculty, staff, and administrators, and legal perspectives on campus carry. The conclusion outlines possible futures for campus carry based on legal, political, and policy climates. Keywords

Campus carry · Concealed carry · Gun permits · Gun licenses · Firearms · Guns · Gun violence · Colleges · Universities · College students · Faculty · Staff · Presidents · First Amendment · Second Amendment · SCOTUS · Case law · Law · History · Campus safety · Campus life · Campus security · Campus police · Police · Murder · Mass murder

Introduction The eyes of the world were trained on the University of Texas at Austin’s campus on August 1, 2016, the 50th anniversary of the Clock Tower Shooting which killed 14 souls and injured 31 others (Lavergne, 1997). The tragedy marked the first mass shooting of the modern era. With irony and intention, that day was also the effective date of the Texas law permitting concealed carry of handguns on public colleges in the state (Senate Bill 11). The Second Amendment to the US Constitution (1791) was in large part a response to the British suppression of the right to use weapons (arms) to protect colonists’ property and oppose British rule. Not surprisingly, the Revolution ended the need for action to prevent British abuses of power. Few challenges to the law were filed until the Heller (2008) and McDonald (2010) decisions well into the twenty-first century which accelerated demands for the right to carry guns. Why the sudden change? Social constructionists point to the redefinition of the problem (Duwe, 2007). No longer is gun violence limited to low-income and minority neighborhoods. Rather,

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

541

mass shootings occur regularly in predominantly White communities and the primarily White universities that train the next generation of political and economic leaders. Further, as more guns move into the mainstream, the suicide rate for young White male college students increases. Guns challenge the status quo in uncomfortable ways. Rather than seriously dealing with issues of race, violence, and poverty, “good guys with guns” control the narrative (Duwe, 2007; Schweit, 2021). Over the last 4 years (2018–2022), very conservative judges were appointed to the bench at local, state, and federal levels. These jurists radically changed the discourse on the law in general, with a focus on the original intent of the founders of our country. As a result, the courts focused more on an individual’s right to carry guns for protection than the common good of preventing violence. Using originalist theory, the courts marched into their time machines and travelled back in time to excavate arguments that equate the right to carry a sword in medieval England to owning an AK-47 which could fire 600 rounds/min for self-protection. An AK-47 perfectly describes the term overkill, since it leaves no identifiable body parts. Thus, the debate over campus carry is fraught with controversy and, ironically, even more body parts and violence. The cold-blooded murder of 19 schoolchildren and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas, exposes the complex and contested policy terrain involving two bodies of research: whether and to what extent all individuals have the right to carry weapons for protection from violence and the research on the impact of carrying such weapons in educational settings. Thus, there are two major competing and at times contradictory narratives to discuss. In two parts, this chapter explores the discourse on guns and the private right to bear arms, the archaic legal tools demanded by the constitutional originalists, the most recent Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decisions, the history of gun violence on college campuses in the United States, and the research on the impact of campus carry on students, faculty, staff, and administrators. The conclusion outlines possible futures for campus carry based on the legal, political, and policy climates. “Why,” a colleague asks, “do we talk about gun rights as opposed to campus carry?” The answer to that question lies in the nature of the federal Second Amendment as compared to state laws. The Second Amendment dictates the laws for possession of guns in the United States. However, each state, city, township, parish, and county may pass legislation on gun possession in those venues that are more liberal than the federal law. Thus, the Heller (2008) and McDonald (2010) Supreme Court decisions grant the private right to ownership of a gun, but the Texas campus carry law enables individuals meeting certain criteria to carry a concealed handgun on public college campuses.

The Rhetoric of Armament A confusing array of terms are used by politicians, lawyers, jurists, laypersons, and advocates on all sides of the gun issue to describe how individuals may carry firearms. The Constitution of the Vermont Republic (1777) gives all residents and nonresidents the right to carry a firearm while in the state without any restriction or permit required. This applies to both open and concealed carry. Although many gun rights activists

542

P. Somers et al.

aspire to permit-less carry, no other venue has adopted the policy into law. Thus, the terms “Vermont Carry” and “Permit-less carry” are synonymous and exclusive. Three major distinctions characterize the laws and policies in other jurisdictions. Concealed carry allows an individual to have a firearm concealed on their person or in a backpack or purse carried by the individual. However, caution is necessary, because several gun owners have either accidentally left or discharged their weapons in public bathrooms. Serious harm can result from accidental discharge and related incidents (Beresford, 2018). The second scenario is a jurisdiction with open carry, which allows an individual to display and carry a firearm. The third option is campus carry. However, the laws may be confusing. For example, a state may allow open carry, concealed carry by employees of K-12 school districts, and concealed campus carry on some but not all college campuses. Further, training, age limits, firearms specifications, and other details may vary. Indeed, two adjacent college campuses may have different requirements due to individual policies and their public or private status. Finally, small changes in the law may be made by local jurisdictions frequently. Valentine and Somers (2020) exposed the myth that campus carry laws were a direct result of the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007. Writing about guns in state office buildings in 2002, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff noted that the University of Utah’s ban on concealed carry was unconstitutional (Associated Press, 2007). While the university won a court challenge in favor of the ban, 2 years later the legislature approved campus carry (Kronholz, 2004). Utah was the model for campus carry legislation a full 3 years before the Virginia Tech shooting. Moreover, the day after the shooting, Students for Concealed Campus Carry was formed (Valentine & Somers, 2020).

Rewriting the Right to Bear (Carry) Arms From the approval of the Second Amendment, over 200 years passed before the competing voices of gun and social activists clashed on the road to Heller. A number of social, political, economic, public health, and legal forces animated this discussion (Waldman, 2014). Politically, Justice O’Connor, who had provided a moderating influence over the court retired, Justice Rehnquist died, and the sharp-tongued Scalia was joined by conservative Justices Alito and Roberts. With these changes, the likelihood of a 5-4 decision increased (Waldman, 2014). According to Utter and Spitzer (2011), “Two events spurred the introduction of an assault weapon ban in Congress: the January 1989 schoolyard shooting in Stockton, California, that left 5 children dead and 29 others wounded; and the Killeen, Texas, [Luby’s] cafeteria shooting in which 22 people were killed and 23 others wounded before the shooter took his own life” (pp. 4–5). The assumption is that Supreme Court justices rely primarily on precedents and advice of legal scholars for their decisions. However, in this instance, public opinion, specifically the shock and horror of two mass murders, prompted the political and legal system to heed public opinion. This could be a prognostication that the current efforts to address gun safety following massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde could sway future court decisions. Thus,

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

543

strong public opinion may be a moderating influence on future court decisions as happened with the assault weapons ban in the 1990s. The pro-Heller lobbying strategy included policy briefs by many conservatives. Vice President Dick Cheney issued a hardline amicus brief in favor of the personal right to bear arms. The statement was signed by most of the Republican members of the House and Senate. A total of 66 amicus briefs were filed in support of adding a private right to the Second Amendment (Waldman, 2014). At the Department of Justice, Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that “The text and original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protect the right of the individuals to keep and bear firearms” (Ashcroft, 2001 as cited by Waldman, 2014). Senator Orrin Hatch created a “right to keep and bear arms” commission through the Senate Judiciary Committee (Waldman, 2014, p. 117). Finally, the National Rifle Association committed substantial resources to President Bush’s presidential campaign and the resulting Florida recount (Waldman, 2014). The gun lobby invested millions of dollars in a campaign to manufacture a private right for individuals to bear arms. Reynolds (1995) and Waldman (2014) agreed that an avalanche of law review articles had an outsized influence on the Heller court. Reynolds suggested that the increase in scholarship was due to more interest in the field. The blunt Waldman, however, attributed much of the boom to the role of paid scholarship noting that “. . .[three researchers] wrote 30 law review articles in the 1990s and received a million dollars of funding” (pp. 151–152). The National Rifle Association Foundation donated $1,000,000 for an endowed chair at a university. One lawyer was paid $15,000 for a negative book review (Waldman, 2014). Moreover, Waldman critiqued the credibility of law review articles. Unlike social science scholarship, law review journals are edited not by peers but by law students. He named “law office history,” the “practice of placing facts or quotes out of time or out of context to fit a legal argument” as culprits of accuracy and fairness. “Yet courts cite them frequently” (p. 98). In the battle to win the private right to bear arms, the gun lobby strategically created barriers to research and policy. The results of public health research were contested. The research per se was not prohibited, but the results were. Draconian penalties were attached to “erroneous” results and few funds were available to researchers. The research on gun violence during this time was limited to locally funded efforts and private monies from grants and contracts (Waldman, 2014). About a year before the Virginia Tech shooting, various gun rights groups paid students to form Students for Concealed Carry chapters. The Gun Owners of America paid the organizers, and the conservative Leadership Institute (LI) trained the organizers (Weinstein, 2015). While the network was real, the membership of the group may have been severely inflated. For example, one student identified himself as the only active member of the University of Texas SCC group out of 40,000 students on campus (Phillips, 2016). At the same time, the group claimed hundreds of chapters and thousands of members. In the end, the gun rights activists outmaneuvered and outspent those who favored modernization. The recent public support for renewed gun safety in the form of a gun safety bill (Financial Times, 2022) may indicate the resurgence of compromise in the post-Uvalde world.

544

P. Somers et al.

Heller and McDonald: SCOTUS Creates Private Right to Bear Arms Heller (2008) originated in response to the rising crime rate in the District of Columbia. In response, the D.C. Council enacted the strict Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 (D.C. Code, 2001). At issue was the right of the large number of nonpolice department employees in the District who used firearms on the job to store their weapons in their residence when off duty. The law allowed the police chief to issue 1-year licenses for such storage; however, the security guards and special police officers awarded a license were required to disable the use of the handgun or use a trigger lock. The conservative Cato Institute recruited several licensees to sue the District; the lead respondent was Dick Heller, a special police officer (Waldman, 2014). SCOTUS struck down the Act in a 5-4 decision which established an individual private right to bear arms for self-defense. The Court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm, which is not connected with service in a militia, and to “use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” In praise of Heller, the Federalist Society enthused, the “opinion was a new high-water mark for originalism at the Court: a majority of Justices examined the text and history of the Second Amendment to determine its original public meaning instead of crafting the pragmatic balancing tests that had previously been the norm” (Baird, 2021, para. 1–2). While Heller created the public right to own and carry handguns, McDonald (2010) established the power of city, state, and local governments to set gun ownership standards that were more permissive than the federal law. The City of Chicago and village of Oak Park (Chicago, Ill. Municipal Code, 2009; Oak Park Municipal Code, 2009) claimed that Heller did not apply to cities, states, or local governments. Throwing shade on the lower courts, SCOTUS chortled, “applying the standard that is well established in our case law, we hold that the Second Amendment right is fully applicable to the States.” With this single decision, thousands of individuals were given the right to bear arms, in particular individuals at public colleges and universities (Baird, 2021, para. 6). Using a federalist lens in Heller, SCOTUS struck down the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 in a 5-4 decision which established an individual private right to bear arms for selfprotection. The Court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to “use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

Originalism and English Common Law An originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment entails a reading of the United States Constitution as one of the Founding Fathers would, meaning it is only acceptable to prognosticate what the founders intended in the vernacular, rather than consider the Constitution a mutable, living document that can encompass modernity and changing social landscapes. Pertinent to the Second Amendment, an originalist interpretation is that the right to bear arms was strictly military: States

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

545

must be allowed to maintain an armored and weaponized militia to defend their freedom, whereas individuals do not have the private right to bear arms in their own self-defense (Blocher & Miller, 2018; Cramer, 2014). This originalist interpretation of the Second Amendment dates to Athens according to Duke University Law Professors Joseph Blocher and Darrell A. H. Miller. Blocher and Miller (2018) explained that Common Law rejected the individual right to bear arms, dictating that “every Athenian was finable who walked about the city in armour” (p. 15). As precedent for both the birth of the United States and its Constitution, England’s Parliament and its Statute of Northampton (1328) is widely credited with being the first law to protect public safety; in fact, it was neither. In 1299, King Edward I declared that “under pain of forfeiture [no person should go armed in public] without the king’s special license” (Blocher & Miller, 2018, p. 15). Moreover, the law protected unpopular monarchs rather than public safety and allowed the aristocracy to arm and hunt on their country estates. Similar declarations were made in the twelfth century by the City of London, much like the City of Washington, DC, 800 years later, prohibiting the carrying of weapons. The 1670 Game Act prevented all but the aristocracy from hunting and “deprived the great majority of the community from all legal right to have firearms” (Blocher & Miller, 2018, p. 16). The Glorious Revolution of 1689 overthrew the rule by religious minority and resulted in the English Declaration of Rights which allowed that “subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for the Defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law” (Blocher & Miller, 2018, p. 19). No longer did an isolated and powerless king need laws to protect him from armed overthrow. Since then, however, the law on carrying guns in public has evolved very differently in the UK versus the United States. The UK continues to limit the carrying of weapons, and their laws have remained among the toughest in the world for decades. In the UK, guns are banned with only police officers, enrolled members of the armed forces, and those with special governmental authority possessing guns, while individual chief police officers can revoke gun licenses if they determine the holder can no longer be trusted. The result has been extremely low rates of gun violence and virtually no mass shootings (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2021). After the Dunblane massacre in 1996, gun laws became even stricter in the UK. In March 1996, a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School in Scotland, proceeding to kill 16 students and a teacher, while injuring 15 others. The following year, the UK parliament took aggressive action to ban private ownership of most handguns, while later banning semiautomatic weapons and enforcing mandatory registration of shotguns (Solly, 2021). Although it is difficult to specifically quantify how these measures have curbed gun violence in the UK, England and Wales reported in 2020 that only 4% of all homicides were gun-related, whereas the United States reported in 2019 that 73% of all homicides were gun-related (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2021). Inversely, the United States has experienced multiple devastating school shootings with many scholars suggesting that gun rights have expanded, rather than contracted as they did in the UK in the wake of the Dunblane massacre. Institutions

546

P. Somers et al.

of higher education in the United States have struggled with gun control even prior to the signing of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights in 1789. Somers and Valentine (2020) chronicled a long, sordid history of how colonial era institutions attempted gun control, including Harvard levying a two-shilling fine for any discharge of a firearm on Harvard Yard, as institutions exclusively enrolled men, many of whom owned and carried guns regularly.

Weapons in the Medieval University and Colonial Colleges As US institutions were nearly exclusively modeled after German and English universities, many weapons policies were adopted by US institutions from European institutions, including regulations on guns, swords, and the time-honored tradition of dueling. Oxford, for instance, prohibited guns on campus except for those times when the students were leaving or returning to campus and only for purposes of protection. Roughly a decade later, when the Second Amendment was introduced, the trickledown effect to US colleges and universities was swift (Somers & Valentine, 2020). Yet, what complicated matters were state laws related to armed militia, including states like Rhode Island and Georgia. These states required all men to own firearms and appear in official militia demonstrations, yet institutions of higher education were male-only, problematizing the divide between state laws and anti-violence policies held by institutions of higher education (Cramer, 2014). In 1802, after witnessing poor student behavior in the form of fights and public intoxication, the leaders of what is now Princeton University adopted some of the first student conduct policies in US higher education. Officials required that students could not keep or use guns on or near school grounds. Yet, in 1814, Princeton President Ashbel Green chronicled an incident where a pistol was fired in the direction of one of Princeton’s tutors, and later, Princeton President James Carnahan was nearly shot by a drunken student. In 1806, Harvard student Charles Austin was killed in a duel by Thomas Selfridge, who had been threatening Austin’s father, Benjamin. Austin approached Selfridge with a wooden walking stick, and in his defense, Selfridge pulled out a pistol and shot Austin dead. Ultimately, at trial in Boston, the court ruled that Selfridge was justified in his use of a pistol in deadly force, forming the precedent for the “stand your ground” laws that are on the books in many southern states, including Texas, Georgia, and Florida, but not in Massachusetts where the precedent setting case was decided (Somers & Valentine, 2020). Outside of the Atlantic coast, gun violence had been particularly problematic for southern universities, with many students attending the University of Virginia (UVA) coming from wealthy slave-owning families with access to guns. In fact, threats of gun violence and gun violence itself became so troublesome that in 1824, the University of Virginia dictated that no student could keep or use weapons of any kind. Interestingly enough, both future US Presidents and supporters of the Bill of Rights Thomas Jefferson and John Adams sat on UVA’s board and supported the weapons ban on campus, while also advancing broader weapons rights in the Second Amendment. However, UVA’s ban did not stop the University’s troubled history of

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

547

gun violence. Protesting the ban, roughly 70 students from mostly wealthy families banded together and formed a militia – this faction put so much pressure on UVA that in 1832, the college agreed to allow this group to perform military drills on campus including muskets, but such demonstrations needed to be supervised by faculty. Eventually, in 1836, the group grew tired of requiring faculty supervision and demonstrated without proper authority, leading to UVA ultimately banning guns on campus again (Somers & Valentine, 2020). In the wake of the 1836 riots at UVA, word spread to other college campuses, and guns were widely banned across the country at institutions like the University of Nashville in 1837, Kemper College in St. Louis in 1840, and McKenzie College in Texas in 1860. However, problems arose, as the University of North Carolina and Illinois College adopted confusing policies that, as written, allowed students “to use firearms, but not keep them” on campus (Cramer, 2014, p. 419). Similarly, places like Oberlin College, which were staunchly against slavery, kept guns on campus for their faculty and staff to use if runaway slaves were being hunted by US marshals (Cramer, 2014). For as violent as the Civil War was, blanket bans continued across the country in the mid to late 1800s, with institutions like Yale University, Kentucky University (now University of Kentucky), and the entire state of Mississippi banning guns (and many other violent weapons, such as bowie knives) in or around campus (Cramer, 2014). As a result, as gun violence across the United States slowly rose throughout the late 1800s and 1900s, college campuses became some of the safest places in the country. Since the early 1990s, campuses are among the least likely places for a mass shooting to occur, even though mass shootings have steadily risen over the past century, partially catalyzed by concentrated lobbying from the National Rifle Association to expand gun rights, and subsequently, gun sales (Briggs, 2017). However, and tragically so, mass shootings on college campuses have occurred, the first in Texas, where gun ownership and pride has been deeply ingrained into the state’s culture for centuries.

Mass Murders on College Campuses In this age of social media, even the purported sighting of a gun on campus generates thousands of Tweets. A veritable army of faculty, staff, students, and visitors armed with cell phones rather than guns document shooting incidents on or adjacent to campus. This outsized role of social media makes it appear that attacks are a daily event. Actually, the opposite is true: college campuses are one of the safest spaces in the country. Beginning with the Texas Clock Tower Shooting in 1966 to the end of 2021, only 11 mass campus murders have occurred.

The University of Texas On August 1, 1966, a student at The University of Texas at Austin committed the first mass shooting on a college campus. Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old, climbed

548

P. Somers et al.

the university’s famous clock tower and shot 16 people dead, injuring another 31. Although notable for being the first mass school shooting in US history, the shooting was also documented through videos and photographs as it happened, drawing intense media attention to the event (Ponder, 2018). The University of Texas Police Department was formed in 1968 to provide protection for institutional stakeholders, with city police officers also being stationed closer to campus in hopes of deterring another incident of mass violence (Ponder, 2018). However, a few years after the UT shooting, two other institutions of higher education suffered massacres under different circumstances and at the hands of wildly different shooters.

Kent State University On May 4, 1970, Kent State University’s campus was swarmed by Ohio National Guard officers, responding to a peaceful anti-Vietnam War protest. Earlier in the week, President Richard Nixon had announced the invasion of Cambodia , and subsequently, riots erupted on college campuses across the country. At Kent State, students and other campus stakeholders had peacefully assembled on campus on May 1 and May 2 to protest the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia, yet on the evening of May 2, the Mayor of Kent, Ohio LeRoy Satrom made the decision to call the National Guard after a fire broke out at the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) building on campus. The National Guard arrived late at night on May 2, and on May 3, the National Guard began using tear gas and bayonets to break up the crowds on campus and move students back into their residence halls. By May 4, the Ohio National Guard had arrived to disperse the largest protest on Kent State’s campus to date, as over 1000 people gathered near the campus’ Victory Bell. At first, the National Guard attempted to use tear gas to break up the crowd, with many protesters throwing rocks back at guard members. This retaliation may have been perceived as too violent, as sergeant Myron Pryor began firing his pistol into the crowd of students attempting to retreat. This led other guards to open fire, with many guard members believing their guns were filled with blanks, only to realize their guns were filled with live ammunition when dead bodies were lying motionless on the ground. Ultimately, the Kent State Massacre lasted only 13 s and killed four students (two men, two women) with another nine injured – all men and all students in good standing at the university (Eszterhas & Roberts, 2012).

Jackson State College Only 11 days later in May of 1970, Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) was the site of a mass shooting of Jackson State students by city and state officers, ultimately resulting in the murder of 2 students and injuring of 12. On the night of May 14, almost 100 Black students attending Jackson State College had organized on the symbolically evocative Lynch Street and reportedly hurled rocks at oncoming traffic to protest the treatment of Blacks by Whites, as Lynch Street in

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

549

Jackson, MS had garnered a reputation for being a sort of battleground for racial inequity and discrimination against Blacks. Later in the night, students heard a false rumor of the death of Civil Rights activist Charles Evers, leading them to start fires and overturn large vehicles. In a short time, over 75 local police units and the Mississippi Highway Patrol tried to control the crowd, slowly pushing toward a woman’s dormitory. After yelling between the crowd and the police, the police opened fire, with gunfire lasting 30 s and taking the lives of two students. Today, the Gibbs-Green Plaza bears the name of the two men killed in the event, Philip Gibbs and James Green. Yet, such memorialization and media coverage has largely eluded the Jackson State killings, possibly speaking to the racialized nature of the crimes committed by local and state police against People of Color, versus the killing of Whites on the grassy knoll of the Kent State massacre (Spofford, 1988).

Cal State-Fullerton The California State University-Fullerton (CSUF) massacre in July 1976 was of a completely different sort. Not tied to a national movement or advocacy for Civil Rights, a mentally deranged custodian – 37-year-old Edward Allaway – killed seven and injured two others with a semiautomatic rifle in the campus’ Instructional Media Center. Apparently, he had an altercation with his wife (who filed for divorce later that day) and then purchased a semiautomatic rifle from K-Mart to commit murder. According to court testimony, Allaway was a paranoid that believed a group of gay men were plotting to kill him, and that his coworkers were working with his wife to make pornographic films on campus in CSUF’s library (Huor, 2017). As a result, Allaway charged into the Instructional Media Center and opened fire, particularly aiming for certain victims he thought wronged him. In fact, his mental state was brought into question during his testimony, as he admitted to holding fire on a visiting high school student that he did not recognize, but then turned away and located victims that were on his potential hit list. Ultimately, he ran out of bullets, fled to a hotel, and turned himself into the police (Huor, 2017).

University of Iowa Decades passed before the next mass shooting on a college campus, this time at the University of Iowa in 1991. On November 1, 1991, a former physics graduate student named Gang Lu shot and murdered three professors, a research associate, and an administrator, while injuring an administrative assistant. He then proceeded to take his own life. Lu, who had graduated from the University of Iowa earlier in May with a Ph.D. in Physics, was rumored to have been upset with the university over his job prospects despite a sparkling academic record, negative feedback he received from his mentors on his dissertation, and his inability to socialize with other members of the physics department. His murdering of the Iowa faculty and staff was premeditated, just as CSUF’s shooter was, as he had filed for a gun permit shortly

550

P. Somers et al.

after his graduation in May. Moreover, he confessed to feelings of anger and resentment in letters penned to his family during the summer leading up to his crime (Kumagai, 1991).

Virginia Tech University Almost two decades after the murders at the University of Iowa, perhaps the strangest and most violent mass shooting on a college campus occurred in Blacksburg, VA. In one of the rarest situations of two shooting events on the same campus on the same day, the Virginia Tech University massacre of 2007 received widespread media coverage, given the Virginia Tech mass shooting was the first of the Internet era. On Monday April 16, Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, murdered 32 people, with 2 people killed at 6 am CST and 30 others being killed between 9: 30 and 9:50 am CST – 6 others were injured but survived. He was armed with two semiautomatic pistols and seemingly did not have a clear plan, as he stormed into both residence and lecture halls, shooting into crowds before moving on. When police eventually arrived and surrounded Norris Hall, he took his own life (Agger & Luke, 2008). Later, it was disclosed that he had struggled with mental issues, stalked female students, and was diagnosed with mutism and severe depression, possibly catalyzing the attack, which at the time was the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Scholars also uncovered legal loopholes that allowed someone with a mental health problem, such as Cho, easy access to purchase firearms, a law that the state of Virginia later amended to close the loophole (Fallahi et al., 2009).

Northern Illinois University One year later, in February 2008, Steven Kazmierczak arrived on the Northern Illinois campus at 3:00 pm CST and entered Cole Hall, a large lecture hall, and began opening fire. In total, Kazmierczak murdered 5 students and wounded 17 others before taking his own life as police were arriving on the scene. Unlike other mass shootings, the perpetrator was a college student but not associated with the shooting site: Kazmierczak was a successful graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but had stopped taking medication shortly before the shooting, suggesting mental illness played a factor in his crimes. Moreover, he was one of the most outfitted mass shooters in history, arriving on the NIU campus with three loaded handguns (one semiautomatic pistol), eight loaded magazines, a knife, and a loaded shotgun hidden in a guitar case. Police investigation discovered that he only unloaded roughly 50 rounds of the nearly 100 rounds he was carrying, suggesting he planned more casualties before being interrupted by police, who arrived within minutes of the shooter’s outburst. NIU students were also credited by police with considerable bravery, as many NIU students were able to escape the room and call for help, saving potentially dozens of lives (Vann, 2011).

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

551

The California Shootings: Oikos, Santa Monica, and UC-Santa Barbara California was home to three mass shootings within a 3-year period, starting with the deadliest mass shooting in Oakland, California’s history. On April 12, 2012, a man and former Oikos University student named One Goh murdered six students and one professor, injuring three others. He had been dismissed from Oikos for disciplinary reasons, and he was reported as being upset with Oikos administration for failing to return his prior semester’s tuition payment. The shooting occurred in the morning, 10:30 am PST, and he armed himself with a semiautomatic handgun with 40 rounds of ammunition. He had covertly stashed his armament under his clothing, posing as a current student in a nursing class on Oikos’ campus. During the class, he stood up and opened fire, with six of his seven victims being women. As he fled, he continued to fire at people on campus, and hours later turned himself into the police at a gas station. Ultimately, he was sentenced to prison and died there 7 years later (Guillermo, 2012). One year later, a 23-year-old man and former Santa Monica College student named John Zawahri murdered five people, injured four others, and then took his own life on June 7, 2013, on the campus of Santa Monica College. Akin to the CSUF murders, his rampage began at his home and during a domestic dispute. Before leaving his house, he set fire to his home and armed himself with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, carjacked and wounded a woman, and then made his way to the campus. On the drive, he opened fire on a bus and several vehicles, seemingly shooting without a plan or hit list. When he arrived on campus, he proceeded to enter the library and opened fire once again, failing to murder anyone in the library and was subsequently shot and killed by police. Although his motive was unclear, he was reportedly seen researching guns when he was a high schooler and was denied a gun permit by the state of California in 2011 (Sinai, 2016). Finally, another year later, a 22-year-old man and former college student (multiple institutions, none of them UC-Santa Barbara) named Elliot Rodger murdered 6 people and injured 14 others using deadly force, including stabbing 3 men to death at his apartment, shooting people on sight, and shooting others from his car. He was destined for a sorority house, and when he could not enter, he shot three women, killing two. He returned to his vehicle, shot and killed a man sitting in a deli, and then began driving and shooting victims, while ramming several with his car as he drove through Isla Vista, CA. His rampage ended when he crashed his car into a parked vehicle and then committed suicide via gunshot wound to the head. Like other mass shootings on college campuses, this shooting started away from campus but ended near the campus of the University of California-Santa Barbara, the home campus of the sorority that he attacked. His motives were strictly romantic and sexual in nature: He penned a 107,000-word manifesto that outlined his rejection by women and envy of sexually active men, chronicling his pathway to murder by recalling his 2012 gun training and hoarding cash to buy assault weapons to carry out his plans (White, 2017).

552

P. Somers et al.

Umpqua Community College The last mass shooting on a college campus (as of July 2022) occurred on Umpqua Community College’s (UCC) campus near Roseburg, Oregon, on October 1, 2015. Then, a 26-year-old UCC student, Chris Harper-Mercer, murdered a professor and eight students, injuring eight others. At roughly 10:30 am, police were notified via a 9-1-1 of reported gunfire on campus. Taking an English class in the same building, he entered the hallway of his class and fired a warning shot. He then proceeded to enter a classroom, arrange victims in the center of the classroom, and began murdering. One student was spared who delivered a package to police for him, while several other students were murdered trying to save their lives, including one student in a wheelchair who tried to climb back into the chair after falling and was shot again. Six minutes after the 9-1-1 call, he engaged in a shootout with plain clothes police officers. Minutes later, the shooter killed himself with a gunshot. Later, police reports indicated that he had a wealth of ammunition, with police expressing relief that the shootout did not last longer and claimed more lives. The package delivered to police contained his manifesto, including the shooter expressing admiration for Elliot Rodger, the UC-Santa Barbara killer, as well as anger and resentment for unfulfilled sexual and romantic fantasies. The investigation also found that the shooter arrived on the UCC campus with five handguns and one semiautomatic rifle, in addition to a flak jacket, demonstrating the premeditated nature of his killings (Wilson, 2018).

Review of the Literature The scholarly, legal, and professional research on campus carry is voluminous, interdisciplinary, and contradictory, given that campus carry laws vary by state and have been implemented differently by public and private institutions of higher education. For example, using a broad search for “campus carry” on Google Scholar for dates between 1950 and 2022 rendered 1.4 million results, including peerreviewed journal articles, books, monographs, reports, legal briefs, court cases, and other forms of scholarship. Given the limits of this volume, we needed to hone our focus, and we accomplished this by selecting several top-tier research databases and limiting our search results to peer-reviewed journals and books that specifically address campus carry. Moreover, there are many books that broadly focus on gun violence but few that are campus carry-specific or go in-depth about a campus-related shooting (for example, The University of Texas at Austin Clock Tower Shooting in 1966, Virginia Tech University shooting in 2007). Based on the strict criteria that the research must address campus carry, search methods and results are located in Table 1. The following sections of this literature review are divided by research methodology, with separate subheadings for analyses on how campus carry may affect different stakeholders. However, and unfortunately so, school shootings in the United States occur roughly twice per month (Education Week, 2022; Everytown

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

553

Table 1 Campus carry literature review selection process and criteria (until June 2022) Database EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier and Education Source

Hits 71 peer-reviewed journal articles

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)

22 peer-reviewed journal articles

JSTOR

29 peer-reviewed journal articles

ProQuest Dissertations

32 dissertations

HeinOnline Academic

14,021

Books

7 (only one directly related to campus carry; Somers & Valentine, 2020)

Keywords “Campus þ carry,” “college þ guns,” “university þ guns,” “college þ gun violence,” “university þ gun violence” “Campus þ carry,” “college þ guns,” “university þ guns,” “college þ gun violence,” “university þ gun violence” “Campus þ carry,” “college þ guns,” “university þ guns,” “college þ gun violence,” “university þ gun violence” “Campus þ carry,” “college þ guns,” “university þ guns,” “college þ gun violence,” “university þ gun violence” “Campus þ carry”

“Campus þ carry”

Inclusion Yes; overlap with ERIC and JSTOR database

Yes; overlap with EBSCO and JSTOR database

Yes; overlap with EBSCO and ERIC database

Selective; only used to augment sparse areas of research

Selective; used to frame certain state laws and legal challenges Yes; used to complement peerreviewed research, provide historical context

Research & Policy, 2022a), and subsequently, a comprehensive literature review that is not outdated a month after publication seems impossible. As a result, we decided to include literature up to 2021, with an additional, brief section to cover 2022 research to the extent possible.

Surveys of Students, Faculty, and Staff The most prominent form of scholarship directly related to campus carry laws, implementation, and stakeholder attitudes is survey research. Moreover, campus carry survey studies have overwhelmingly focused on the student experience (Cavanaugh et al., 2012; Fallahi et al., 2009; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Hayes et al., 2021; Holmes et al., 2019; Jang et al., 2014; Kaminski et al., 2010; Kruis et al., 2020;

554

P. Somers et al.

Kyle et al., 2017; Lewis et al., 2016; Lewis & Huynh, 2017; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020, 2021; Meilman et al., 1998; Miller et al., 1999, 2002; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Patten et al., 2013a, 2013b; Presley et al., 1997; Ruoppila & Butters, 2021; Sandersen et al., 2018; Sargent & Newman, 2021; Satterfield & Wallace, 2020; Scherer et al., 2021; Schildkraut et al., 2015, 2018a, 2018b; Scott et al., 2021; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b; Soboroff et al., 2019; Thompson et al., 2013b; Updegrove et al., 2021; Verrecchia & Hendrix, 2018; Wallace, 2019; Wallace & Dunn, 2018; Walter et al., 2020; Wells et al., 2012; Wombacher & Wallace, 2019). Student Surveys. The earliest survey of college student attitudes toward weapon carrying on campus was Presley et al. (1997), drawing from data from the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey of the 1994/1995 academic year. The survey covered 61 institutions and over 26,000 students, and Presley et al.’s (1997) work uncovered many findings that would eventually be echoed by later studies. First, their work found that roughly 7% of college students carried a firearm that was not for their job or for hunting during the last 30 days, with men being much more likely not only to carry a firearm but also report binge drinking within the previous 2 weeks. Findings related to women were mixed, but women college students reported much less firearm ownership and drug abuse. Later, Meilman et al. (1998) built upon Presley et al.’s (1997) work, parsing the 94/95 Core Alcohol and Drug Survey data by geographic region and institutional type. Overall, Meilman et al. (1998) learned that college students attending (1) institutions in the South, (2) public institutions, and (3) 2-year institutions were much more likely to carry firearms than peers attending college in other regions and at other institutional types. Miller’s research group (1999, 2002) conducted several surveys of college students attending 4-year institutions, finding that between 3.5% (Miller et al., 1999) and 4.3% of college students possessed a working firearm in their home (Miller et al., 2002). Moreover, Miller et al. (1999, 2002) echoed earlier studies, as Miller et al. (1999) learned that firearms owners were much more likely to be White or Native American men who (1) binge drink weekly, (2) belong to a Greek organization, (3) live off campus, and/or (4) live with a partner. Moreover, firearms owners were more likely to put themselves at risk of injury (Miller et al., 1999) and more likely to be threatened with a gun (Miller et al., 2002). A unique finding of Miller et al.’s (2002) study was that victims of firearm threats were disproportionately Students of Color, specifically African American students, an early indication of how firearms on campus may harm historically minoritized groups more than others. Since 2002, dozens of survey studies have been published that broadly assess how college students feel about campus carry laws and firearms on campus in general, with many of these studies arriving at similar findings and conclusions, no matter where or when the research was carried out. Overwhelmingly, studies have demonstrated that the majority of college students do not support campus carry (Cavanaugh et al., 2012; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Hayes et al., 2021; Jang et al., 2014; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Patten et al., 2013a, 2013b; Ruoppila & Butters, 2021; Sandersen et al., 2018; Satterfield & Wallace, 2020; Schildkraut et al., 2015, 2018a, 2018b; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b; Soboroff et al., 2019; Thompson et al., 2013b; Updegrove et al., 2021; Verrecchia & Hendrix, 2018; Wallace, 2019; Wallace &

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

555

Dunn, 2018), campus carry makes students feel less safe (McMahon-Howard et al., 2021; Patten et al., 2013b; Thompson et al., 2013b; Ruoppila & Butters, 2021; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b; Soboroff et al., 2019), and women support campus carry much less than men and feel less safe on campus than do men (Lewis et al., 2016; Patten et al., 2013a; Satterfield & Wallace, 2020; Thompson et al., 2013b; Updegrove et al., 2021). Additionally, studies have consistently concluded that Republican or conservative men of many races are more supportive of campus carry laws than any other student population (Hayes et al., 2021; Jang et al., 2014; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Schildkraut et al., 2018a, 2018b; Verrecchia & Hendrix, 2018), followed by men (Cavanaugh et al., 2012; Kyle et al., 2017; Scherer et al., 2021; Soboroff et al., 2019; Thompson et al., 2013b; Updegrove et al., 2021; Wallace, 2019; Wallace & Dunn, 2018; Wells et al., 2012). Similarly, Sandersen et al. (2018) learned that community college women did not support campus carry at the rates of men but expressed a greater number of benefits of campus carry than men did. Researchers have also delineated the attitudes toward campus carry held by women and men regarding gun control, as college men support gun restrictions for people with a mental illness at much higher rates than college women (Lewis & Huynh, 2017), suggesting a unique intersectionality among college men’s views on campus carry and gun restrictions. Some of these findings were echoed by Sargent and Newman (2021) who surveyed college students and learned that many college students who positively viewed campus carry laws also negatively viewed people with mental illness, but results were not specific to gender. Few survey studies have delved into who college students believe should be allowed to carry a firearm on campus, with some studies suggesting that women – more so than men – believe faculty members should be allowed to carry on campus if such laws are in place (Lewis et al., 2016). Later research then disputed that fact, finding that White, conservative men were more likely than women to support students and faculty carrying firearms on campus (Schildkraut et al., 2015; Verrecchia & Hendrix, 2018). Other studies have suggested that the majority of college students feel it best to leave campus carry to professionals, such as police officers (Ruoppila & Butters, 2021). A student’s personal and academic environment both have an effect on how college students view campus carry, as Wallace (2019) learned that students who had a friend or peer who carried were more likely to carry themselves, suggesting an intergroup gun culture or effect among college students of many genders. This finding was also echoed by Wombacher and Wallace (2019). Similarly, Shepperd et al. (2018a, 2018b) learned that gun ownership was a strong predictor of support for campus carry among college students, regardless of race, age, or gender. Kruis et al. (2020) also explored the relationship between gun legislation knowledge and support of campus carry laws, suggesting that college students who were knowledgeable about gun legislation also held positive attitudes toward campus carry. Wombacher and Wallace (2019) explored whether gun socialization in childhood was associated with attitudes toward campus carry, finding that college students of all backgrounds who were exposed to guns early in life held more progun and

556

P. Somers et al.

pro-campus carry attitudes as college students. Finally, echoing research decades earlier (Meilman et al., 1998; Presley et al., 1997), Walter et al. (2020) learned that college students who reported higher levels of binge drinking were more likely to carry a firearm on campus, controlling for age, race, and gender. Perception of campus has influenced college student attitudes as well, as Scott et al. (2021) found that college students viewed campus preparedness for an active shooter as a key indicator that they could feel safe on campus, regardless of student type. Wells et al. (2012) also discovered that students, regardless of their learning environment, were more likely to support campus carry laws if they believed a gun incident was likely to occur on campus, speaking to how college student attitudes may be influenced by their perception of campus safety. However, Holmes et al. (2019) suggested that college student safety may not be influenced by campus carry laws, as college students in their study indicated that if they knew a Republican peer was carrying a gun, the students would feel no less safe. However, college students did report being less willing to perform certain academic tasks with a peer who was carrying a firearm, suggesting that those who carry on campus may not produce a lack of feeling safe in others, but they may lead to academic hesitation (Holmes et al., 2019). Campus carry survey results may also vary depending on the implementation of the instrument, as Wells et al. (2012) surveyed college students taking web-based courses versus face-to-face courses, finding that students in web-based courses were more supportive of campus carry laws than students attending face-to-face. By major, the surveys seem to indicate some differences in how college students view campus carry laws. Bouffard et al. (2012a) surveyed criminal justice majors and found that these students were more interested in carrying a firearm on campus if it was allowed than other groups. Survey studies have conducted cross-comparisons of how student attitudes and perceptions differ from faculty and staff attitudes, with several studies finding that students in general are more supportive of campus carry than faculty or staff (Hassett & Kim, 2021; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Patten et al., 2013b). However, prior studies disputed these facts, suggesting that student, faculty, and staff attitudes toward campus carry are more similar than they are different (Kyle et al., 2017). In the wake of mass shootings on the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois campuses, several studies examined how students perceived campus safety. Focused on Virginia Tech, Fallahi et al. (2009) learned that college students (excluding those attending Virginia Tech) agreed with faculty and staff and felt that mental illness and a lack of friends contributed to the tragedy. Moreover, the researchers found that college men perceived campus to be slightly safer than college women, while students reported their mental health suffered due to the constant media exposure and discussion of the event with family and friends. Similarly, Kaminski et al. (2010) surveyed college students enrolled at the University of South Carolina to explore how these students felt after the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings, learning that these shootings increased fear in college students, but that men felt safer and less fearful on campus than women.

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

557

Another notable feature of the survey literature is its focus on Georgia (McMahon-Howard et al., 2020, 2021; Scherer et al., 2021; Schildkraut et al., 2018b) and Texas (Holmes et al., 2019; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Ruoppila & Butters, 2021; Sandersen et al., 2018; Schildkraut et al., 2018a; Somers et al., 2021; Updegrove et al., 2021), two high-profile states with large public systems of higher education and campus carry laws that have been in effect for years. Schildkraut et al.’s (2018b) study explored differences in college student perceptions of campus carry at institutions in New York and Georgia, finding that Georgians were much more supportive of campus carry laws than New Yorkers. McMahonHoward et al. (2021) examined the effects of campus carry laws in Georgia on college student safety, learning that the passage of campus carry laws made them feel less safe and less confident in campus police. Meanwhile, nearly all Texas-based studies found that White, conservative men are more supportive of campus carry than other student populations (Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Sandersen et al., 2018; Schildkraut et al., 2018a; Ruoppila & Butters, 2021; Updegrove et al., 2021), and that these studies have largely not focused on pre- and post-campus carry law effects on safety, sense of belonging, or fear on campus. Faculty Surveys. After students, survey research has focused on faculty attitudes toward campus carry (Bennett et al., 2012; Dahl et al., 2016; De Angelis et al., 2017; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Kyle et al., 2017; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020, 2021; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Patten et al., 2013b; Scherer et al., 2021; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b; Thompson et al., 2013a) and its potential effects on teaching, learning, academic freedom (Dahl et al., 2016), and other phenomena related to campus carry laws. Akin to student survey research, faculty-focused survey research has overwhelmingly found that faculty members do not support campus carry laws (Bennett et al., 2012; Dahl et al., 2016; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Kyle et al., 2017; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Patten et al., 2013a, 2013b; Scherer et al., 2021; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b; Thompson et al., 2013a). Also similar to student survey research, studies have found that Republican-identified faculty members are more likely to support campus carry laws than Democrats (Bennett et al., 2012; De Angelis et al., 2017; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Scherer et al., 2021; Thompson et al., 2013a), in addition to White men supporting campus carry more so than other groups (Kyle et al., 2017), especially women (Patten et al., 2013a; Scherer et al., 2021; Somers et al., 2021; Thompson et al., 2013a). Regarding these attitudes, many studies found that a key reason faculty do not support campus carry laws is their negative impact on learning environments (Dahl et al., 2016; Patten et al., 2013b; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b). Shepperd et al. (2018b) articulated that a majority of faculty felt campus carry laws and the allowance of concealed carry on campus would restrict classroom discussion and repress open classroom debate, while Scherer et al. (2021) discovered that women faculty members were much more concerned about how campus carry would negatively impact their employment and work environment. Shepperd et al. (2018a) found that faculty members experienced lower levels of safety during

558

P. Somers et al.

conversations with students about their grades, suggesting that faculty would perceive a shift in an academic power dynamic if the student were carrying a firearm, a finding echoed by Somers et al. (2021). Studies have also found that faculty members’ fear of violence (De Angelis et al., 2017; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Kyle et al., 2017; McMahon-Howard et al., 2021) and distrust in law enforcement (De Angelis et al., 2017) lead to negative attitudes toward campus carry, controlling for age, race, and gender but not necessarily political affiliation (De Angelis et al., 2017). Fallahi et al.’s (2009) study of postVirginia Tech attitudes of campus carry found that faculty members believed that the mass shooting at Virginia Tech was caused by poor social support and mental health. Also, McMahon-Howard et al. (2021) studied the effects of Georgia passing campus carry laws and found faculty members viewed the campus as less safe, reported higher levels of fear, and less confidence in law enforcement as a result of the laws. This was similar to Somers et al.’s (2021) finding that women faculty members in Texas felt less safe and less able to do their job as a result of the campus carry laws. Staff Surveys. Compared to both students and faculty, staff have been surveyed far less frequently about their attitudes toward campus carry (see, for example, Somers et al., 2020), oftentimes as subgroups among larger studies of students, faculty, and staff (De Angelis et al., 2017; Fallahi et al., 2009; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Kyle et al., 2017; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020, 2021; Scherer et al., 2021). Similar with student and faculty surveys on attitudes toward campus carry, staff members have also overwhelmingly opposed campus carry laws (De Angelis et al., 2017; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Kyle et al., 2017; McMahon-Howard et al., 2020, 2021; Patten et al., 2013a; Scherer et al., 2021; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b; Somers et al., 2021) and feel less safe on campus as a result of campus carry laws (Patten et al., 2013a; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b). Additionally, staff members who identified as men (De Angelis et al., 2017; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Kyle et al., 2017; Patten et al., 2013a) or Republicans or conservatives were also more likely to support campus carry laws than Democrats or Liberals (De Angelis et al., 2017; Hassett & Kim, 2021). Also like faculty, a majority of staff frequently responded that they felt campus carry laws would negatively impact the learning environment on campus (Shepperd et al., 2018a), while campus carry laws negatively impacted staff members’ sense of safety and trust in law enforcement on campus (McMahon-Howard et al., 2021) and their perceived ability to do their job (Scherer et al., 2021). Also similar to student and faculty survey research, staff-focused studies demonstrated that one’s attitudes towards guns greatly affect views of campus carry, as staff with progun attitudes frequently supported campus carry regardless of other demographics (McMahonHoward et al., 2020). Other Stakeholders. Relatedly, few studies surveyed beyond students, faculty, and staff to learn from executive leaders (Price et al., 2014, 2016) or stakeholders, such as police officers (Thompson et al., 2009) and criminologists (Hassett & Kim, 2021). Echoing survey research focused on students, faculty, and staff, a 95% majority of 900 university presidents strongly indicated a disdain for campus carry laws (Price et al., 2014). Specific to HBCU presidents, Price et al. (2016) learned that

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

559

over 97% of HBCU presidents did not support campus carry, and many reported that they saw no benefits of campus carry laws. Thompson et al.’s (2009) survey of college campus police officers found that 86% of officers did not believe campus carry laws would prevent campus killings and that 62% perceived that there was not a long-term financial support to prevent firearm violence on campus. Of a national sample of over 1500 criminologists, Hassett and Kim (2021) learned that criminologists were overwhelmingly opposed to campus carry, and strongly cautioned against allowing visitors to carry on campus. And finally, Scherer et al. (2021) included administrators in their Georgian survey sample: they gave the lowest level of support for campus carry as compared to students and faculty.

Other Empirical Approaches Beyond surveys, several studies have engaged with large datasets to analyze how campus carry laws have affected numerous aspects of higher education, as well as to perform case studies and use other qualitative methods to learn about the effects of campus carry laws.

Statistical Analyses Regarding the adoption of campus carry laws, Johnson and Zhang (2020) used a panel data set from 2004 to 2016 across states that did and did not introduce campus carry laws, finding that states with higher numbers of active shooter events, greater Republican voting density, and conservative political ideologies were positively associated with adopting campus carry laws in a given state. LaPlant et al. (2021) adopted a similar approach using data from all 50 states and concluded that the volume of gun murders was negatively associated with campus carry adoption, while proxies for gun culture and belonging to the Southern United States were strongly predictive of adopting campus carry laws. Gius (2019) analyzed state-level datasets from ten states that had campus carry laws; there was no significant relationship between campus carry laws and on-campus crime. In fact, Gius’ analysis suggested that states that allow unpermitted concealed carry had lower levels of property crime than states without such a law. Similarly, Doss et al. (2020) examined how campus carry laws affected on-campus criminality in Mississippi from 2011 to 2016, finding that it held flat or decreased across nearly every public community college in Mississippi in that time, suggesting that Mississippi’s 2011 campus carry laws may have decreased gun violence on its community college campuses. Finally, McElroy and Coley (2021) produced perhaps the most unique quantitative study of guns on college campuses, exploring data from nearly 2000 institutions to explore which campus- and state-level characteristics predict institutions with shooting sports organizations. The researchers found that institutions in Republican states, schools with greater populations of White men, and

560

P. Somers et al.

schools with Republican-affiliated student organizations are more likely to facilitate shooting sports than peer institutions.

Single-Site Case Studies Also conducted less frequently than survey research are single-site case studies regarding a wide variety of phenomena related to campus carry and gun violence on college campuses. Asmussen and Creswell (1995) published one of the first case studies of how a campus responded to a student gunman, finding that one institution in the Midwest adopted many safety measures to calm stakeholders’ fears and devised campus-wide plans to mitigate the risks of another campus shooting. However, Asmussen and Creswell (1995) learned that many campus stakeholders were retriggered by discussions and memories of the shooting, largely negating any local efforts to assuage the fear held by the campus community. Decades later, several other case studies focused on the support for and implementation of campus carry policies. Bouffard et al. (2012b) examined the in-and-out foot traffic of five buildings at a single university in Texas and found that the size of a classroom and how potential gun carriers are measured would influence whether an average class in those buildings would include a licensed gun carrier at any given hour. Drew (2017) employed a qualitative approach to understanding how campus carry was implemented at Pittsburg State University, arguing that the state of Kansas’ adoption of campus carry laws would negatively affect faculty academic freedom and undermine the campus community’s sense of safety and cohesion. Finally, and specific to Texas, Ponder (2018) performed an historical case study of The University of Texas and its 1966 Clock Tower Shooting and the 2016 implementation of campus carry, arguing that the Austin community displayed symptoms of collective trauma from both events, including more permissive gun laws and a counterculture celebration of the Clock Tower shooter. Then, Beggan (2019) conducted a case study to better understand how two Texas campus communities viewed campus carry laws. Beggan (2019) employed survey methods to assess the level of support that campus stakeholders had for Senate Bill 11 which introduced campus carry to Texas. Overall, students were much more likely to support campus carry than faculty or staff members, echoing other survey research.

Qualitative Methods Campus carry research employing qualitative methods is not as strong as its surveyfocused counterpart but has emerged considerably in recent years, with all qualitative studies being published since 2017. In 2017, McGowan performed a content analysis of institutional campus carry websites, finding that campus carry policies were often opaque and not available in languages beyond English, possibly minoritizing non-English-speaking college students. After McGowan’s (2017) study, numerous qualitative studies have been conducted to evaluate perceptions

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

561

of and attitudes toward campus carry laws and their effects. Overall, qualitative work has suggested that students (Lehtonen & Seppälä, 2021; Watt et al., 2018), faculty members (Hernández, 2021; Jones & Horan, 2019), campus safety officers (AdkinsArmstrong, 2021), residence life professionals (Ward et al., 2018), and others have experienced negative impacts of campus carry, echoing the negative sentiment toward campus carry prevalent in survey research. Lehtonen and Seppälä’s (2021) study analyzed narratives, poems, and other written or drawn materials from Texas college students to better understand how students conceptualized and felt about campus carry laws. Their work revealed fragmented, often contradictory views about campus carry, mainly that several students felt guns were an important method of self-defense but that they did not belong in formal educational settings. Other students suggested that campuses ought to staff more police and attempt more proactive measures to curb gun violence on campus, even though such measures may include armed security forces. Watt et al. (2018) performed qualitative interviews with 16 self-identified minoritized doctoral students (queer, Students of Color, religious minorities, international students) to explore attitudes toward campus carry and overall campus climate in the wake of the Trump election. Overwhelmingly, these students argued that campus carry laws would place students in more danger, and 15 of 16 students suggested that minoritized students would feel the brunt of this danger, placing already at-risk students in an ever-greater risk category. Akin to Watt et al. (2018), Hernández (2021) interviewed 12 Faculty members of Color working at a predominantly White institution to learn more about how these individuals viewed campus carry as it affects their work and personal lives. The Faculty of Color explained that there was hesitance to work with White students alone or be alone in general in private offices out of security concerns, in addition to stereotyping White men who looked like campus shooters and being fearful of White men using their privilege to intimidate Faculty of Color with handguns. However, Faculty of Color found solace and strength in religion and their love of teaching to set aside fear and continue serving students. Jones and Horan (2019), although not interviewing Faculty of Color, did interview 17 instructors working at a Texas university to investigate how these instructors communicated with students after campus carry was in effect. Jones and Horan (2019) argued that instructors were especially cautious around students who they suspected may carry a firearm, with some instructors feeling that they needed to give “A” grades in order to smooth over relationships and ensure a peaceful end to semesters. Moreover, instructors indicated that they were less likely to engage in difficult conversations about charged topics out of fear of violent retaliation. Of interview studies focused on other campus stakeholders, Ward et al. (2018) interviewed five directors of residence life to investigate how these campus leaders viewed campus carry laws. Similar to other qualitative studies, these professionals rejected campus carry laws and argued that such laws endanger both students and staff working in residence life. Additionally, they shared the delicate negotiation of the choice to live with a peer who did not possess a firearm, which added to the stress and difficulty of the residence life position. However, they shared that they

562

P. Somers et al.

networked with peers and learned how their campus could operate under campus carry laws in the safest, most student-friendly ways possible. Evaluating attitudes of a different and important stakeholder group, AdkinsArmstrong (2021) interviewed five safety officers working at a university in a state with campus carry laws. These interviews yielded unique findings, as the interviewees suggested that safety officers need administrative, campus support to maintain a safe campus in the form of mandatory education for students about carrying concealed handguns and a private directory of students with concealed carry licenses and/or permits to inform how these officers can best maintain campus security. Beyond studies employing interview techniques, Heiskanen’s (2020) work has made unique contributions to the literature, employing visual and graphic data collection techniques to explore the lived experiences of existing on a campus carry campus. Heiskanen (2020) adopted a unique method to evaluate physical signage at The University of Texas at Austin, linking findings to how campus stakeholders experience physical reminders that they are occupying a campus carry space. Ultimately, Heiskanen (2020) reasoned that before campus carry, institutional stakeholders were not surrounded by gun rights messages; however, with campus carry, the physical environment was a constant reminder of living in a gun-toting state.

Systematic Reviews of the Literature After survey research became the prominent form of scholarship on campus carry post-Virginia Tech, two systematic reviews have been published that synthesize many prior studies, both empirical (Hassett et al., 2020) and practice based (Fox & Savage, 2009). Similar to Asmussen and Creswell’s (1995) foundational work, Fox and Savage (2009) performed a review of 20 reports from various task forces and working groups to explore how college campuses responded after the Virginia Tech massacre. Fox and Savage (2009) parsed major findings and synthesized seven recommendations that appeared in 70% of the reports in one form or another. These recommendations were that institutions should (1) create an all-hazards emergency response plan, (2) adopt an emergency mass notification and communications system, (3) educate and train students, faculty, and staff about mass notification systems and their roles and responsibilities in an emergency, (4) establish a multidisciplinary team to respond to threats and other dangerous behaviors, (5) train personnel regarding privacy matters associated with such regulations as FERPA and HIPAA, (6) compose MOUs with local health agencies and community partners, and (7) practice emergency plans and conduct training. Hassett et al. (2020) reviewed 17 studies – all cited in this chapter, minus one 2008 study due to access issues. Hassett and colleagues argued that most studies suggested all campus stakeholders (students, faculty, and staff) were strongly opposed to campus carry, with the exception of Verrecchia and Hendrix (2018),

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

563

who reported that 47.5% of their sample felt that qualified professionals on campus should carry a firearm. Also consistent with the literature reviewed in this chapter, Hassett et al. suggested that being a Republican or conservative and being a man were the greatest predictors of support for campus carry. Additionally, they learned that a fear of crime and victimization predicts progun attitudes and positive sentiment toward campus carry. Further, they call for future research to validate their findings and explore trends in the data to make more credible, demonstrable contributions to the literature.

Reports Since 2008, many educational organizations – both directly tied to institutions of higher education and others in the nonprofit sphere – have composed reports to provide practitioners with guidance for campus safety, as well as track campus carry policies at the state and national level. Rasmussen and Johnson, along with the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (2008), evaluated the effect of the massacre on campus safety and security policies and practices. These researchers, surveyed 331 chief student life officers, found that a clear majority of institutional leaders had changed campus security policies and practices as a result of the massacre. In all, 96% of respondents indicated they had reviewed their campus policies, at least 88% said they had audited their emergency broadcast system, campus facilities policies, and campus police operations, and over 70% had reviewed their crime investigation protocol, renewed their relationships with local law enforcement, and refreshed policies related to student mental health. Beyond reviewing policies and practices, many institutional leaders were in the process of augmenting or adopting greater emergency notification systems, but this improvement came at a cost: 35% of campuses reported that their campus safety budgets increased as a result of the Virginia Tech massacre. In 2016, the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators (Morse et al., 2016) and Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School (Webster et al., 2016) released major reports on how research can inform gun policy and practice. First, Morse et al. provided an overview of campus carry states (9 at the time with 21 pending legislation). Morse et al. reasoned that many campus carry laws placed some restrictions on where guns could be carried on campus, such as Utah’s stipulation that institutional leadership could establish “secure areas” (p. 7) that would prohibit concealed or open carry. Ultimately, Morse and colleagues suggested that institutions ought to provide all campus stakeholders with basic training on what campus carry means at their campus, along with ensuring that campus safety statistics are regularly evaluated as to whether campus carry actually made the campus safer. Webster et al. (2016) of the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health composed a similar report reviewing which states allowed or prohibited campus carry, identifying potential implications of such laws. Webster and colleagues articulated that most research found neutralization of active shooters

564

P. Somers et al.

requires a high level of training that most civilians who incidentally qualify for carrying a gun do not have, bringing into question whether the laws are even minimally effective. Moreover, Webster et al.’s historical analysis showed that civilians who carry are rarely able to prevent or interrupt mass shootings in any setting; most civilian responses are accidental at best. They also concluded that colleges are inappropriate venues to implement such laws, as traditionally aged college students are still undergoing considerable brain development and often experience mental health issues or suicidal ideations, possibly leading to firearm violence and increased danger on campus. In 2018 and 2019, two reports from Kansas raised academic freedom issues. Esch et al. (2018) argued that campus carry laws in Kansas substantially chilled the First Amendment and academic freedom of faculty. Moreover, Esch et al. argued that state governments were repressing individuals’ rights to organize and protest the laws, also suppressing other individual freedoms in order for a select few to exercise their right to concealed carry. In an Urban Institute Report, Reimal et al. (2019) discovered that a majority of stakeholders did not support campus carry. Reimal et al. learned that over 40% of stakeholders felt less safe on campus were not as knowledgeable about the law. They laid the blame on the institutions for this failure. More recently, the Rand Corporation (2022) and Everytown Research and Policy (2022b) published reports highlighting the effects of concealed carry laws and how college environments have become less safe and more hostile as a result of campus carry laws. The Rand Corporation suggested that concealed carry laws may increase violent crime, at the same time finding no empirical studies suggesting that any violent outcome would decrease. Rand asserted that there was inconclusive evidence to suggest that concealed carry laws affected gun industry outcomes, mass shootings, suicide, and unintentional injuries and deaths. Similarly, Everytown Research and Policy (2022b) cited industry research to explain that campus carry laws have increased the risk of gun violence on campus, campus carry laws have produced new liabilities for institutions to burden, and the vast majority of higher education stakeholders oppose campus carry in every state.

Essays Along with data-driven, empirical studies, many scholars and organizations have penned essays to comment on campus carry laws and their effects on the local, state, and national community. Most essays express a rejection of campus carry laws (Eberly, 2016; Fennell, 2009; Hodges, 2017; Keeling, 1999; Torreano & Merkle, 2019; Wood, 2014), while others paint a more nuanced picture of how some stakeholders have embraced campus carry (Hsiao, 2018; Vuori, 2021), how campus carry data are incomplete and cannot establish causality (Birnbaum, 2013; Hayter et al., 2014; Vuori, 2021), and how attitudes toward these laws can be inconsistent with prior research depending on institution and sampling procedures (Kelling et al., 2021; Torreano & Merkle, 2019; Vuori, 2021). Other essays have theorized how campuses may experience unintended consequences of campus carry laws, such as

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

565

increases in safety budgets (Dieterle & Koolage, 2014), political divides that fracture states and communities (Arrigo & Acheson, 2016; Feder, 2016), and uncomfortable academic environments that may lead to crises in academic ethics (Smith, 2012). Several scholars have also written about how campuses can be prepared for emergencies related to campus carry (Blackwell, 2018; Hope, 2015; Lervik, 2013; Lohrmann et al., 2020), viewing campus carry laws as a new normal with which institutions must learn to live. Echoing prior research, policy, and practice reports (Morse et al., 2016; Webster et al., 2016), these authors suggested campuses take a proactive approach to communicate with stakeholders, review safety plans, and educate the campus community on the laws (Blackwell, 2018; Hope, 2015). Other essayists have bemoaned the fact that campus shootings continue to occur (Keeling, 1999; Lervik, 2013; Torreano & Merkle, 2019), while others have called for more research into how empirical data can inform better policy advocacy and practice (Horan & Bryant, 2017).

Campus Carry in Court There have been several challenges to campus carry and its constitutionality. Faculty in Texas and Georgia argued that state legislation created a hostile environment that would have a chilling effect on learning. In the state of Texas, three University of Texas at Austin professors argued that SB 11 would impede their first amendment rights to free speech. However, US District Judge Lee Yeakle, a federal judge, denied the faculty claims stating, “Their First Amendment claim is and must be bottomed on their right to speak and teach freely. Neither the campus carry law nor the campus carry policy forbids them from doing so” (Benning, 2016, para. 16). Similar to the Texas legal challenge, six professors at different Georgia state institutions sought an injunction to stop campus carry on grounds it was unconstitutional and a danger to the campus communities. The professors argued that the legislation usurped the University System of Georgia’s constitutional authority over its campuses. Like their Texas colleagues, the Georgians believed the law would affect the academic environment similar to the Texas professors. In their challenge, the professors utilized the governor’s veto from 2016 to illustrate concerns about the necessity of campus carry and Deal’s call to legislatures to increase law enforcement around campuses for safety reasons (Deal, 2016). Lastly, the professors argued that more firearms on campus would potentially lead to more suicides and safety hazards from accidental discharges. Superior Court Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams, however, denied the injunction based on the State not waiving sovereign immunity (Stirgus, 2017) indicating that the State has the ability to legislate matters for college campuses. In contrast to the Texas and Georgia challenges, there have been concerns that the campus carry legislation and implementation has been too limited based on the Second Amendment. One example is Florida Carry, Inc. v. University of Florida (2015), where students sought the ability to bear arms within university-owned residence halls. However, the Court granted motions to dismiss in favor of the

566

P. Somers et al.

University of Florida, which granted sovereign immunity to the institution’s president. This decision continues to allow the university to prohibit firearms within the residence halls since the institution owns the facilities. In New Hampshire, politician Bradley Jardis argued that the University System should follow state legislation regarding firearms (Bennett, 2020). While most courts have sided with the universities, Oregon courts determined the Board of Higher Education and Oregon University System policy restricting firearms exceeded regulatory authority (Bennett, 2020).

Foundational Law Reviews Arnold (2019) argued that opponents of campus carry laws could use hostile speech environment in the classroom setting due to the presence of firearms in class; however, the Supreme Court assesses fear-based First Amendment injuries which makes it difficult for opponents to challenge campus carry laws. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) used this argument in the discussion over Texas SB 11 in 2017. SB 11 in the state of Texas when they asked the court to reverse the lower court’s judgment. The fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision indicating SB 11 would not create a chilling effect on educational discourse (Bennett, 2020). Smith (2013) analyzed how the Second Amendment and Heller cases impacted campus housing as it relates to gun possession, as campus housing could have been considered to be a student’s home. In Heller, SCOTUS determined that the Second Amendment did not give unlimited power for states to waive their right to demarcate “sensitive places,” including college campuses. Smith (2013) reasoned that some viewed student housing as usually owned by the institution, not the student, and therefore institutions can mandate a code of conduct. However, this analysis is problematic, as renters do not own apartment complexes yet can still possess firearms in their apartments. As a result, Smith (2013) suggested that students will likely be successful in challenging campus housing bans on firearms, and since 2013, many states have implemented full campus carry laws that allow firearms in student housing on campus.

Other Legal Perspectives on Campus Carry Many legal scholars have weighed in on their analyses of campus carry laws and how they may affect many aspects of higher education, including university autonomy (Carrington, 2019; Cunningham, 2011; Wasserman, 2011), campus housing (Smith, 2013), incurred costs of campus carry (Oblinger, 2013), and how some states may adopt campus carry laws from others (Short, 2019), with some legal analysts suggesting that campus carry laws are effective and constitutionally protected (Short, 2019; Tuck, 2022). Carrington (2019), Cunningham (2011), and Wasserman (2011) all expressed a fear that as states create and pass campus carry laws, that institutions

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

567

of higher education may slowly lose autonomy over their campuses and be unable to maintain a safe learning environment. Meanwhile, other analyses have suggested that campus carry laws will prove problematic for student housing policies (Smith, 2013), while Short (2019) and Tuck (2022) both supported campus carry policies, with Short (2019) suggesting that Texas’ Senate Bill 11 was productive for universities to create their own campus carry policies, while Tuck (2022) underscored the constitutional support for campus carry. One pressing legal issue is how the how First and Second Amendment rights conflict in the marketplace of ideas that is a modern college campus (Lewis, 2011, 2017; Magarian, 2020; Mash, 2013; Miller, 2011; Oblinger, 2013; Wolcott, 2017). Overwhelmingly, these scholars have suggested that campus carry laws have significantly chilled freedom of speech on college campuses (Lewis, 2011, 2017; Miller, 2011; Oblinger, 2013; Wolcott, 2017), with Mash (2013) asserting that not only faculty and staff would suffer: Anyone on campus may be deterred from speaking out of a fear of gun-laden retaliation. Scholars have also compared the dangers of firearms with speech, as Lewis (2017) argued that, “Firearms present an inherent safety hazard, whereas speech generally does not” (p. 2138). Finally, most legal analyses have pointed to the institutional leverage that campus carry laws allow, implying that although some institutions may not agree with campus carry laws, those institutions may be able to curtail campus carry laws in meaningful ways that serve the community and keep the campus safe (Lewis, 2011; Miller, 2011; Wolcott, 2017).

Where Modern Scholarship All Started: The University of Texas at Austin The first mass school shooting in the modern history of the United States occurred at The University of Texas at Austin’s campus in 1966 (Ponder, 2018). Subsequently, a wealth of research has followed that has focused on that same campus to provide insight not only into the university’s current contexts but also how its eyes are fixed upon its own history. Beyond its unfortunate precedent setting history, what also renders The University of Texas at Austin’s campus a unique research venue is that Austin is the capital city of Texas and has traditionally been a liberal hub in a historically conservative state. Moreover, as Austin has grown in the recent decades to serve as the home for the corporate headquarters of several Fortune 500 companies and especially high-tech companies, Austin’s population has rapidly changed, even though some of Texas’s historical politics have not (Ponder, 2018). Beginning in 2015, shortly before campus carry laws were signed (Texas Senate Bill 11), the Somers research group at The University of Texas at Austin began a sweeping series of projects that explored stakeholder attitudes toward campus carry, particularly of under-researched groups including women (Somers et al., 2017) and professional staff (Somers et al., 2020). In interviews with about 100 women faculty and staff members, women reported that they generally felt safe on campus, but these women often cited a 2016 murder of a woman student on campus, which led them to

568

P. Somers et al.

feel less safe in the university’s parking garages, which are located on the fringes of the campus (Somers et al., 2017). Furthermore, three other campus-related shootings provoked a sense of fear in the women respondents, including (1) a 2010 incident involving a shooter using an AK-47 to murder people before committing suicide in the campus library; (2) a 2016 event where an 18-year-old woman was raped and murdered by a 17-year-old homeless man; (3) a 2016 shooting incident where a university student shot a security guard at an off-campus fraternity party, and (4) two campus murders not involving handguns. Perhaps beyond the university’s control, women also viewed Austin’s burgeoning homeless population – especially near campus – as a dangerous development, leading to a sense of insecurity (Somers et al., 2017). Of professional staff, Somers et al. (2020) interviewed 32 professional staff to explore their feelings and attitudes toward campus carry, finding that most staff felt safe, but many cited the intense and challenging academic environment as a motivating factor for students to turn to violence. Moreover, staff were asked about their institution’s response to the implementation of campus carry safety measures, and overwhelmingly, 75% of respondents felt they did not receive enough education or training regarding campus carry. Additionally, respondents often claimed that employees of a higher rank or from a wealthier department (business, engineering) received much more training and resources than did peers of lower ranks and less wealthy departments, suggesting a type of institutional stratification when it came to information and readiness for campus carry laws (Somers et al., 2020). Regarding faculty feelings and attitudes, Somers and Phelps (2018) interviewed 140 faculty members regarding their campus carry, and generally, faculty members reported feeling safe. Yet, given the urban setting of campus, faculty reported feeling safer during the day than at night, when populations beyond that of the university’s move into the university’s footprint for various nightlife purposes. However, perhaps the largest contribution to the literature, Somers and Phelps (2018) implored faculty on how they viewed academic freedom as it relates to campus carry, as a voluminous body of legal scholarship had argued that campus carry and related Second Amendment rights would considerably “chill” First Amendment rights, many of which extend to faculty members’ right to freedom of speech. Somers and Phelps discovered that many faculty members planned to move their courses to online settings to mitigate the effects of students carrying guns into classrooms and potentially “freezing” the speech of both students and faculty members (Somers & Phelps, 2018, p. 6). Evidencing this chill or freeze, several faculty members said they would be “pulling back more and more” (p. 7) from what they usually talked about in class discussions, while others have said campus carry had made them rethink how they speak to students who are struggling with their coursework, urging them to “call in another faculty member to just sit with me, be the second pair of ears (p. 8). Extending inquiry into how an urban setting may influence feelings and attitudes toward campus carry, Somers et al. (2021) used a mixed methods approach (surveys and interviews) with 226 faculty and staff to explore how attitudes shifted over the 6-year period since campus carry had been implemented in Texas in 2015. Their results suggested considerable differences between women and men when it came to

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

569

a sense of safety on campus, primarily out of men’s reported history with firearms and gun violence outside of campus. In the study, men consistently reported a heightened sense of safety on campus, which was correlated with prior experiences and knowledge of firearms off campus. Meanwhile, women reported fewer prior experiences with firearms, and subsequently, many women felt less safe on campus and especially at night and on the weekends (Somers et al., 2021). These findings contributed to the literature and extended knowledge of how faculty and staff may be socialized through prior experiences to feel more or less safe regarding campus carry laws, also suggesting gender stratification and a minoritization of women on campus. In 2020, Somers and Valentine (2020) published Campus Carry: Confronting a Loaded Issue in Higher Education, an overview of the Somers research group work, as well as individual chapters related to many aspects – both intended and unintended – of campus carry laws across the United States. These chapters included suicide prevention on campus, the role that security guards and campus police play and have played in situations of gun violence on college campuses, and the effects of campus carry laws on Communities of Color.

The Perpetual Cycle: Campus Carry in 2022 School shootings are increasingly common, evidenced by Education Week’s (2022) school shootings tracker that documented 27 school shootings from January 1, 2022, to July 1, 2022, with 119 school shootings since 2018. Given the seemingly perpetual cycle of these horrific incidents, researchers continuously produce scholarship to capture these incidents. In fact, during the writing of this monograph, eight peer-reviewed journal articles were published in early 2022 (Graves, 2022; HuangIsherwood, 2022; Kruis et al., 2022; Luo & Shi, 2022; Noga-Styron & Britto, 2022; Price & Khubchandani, 2022; Ruoppila, 2022; Scherer et al., 2022) that analyze various aspects of campus carry policies. Of these very recent studies, several themes emerge. First, in a meta-analysis of the literature, we find that campus carry research studies continue to overwhelmingly lean on survey methods to articulate findings and inform policy. Studies by Huang-Isherwood (2022), Kruis et al. (2022), Luo and Shi (2022), Noga-Styron and Britto (2022), and Scherer et al. (2022) all adopted survey methods to assess stakeholder attitudes of campus carry policies. Moreover, studies focus – perhaps overly so – on the student experience, as most recent studies survey undergraduate students (Huang-Isherwood, 2022; Kruis et al., 2022; Luo & Shi, 2022; Noga-Styron & Britto, 2022; Scherer et al., 2022), and few survey faculty (Luo & Shi, 2022; Scherer et al., 2022), and only one surveyed staff who only comprised 12.5% of the sample (Luo & Shi, 2022). Of this focus on students, studies continue to oversample women (Huang-Isherwood, 2022; Luo & Shi, 2022; NogaStyron & Britto, 2022; Scherer et al., 2022), even though men are responsible for all mass shootings on college campuses in US history. Additionally, only one study (Kruis et al., 2022) surveyed community members, which seems problematic given

570

P. Somers et al.

that many mass shootings on college campuses began off-campus within a community and then spilled onto campus later. Here, research gaps still exist, namely that survey methods may be overused, there exists underrepresentation of many educational stakeholders, and studies are relegated to relatively few states (CA, OR, PA, TX, and WA). Of these survey studies, several unique findings have emerged that prior research has not addressed. In Huang-Isherwood’s (2022) study of gun possession attitudes held by undergraduate students at a west coast university, the researcher found that students born outside the United States (either international students, immigrants, or undocumented students) were much less likely to support gun possession than their domestic-born peers. Although their study echoed decades of prior research contending that women and Democrats do not support gun possession at near the rates of men and Republicans, Huang-Isherwood’s (2022) study made a unique contribution to the literature, revealing that birthplace is a strong predictor of negative attitudes toward gun possession. This finding was also supported by Luo and Shi (2022) who surveyed educational stakeholders (71% of them undergraduates) at a US/Mexico border university in Texas. Survey results again echoed prior research, mainly that campus stakeholders overwhelmingly do not support campus carry laws. However, Luo and Shi (2022) learned that the degree of assimilation experienced by Latino students was a predictor of support for campus carry laws: The longer a Latino student had been in the United States, the more support they had for campus carry laws. This finding suggests, akin to Huang-Isherwood (2022), that individuals not born in the United States tend to reject gun possession, whereas access to and experience in US culture increases support of gun rights, namely campus carry laws in Luo and Shi’s (2022) study. Of the last single-institution study, Scherer et al. (2022) surveyed 602 faculty and 4937 students from a large public university in Georgia 1 year after Georgia passed campus carry laws. Results suggested that overall, all stakeholders did not support campus carry laws, and nearly 50% of faculty members had experienced at least one negative impact of guns on campus, primarily related to First Amendment freedom of speech and chilly discussion environments. Moreover, Scherer et al. (2022) found that both faculty and students who reported an experience of a negative conflict on campus perceived the campus as less safe, owed in part to campus carry laws and increased fears of victimization. Extending a survey into two institutions, NogaStyron and Britto (2022) examined survey responses from students attending an institution in Oregon and an institution in Washington, exploring how student attitudes in a campus carry state (Oregon) may be different from student attitudes in an institutional carry state (Washington). As an institutional carry state, Washington institutions of higher education have banned firearms unless special permitting from the university police chief or president. Of 459 responses, NogaStryon and Britto (2022) learned that student support for freedom of speech was stronger than support for Second Amendment rights and campus carry laws, and that the majority of students would feel less safe, change their behavior in class, and remain silent during class discussions if they knew campus carry laws were in place at their institution.

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

571

Kruis et al.’s (2022) study was a unique contribution to the literature as their group surveyed 238 college students in Pennsylvania and 522 Pennsylvania residents to compare and contrast attitudes toward 4 main types of carry: student, faculty, staff, and universal (permit-less). Moreover, another strength of Kruis et al.’s (2022) was its gender balance at nearly 50/50; however, the researchers did not parse the data beyond the gender binary. Their results suggested that both groups – students and residents – felt that armed faculty and staff could neutralize a threat, but this feeling was only a slight majority. However, both groups were overwhelmingly against all forms of campus carry and did not feel that student carry would have any effect on a gun threat situation on campus. Finally, echoing prior work, Kruis et al. (2022) found that political affiliation strongly predicted support of campus carry policies, as Democrats strongly opposed campus carry, while Republicans tended to be in favor of such policies. Beyond survey methods, both Graves (2022) and Ruoppila (2022) adopted unique methods to inform the community about perceptions of and experiences with campus carry policies. Graves’ (2022) study was written from an autoethnographic perspective, as the author shared their first-person experiences with their first year on the tenure track as a woman faculty member in a campus carry state (Idaho). Graves (2022) recounted a teaching situation where a woman student asked to speak with Graves after class about a man student in the class, who also stayed behind the rest of the class after a session. Graves recalled that the woman student was a Student of Color and felt that that White man student had a problem with her. Graves diffused the situation and supported the Woman of Color, but she also noticed that the White man student was carrying a gun during the dispute, and the White man student then proceeded to insist on speaking with Graves after the dispute, insisting that Graves report the Woman of Color for reverse racism. The entire situation produced a sense of fear in Graves, as she described the radical power shift she experienced: At one time, a faculty member held the power in such situations, but with a gun present, the gun holder also held all of the power. Graves concluded by strongly condemning campus carry policies, arguing that they chill the First Amendment and compromise learning spaces for all students. Finally, Ruoppila’s (2022) study used interviews and content analysis of institutional policies to focus on how The University of Texas at Austin implemented campus carry policies. Ruoppila echoed Ward et al.’s (2018) prior study of residential hall directors in that professionals at the university often tried to render campus carry policies invisible so that students and other stakeholders were not aware of the policies. Ruoppila (2022) reported that university professionals were intentional about not posting signs about campus carry and limiting discussion of the policy so as not to draw attention to it and give any stakeholders a reason to consider carrying on campus. In culmination, Price and Khubchandani (2022) performed a synthesis of the literature (years 2000–2019) related to support of firearms on campus and campus carry policies, learning that attitudes toward campus carry policies have largely remained unchanged for decades. Of their cardinal findings, Price and Khubchandani asserted that students, faculty, and staff have remained uniformly

572

P. Somers et al.

against campus carry policies, and that such policies find the most support from White, Republican men. In terms of campus safety as it is impacted by campus carry, the researchers also found that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that campus carry policies render a campus safer. Price and Khubchandani’s (2022) work then serves to remind the research community that even though the presence of guns on campus and campus carry policies have a host of negative consequences articulated by decades of prior research, the costs continue to far outweigh any benefits, which seem to be close to zero.

The Game Changer: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022) Argued in the US Supreme Court in November 2021, the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen case outlined the state of New York’s requirement for licensing as it relates to concealed carry. In New York State, a person must demonstrate a special need – defined as “proper cause” – for an unrestricted license to carry a concealed firearm outside of their home. And as was revealed in the lower courts’ decisions, the state of New York strictly reviews applications and does reject applications commonly for failing to demonstrate proper cause. Two men – Robert Nash and Brandon Koch – along with a gun rights advocacy group, challenged New York law after both men failed to demonstrate proper cause for the unrestricted license. Under New York law, it is inadequate to simply say you want to protect yourself, your home, or your property – one must demonstrate special circumstances that necessitates the unrestricted license for concealed carry. Initially, a New York District Court dismissed the claims, supporting state law, and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision. Challenging the opinion of the Second Circuit, Nash and Koch’s attorney, Paul Clement argued that to carry a firearm outside of the home – for self-protection or otherwise – was a legal right enjoyed by people in 43 other states, and that the state of New York was unduly limiting people’s Second Amendment right to bear arms. From a constitutional perspective, Clement reasoned that a person should not have to demonstrate fitness to a government official to exercise a constitutional right – such rights are guaranteed and cannot be impeded by government, even by a licensing requirement. Initially reacting to the case, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked, “Why isn’t it good enough to say I live in a violent area and I want to defend myself’?” (Blitzer, 2022, para. 16). During the argument itself, New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood outlined a scenario in which a New York applicant could state that they needed to walk through a dangerous neighborhood on their way to or from work, and that person would be denied under New York law because they did not cite a specific threat, thus demonstrating “proper cause” for an unrestricted concealed carry license. In response, Justice Samuel Alito asked, “How is that

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

573

consistent with the core right to self-defense?” (Blitzer, 2022, para. 18), arguing that the core of the Second Amendment right to bear arms is self-defense. Other Conservative Justices have indicated that it may be reasonable to establish limits on concealed carry locations, a possible hinting at a narrow decision or relegation to a lower court for a more localized interpretation of the New York law. For instance, in the lower courts, the state of New York argued that “sensitive places” must be exempt from concealed carry purview, with Chief Justice John Roberts echoing those concerns, suggesting that “restrictions could be placed on the concealed carry of handguns on university campuses, at football stadiums, or at places where alcohol is served” (Howe, 2021, para. 7). Even the plaintiffs’ attorney Paul Clement acknowledged that such restrictions could be acceptable within reasonable limits. However, during arguments related to these “sensitive places,” several Justices began ruminating about how the right to protect oneself may differ depending on geographic area, and specifically, population density. Justice Clarence Thomas asked, “How rural does the area have to be before your restrictions shouldn’t apply?,” with Underwood responding that applicants are reviewed by a “licensing officer” who can holistically consider an applicants’ situation when determining the issuance of an unrestricted concealed carry license (Howe, 2021, para. 17). This back-and-forth led Justice Kavanaugh to respond, “That seems inconsistent with an objective constitutional right” (Howe, 2021, para. 20). Liberal justices, such as Elena Kagan, cited the District of Columbia v. Heller case, as well as a plethora of historical decisions that limit but do not remove Second Amendment rights, such as laws related to types of carry, protected locations (churches, schools, etc.), and possession of firearms by convicted felons or those with mental illness. Justice Kavanaugh also referenced “shall issue” laws practiced in other states, meaning that concealed carry permits are issued after an applicant satisfies several basic requirements, such as passing a background check or participating in firearms training. Coupling older case law with the new “sensitive places” doctrine introduced in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, the discussion of college campuses was introduced, with Justice Kagan asking about the prospect of restrictions on concealed carry at New York University. Clements reasoned that “NYU doesn’t have much of a campus” (Howe, 2021, para. 9). This seemingly offthe-cuff remark by Clement brought to light the urban setting of NYU and that many concerns about campus carry may be heightened in densely populated urban areas, such was the case with so much research focused on The University of Texas at Austin and its urban positioning (Somers et al., 2017, 2020, 2021; Somers & Phelps, 2018; Somers & Valentine, 2020). Then, on June 23, 2022, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Nash and Koch, striking down the New York State law. Delivering the opinion of the court, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that precedent and the history of “well-defined restrictions” ultimately led to the court’s decision. With the court firmly divided along party lines, Justices Alito, Kavanaugh (joined by Roberts), and Barrett filed concurring opinions, with Breyer joined by Sotomayor and Kagan filing a joint dissent. Within Thomas’ main opinion, he explained that although procedures such

574

P. Somers et al.

as mandatory background checks, firearm training courses, and waiting periods have served as prior “well-defined restrictions,” the state of New York was overstepping their bounds by requiring “proper cause” for an unrestricted license to carry a concealed firearm outside of their home. In this case, for the court’s majority, there was no legal precedent for requiring a person to demonstrate “proper cause” to exercise the Second Amendment and use guns in public for self-defense. Thomas also argued that there was no historical requirement – federally or at the state level – where law-abiding citizens need to document a special need to perform self-defense, which is what the New York State law was requiring. Other justices, including those rendering concurring opinions, stressed that the court’s ruling does not bar individuals from certain types of weapons and does not bar states from continuing to issue licenses, which can have accompanying requirements within reason. Justice Kavanaugh argued that such requirements are objective: One’s committing a felony or failing a firearms course can be a simple yes or no, easily interpretable across state lines and jurisdictions. Inversely, Kavanaugh argued that New York’s law was too subjective to the point where multiple license application reviewers could possibly render inconsistent decisions on the same application for an unrestricted license, given the reviewers’ different prior knowledge and perspective on what could satisfy “proper cause.” However, the main issue at hand for concurring opinions was that law-abiding citizens should not need to demonstrate special need to perform self-defense. In the dissent, Justice Breyer (joined by Sotomayor and Kagan) wrote that the court did not properly allow the law to play itself out, as these justices believed that the state of New York had a compelling government interest to protect the public and prevent gun violence. Many popular news outlets agreed, with publications like Slate, the Los Angeles Times, and CNN referring to the decision as “a nightmare for gun control” (Stern, 2022, para. 1) and “not clear” (Healey, 2022, para. 14) as to how the ruling may impact other similar state laws, such as California’s that requires filing a license application and detailing the need for carrying a firearm in public. However, as the ruling relates to colleges and universities, the major issue of “sensitive places” from Heller maintains. Justice Thomas wrote: Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings. . .We therefore can assume it [Heller] settled that these locations were “sensitive places” where arms carrying could be prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment. And courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of “sensitive places” to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible. (p. 21)

For now, it seems that states have maintained the authority to issue licenses with reasonable restrictions and that college campuses remain a “sensitive place,” even though individual states may continue to challenge the boundaries of those “places,” especially as they relate to public institutions of higher education, evidenced by campus carry laws in Texas, Georgia, and others.

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

575

Post-Bruen Realities for Campus Carry The major impacts made by Bruen as they relate to campus carry and gun violence on campus pertain to several broad ideas that could be interpreted differently by the various states. These notions include determination of “sensitive places,” the process of demonstrating “proper cause” for gun a license (affecting CA, HI, MD, MA, and NJ, and their institutions of higher education), how one’s “home” is defined, and how states attempt to push the boundaries of “well-defined restrictions” on who can possess a gun and what steps that person must take to procure a license. First, it is well known that many college campuses reside in heavily populated urban and suburban areas. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2022), over 5000 college campuses are located in cities or suburbs, compared to only 1500 located in small towns or rural areas. However, in Justice Thomas’ opinion, he rejected New York State’s attempt to regulate firearms in urban areas, as he reasoned that not all urban areas are “sensitive places,” making clear that blanket bans on gun licenses in urban areas is unconstitutional. Moreover, Thomas admitted that gun restrictions in places like hospitals and polling places was settled law and passed constitutional tests, yet he did not articulate how the definitions of “sensitive places” may be further contracted or expanded at the state level, leaving the door open for broad interpretation of how individual states may regulate gun licenses for people claiming self-defense in “sensitive places.” Then considering that many mass shootings on college campuses began in urban areas off-campus and then spilled onto campus, one may question whether many college campuses and their urban positioning simply do not have well-defined borders for state gun regulators to determine where the urban area ends and where the college campus begins. The plaintiff’s lawyer in the Bruen case hinted at this very issue in his tongue-in-cheek remark saying “NYU doesn’t have much of a campus” (Howe, 2021, para. 9). Implicitly, the lawyer was saying that NYU does not have a welldefined campus that could delineate the campus as a “sensitive place” apart from an urban area. Here is where future state legislation and gun control may struggle to protect college campuses, as the SCOTUS opinion in Bruen greatly extends the purview of gun licensing and ownership and does not explain how “sensitive places” can be delineated from urban areas, especially as they relate to schools and learning spaces. As Justice Thomas reasoned, if New York State’s law would have held, he argued that the Second Amendment would not apply to cities, which may imply that many college campuses may not be considered “sensitive places” any longer. The Bruen case also challenged the idea of one’s need to demonstrate “proper cause” for a gun license, as several states (including NY before Bruen) have required people to explain their need for a gun to perform self-defense. Now, many state-level requirements for proper cause will likely be struck down as unconstitutional, facilitating a deluge of gun licensing and ownership in states known for their voluminous access to higher education, including California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. Again, according to NCES (2022), there are roughly 6400 accredited institutions of higher education in the United States, and California is home to 700 of them,

576

P. Somers et al.

Massachusetts is home to another 152, and New Jersey houses another 165. Here, 16% of all US institutions of higher education reside in these three states, and Bruen has greatly expanded access to guns in these states. Looking back to the history of mass shootings on college campuses, many perpetrators were alumni of a local institution or had ties to a specific college campus, and these perpetrators often applied for gun licenses (some unsuccessfully, ex: University of Iowa shooter) in the states of their current or former institution. Although many mass campus shootings have occurred in stricter gun law states (CA, OR), historical analysis has determined that gun access is highly correlated with gun violence (Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, 2022), and it is troubling to know that many states with large higher education systems will now be forced to relax gun restrictions, perhaps endangering many college campuses. This sense of endangerment now potentially extends to campus residence halls and apartments, as prior to Bruen, self-defense was largely relegated to one’s home as it related to gun licensing and ownership. Coupled with Heller, that held one can keep an unlicensed firearm in their home for self-defense, and now it seems college students and student employees who live on campus may be able to justify keeping an unlicensed firearm in their campus residence for self-defense. Prior research has problematized campus carry in residence halls, as a college student could define their “home” as their residence hall and subsequently make a compelling case for possessing a firearm for self-defense (Ward et al., 2018). In fact, many residence hall directors would not include a premove questionnaire asking if a student would not want to live with someone with a gun permit as “we didn’t want to drive the dialogue at that point” (Ward et al., 2018, p. 120). When asked how residence hall directors would handle a student request to be moved if they learned their roommate had a concealed carry license and a gun in their shared room, hall directors explained that students could ask to be moved. However, that strategy is surely reliant on space and financial constraints, as hall directors may run out of viable rooms and also could not charge a student with a gun permit a higher fee for a single room out of constitutional concerns for associating an additional monetary cost for a gun permit. Moreover, constitutional case law and a state’s compelling interest to protect the general public may be at loggerheads. Institutions of higher education have asserted their responsibility to maintain a safe learning environment for students, faculty, and staff, and public institutions have urged that as government agencies, they have a compelling state interest to regulate gun possession on college campuses and specifically within a student’s place of living (Ward et al., 2018). Yet, Second Amendment rights and subsequent case law may supersede this compelling state interest, deferring to an individual’s right to bear arms for self-defense with minimal licensure requirements outside the home (Bruen) and no requirements inside the home (Heller). Complicating matters is the fact that many institutions employ graduate students as residential life professionals, rendering these individuals both employees (government employees at public institutions) and students. Many of these graduate students are potentially decades older than the undergraduates they supervise. Subsequently, many of these students may have partners or families they feel the need to protect through gun possession and “self-defense” in their “home,”

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

577

which would be a residence hall, apartment, or other form of on-campus housing. Furthermore, a history of mass shootings on college campuses suggests that shootings have occurred in or near residence halls, especially for shooters with clear hit lists and campus knowledge of where victims may live or attend class. In no uncertain terms, Heller, augmented by Bruen, opens the proverbial residence hall door to broader gun possession on college campuses. Finally, states such as Texas have already pushed the boundaries of “well-defined restrictions” as they relate to gun licensing and ownership. For instance, Texas’ HB 1927 allows open and concealed carry without a license as long as the person is law abiding and at least 21 years old. For a license to carry, Texas requires applicants to be at least 21 years old, have no felonies or recent convictions for certain misdemeanors, have no active protective orders against them, qualify for federal possession of a firearm, and not be intoxicated (Texas State Law Library, 2022). Many other states have similarly loose restrictions (or none at all, seemingly) for residents to carry firearms openly or in a concealed, holstered fashion. These “well-defined restrictions” were set to be defined in a fast-tracked bill by the US Congress in the summer of 2022, which is tied to incentivized state funding for “red flag laws,” or the ability for judges to “temporarily seize firearms from people who are deemed dangerous” (Svitek, 2022, para. 1). However, as with most federal legislation as it relates to guns, it will be left up to individual states to determine if they want to adopt “red flag laws.” Harkening back to prior instances of mass shootings on college campuses, many shooters would absolutely be considered “red flags” (ex: Virginia Tech shooter, NIU shooter). And although many states may adopt “red flag laws” as part of their “well-defined restrictions” for gun licensing and ownership, it is unreasonable and inequitable to ask college students to consider attending institutions of higher education outside of their state in order to escape an absence of “red flag laws.” This could be particularly problematic for institutions of higher education in the Southern United States, as Texas’ gun laws are the loosest in the nation, but Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi’s are not far behind. This portends that college students in Southern states may feel trapped and forced to consider online options, even though on the whole, US higher education will experience a considerable demographic shift with Southern states leading the way with higher levels of traditionally college-aged students (18–24) than Midwest or Atlantic states (Kline, 2019). Here, extremely loose gun laws may hamper enrollment in the South, specifically the region primed for growth, endangering the entire country’s system of higher education.

Summary To echo thoughts shared by essayists on campus carry (Blackwell, 2018; Hope, 2015; Lervik, 2013; Lohrmann et al., 2020), campus carry is a reality that US higher education must learn to live with. As of the writing of this chapter, 34 states have implemented campus carry laws or allow institutions the leeway to allow campus carry (Burnett, 2022). From here, it is increasingly important for all higher education

578

P. Somers et al.

stakeholders to continue following local, state, and national policy and legal developments, as well as continue to act so that college campuses can remain one of the safer areas in modern US society. Yet, a plethora of questions remain. First, given the prior outcomes in Heller and McDonald, coupled with the outcome in Bruen, institutions of higher education must wonder how “shall issue” versus “will issue” gun licensing and permitting will affect campus carry and the preponderance of gun violence on college campuses. In no uncertain terms, Bruen established that private citizens do not need to demonstrate or document a need for self-defense in order to possess an operable firearm and conceal their carry for selfdefense. Heller opened the door to permit-less carry and possession of operable firearms in the home, which affects campus residence life. The opinions in Bruen and Heller both solidify several “settled law” issues – originalism is here to stay, individuals have the right to bear arms, and states cannot mandate proper cause for gun permitting or licensing. If we know that campus carry laws do have some impact on gun violence (Everytown Policy and Research, 2022a), institutional leaders should be weary – and vigilant – of how less strict gun permitting and licensing impacts campus carry laws and overall campus safety. Moreover, institutional leaders and policymakers must monitor both case law and state law as they relate to how college campuses are labeled as “sensitive places,” as such a definition was challenged in Bruen and could be further attacked by individual states. An overwhelming volume of literature suggests that nearly all stakeholders (students, faculty, staff, administrative leaders) do not support campus carry and view a college campus as no place for guns (Cavanaugh et al., 2012; Hassett & Kim, 2021; Hayes et al., 2021; Jang et al., 2014; Nodeland & Saber, 2019; Patten et al., 2013a, 2013b; Ruoppila & Butters, 2021; Sandersen et al., 2018; Satterfield & Wallace, 2020; Schildkraut et al., 2015, 2018a, 2018b; Shepperd et al., 2018a, 2018b; Soboroff et al., 2019; Thompson et al., 2013b; Updegrove et al., 2021; Verrecchia & Hendrix, 2018; Wallace, 2019; Wallace & Dunn, 2018). If the most critical stakeholders do not support campus carry writ large, across nearly every campus carry state, institutional leaders must explore how to build contingencies and organizations to push against campus carry laws that seemingly do not serve the public who elected the lawmakers in the first place. Finally, tragedies such as the one that took place at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, is a haunting reminder that gun violence in school settings is far too frequent – one is too many. And with the rise of school shootings in recent years, the steadily increasing access to firearms and continuous loosening of gun restrictions seems as if lawmakers, especially Republicans, are maintaining the mantra that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and “good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns.” Whatever the lingo, the US government in 2022 has solidly stood by and watched US society be flooded with guns, even though the presence of those guns have facilitated countless losses of life and hope. Future research and policy advocacy must continue to watch college campuses and report on violent crime and the potential role that guns may or will play. Ultimately, the work that colleges produce keeps society moving, and it is hoped that research, policy, and practice advocacy can continue to move that work forward, even though guns may stop some work in its tracks.

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

579

References Adkins-Armstrong, A. R. (2021). Safety department officers’ perceptions: Concealed carry and the imposed risk on campus (Doctoral dissertation, George Fox University). Digital Commons @ George Fox University. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/edd/173 Agger, B., & Luke, T. W. (2008). There is a gunman on campus: Tragedy and terror at Virginia Tech. Rowman & Littlefield. Arnold, C. W. (2019). Standing in the line of fire: Compulsory campus carry laws and hostile speech environments. Seton Hall Law Review, 49(4), 807–846. Arrigo, B. A., & Acheson, A. (2016). Concealed carry bans and the American college campus: A law, social sciences, and policy perspective. Contemporary Justice Review, 19(1), 120–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580.2015.1101688 Ashcroft, J. (2001). Letter to James Jay Baker, National Rifle Association. Institute for Legislative Action. www.nraila.org/images/Ashcroft.pdf Asmussen, K., & Creswell, J. (1995). Campus response to a student gunman. Journal of Higher Education, 66(5), 575–591. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2943937 Associated Press. (2007). Utah only state to allow guns at college. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/ 18355953/ns/us_news-life/t/utah-only-stat-allow-guns-college Baird, T. (2021). Bruen, Heller, and the originalist victory. The Federalist Society. https://fedsoc. org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/bruen-heller-and-the-originalist-victory Beggan, D. M. (2019). Texas hold 0 em: An exploration of the divergent perspectives of Texas’s campus carry law. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 43(1), 26–41. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2017.1392906 Bennett, J. (2020). A limited review of the post-Heller fate of campus carry: Preemption and constitutionality in New Hampshire and beyond. Journal of College and University Law, 45(1), 182–198. Bennett, K., Kraft, J., & Grubb, D. (2012). University faculty attitudes toward guns on campus. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 23(3), 336–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253. 2011.590515 Benning, T. (2016, August 22). Federal judge denies UT professors’ request to block implementation of campus carry. The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/ 2016/08/22/federal-judge-denies-ut-professors-request-block-implementation-campus-carry Beresford, J. (2018, June 19). Man shoots groin. Irish Post. https://www.irishpost.com/news/manshoots-groin-156287 Birnbaum, R. (2013). The college campus gun fight. Change, 45(5), 6–14. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/23595193 Blackwell, T. (2018). Gun violence on campus: Don’t wait until it’s too late. Campus Law Enforcement Journal, 48(6), 45. Blitzer, R. (2022). The 5 biggest Supreme Court cases awaiting rulings. Fox News. https://www. foxnews.com/politics/five-biggest-supreme-court-cases-awaiting-rulings Blocher, J., & Miller, D. A. H. (2018). The positive Second Amendment: Rights, regulation, and the future of Heller. Cambridge University Press. Bouffard, J. A., Nobles, M. R., & Wells, W. (2012a). Differences across majors in the desire to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun on campus: Implications for criminal justice education. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 23(3), 283–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10511253.2011.610760 Bouffard, J., Nobles, M., Wells, W., & Cavanaugh, M. (2012b). How many more guns? Estimating the effect of allowing licensed concealed handguns on a college campus. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27(2), 316–343. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260511416478 Briggs, W. (2017). How America got its guns: A history of the gun violence crisis. University of New Mexico Press. British Broadcasting Corporation. (2021). Plymouth shooting: Who can own a firearm or shotgun in the UK? BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58198857

580

P. Somers et al.

Burnett, D. (2022). Guns on campus bills in 2022. Concealed Campus. https://concealedcampus. org/2022/03/guns-on-campus-bills-in-2022 Carrington, B. A. (2019). Education under fire? An analysis of campus carry and university autonomy in Georgia. Georgia Law Review, 54(1), 387–410. Cavanaugh, M. R., Bouffard, J. A., Wells, W., & Nobles, M. R. (2012). Student attitudes toward concealed handguns on campus at 2 universities. American Journal of Public Health, 102(12), 2245–2247. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300473 Chicago, Ill., Municipal Code §8–20–040(a). (2009). Cramer, C. E. (2014). Guns on campus: A history. Academic Questions, 27(4), 411–425. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12129-014-9451-2 Cunningham, D. J. (2011). Guns on campus: The developing trend in state legislation. Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education, 7(2), 71–77. D.C. Code §§7–2501.01(12), 7–2502.01(a), 7–2502.02(a)(4). (2001). Dahl, P. P., Bonham, J. G., & Reddington, F. P. (2016). Community college faculty: Attitudes toward guns on campus. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 40(8), 706–717. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2015.1124813 Deal, N. (2016). Deal announces major law enforcement reform package. https://nathandeal.georgia. gov/press-releases/2016-09-08/deal-announces-major-law-enforcement-reform-package/ De Angelis, J., Benz, T. A., & Gillham, P. (2017). Collective security, fear of crime, and support for concealed firearms on a university campus in the western United States. Criminal Justice Review, 42(1), 77–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016816686660 Dieterle, J. M., & Koolage, W. J. (2014). Affording disaster: Concealed carry on campus. Public Affairs Quarterly, 28(2), 115–145. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43575591 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 US 570 (2008). https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/ Doss, D. A., McElreath, D., Gokaraju, B., Mallory, S., Tesiero, R., Taylor, L., Hong, Q., Jones, D., McElreath, L., & Parker, M. (2020). Mississippi’s 2011 concealed carry law: Analyzing reported criminality among Mississippi’s public community colleges. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, 9(1), 138–164. https://doi.org/10.32674/jise.v9i1.1352 Drew, S. K. (2017). Making sense of campus carry at Pittsburg State University. Midwest Quarterly, 59(1), 81–98. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1956418779 Duwe, G. (2007). Mass murder in the United States. McFarland. Eberly, R. A. (2016). Essay on criticism in the face of campus carry. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 46(4), 351–357. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2016.1203202 Education Week. (2022). School shootings this year: How many and where. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2022/01 Esch, E., Jones, M., & Roediger, D. (2018). Academic freedom under the gun: A report from Kansas. Journal of Academic Freedom, 9, 1–11. https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/Esch_ Jones_Roediger.pdf Eszterhas, J., & Roberts, M. D. (2012). Thirteen seconds: Confrontation at Kent State. Gray & Company Publishers. Everytown Research and Policy. (2022a). Guns in schools. Everytown Research and Policy. https:// everytownresearch.org/issue/guns-in-schools/ Everytown Research and Policy. (2022b). The danger of guns on campus. Everytown Research and Policy. https://everytownresearch.org/report/guns-on-campus/ Fallahi, C. R., Austad, C. S., Fallon, M., & Leishman, L. (2009). A survey of perceptions of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Journal of School Violence, 8(2), 120–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 15388220802074017 Feder, T. (2016). Texas law sets off debate about guns at universities. Physics Today, 69(7), 26. https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3228 Fennell, R. (2009). Concealed carry weapon permits: A Second Amendment right or a recipe for disaster on our nation’s campuses? Journal of American College Health, 58(2), 99–100. https:// doi.org/10.1080/07448480903340338

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

581

Financial Times. (2022). US passes gun-control bill following rare bipartisan compromise. The Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/b8a1fc16-812f-443e-aa06-e14ab8a6501d Florida Carry, Inc. v. University of Florida. 133 So. 3d 966 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2015). Fox, J. A., & Savage, J. (2009). Mass murder goes to college: An examination of changes on college campuses following Virginia Tech. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(10), 1465–1485. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0002764209332558 Gius, M. (2019). Campus crime and concealed carry laws: Is arming students the answer? Social Science Journal, 56(1), 3–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2018.04.004 Graves, R. M. (2022). Guns on campus: An autoethnography of “concealed carry” policies. Feminism and Psychology, 32(2), 265–280. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593535221074133 Guillermo, E. (2012). Oikos rampage could have been avoided. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 29(6), 22. Hassett, M. R., & Kim, B. (2021). Campus carry attitudes revisited: Variations within the university campus community. Journal of School Violence, 20(3), 323–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 15388220.2021.1907586 Hassett, M. R., Kim, B., & Seo, C. (2020). Attitudes toward concealed carry on campus: Results from a nationwide survey of criminologists. Journal of Crime and Justice, 43(3), 342–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2019.1684341 Hayes, B. E., Powers, R. A., & O’Neal, E. N. (2021). What’s under the Regalia? An examination of campus concealed weapon carrying behavior and attitudes toward policies. Journal of School Violence, 20(2), 101–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2020.1839475 Hayter, J., Shelly, G., & Stevenson, T. (2014). Right-to-carry and campus crime: Evidence from the not-so-wild-west. Libertarian Papers, 6(1), 1–19. https://philpapers.org/rec/SHERAC-2 Healey, J. (2022). Supreme Court throws out New York’s concealed weapons law. Here’s what it means for California. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-23/ supreme-court-concealed-carry-ruling-what-it-means-for-california Heiskanen, B. (2020). Un/seeing campus carry: Experiencing gun culture in Texas. European Journal of American Studies, 15(2), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.15817 Hernández, S. H. (2021). Surviving campus carry: A CRT analysis of faculty of color at a Texas public PWI. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000372 Hodges, D. Z. (2017). Some campus carry laws don’t make sense. Dean and Provost, 19(2), 3. https://doi.org/10.1002/dap.30377 Holmes, H. L., Brewer, L. E., & Kerr, S. A. (2019). Interpersonal consequences of legal handgun carrying on college campuses. Journal of American College Health, 67(6), 497–500. https://doi. org/10.1080/07448481.2018.1499650 Hope, J. (2015). Prepare for the implications on campus of concealed carry laws. Student Affairs Today, 18(6), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1002/say.30105 Horan, S. M., & Bryant, L. E. (2017). Guns on campus: Creating research to inform practice. Communication Education, 66(4), 488–490. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2017.1341050 Howe, A. (2021). Majority of court appears dubious of New York gun-control law, but justices mull narrow ruling. SCOTUS Blog. https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/11/majority-of-court-appearsdubious-of-new-york-gun-control-law-but-justices-mull-narrow-ruling/ Hsiao, T. (2018). The moral case for concealed carry on campus. Academic Questions, 31(4), 466–471. https://dx.doi.org.georgefox.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s12129-018-9729-x Huang-Isherwood, K. M. (2022). Sociodemographic and gun possession factors contributing to gun policy attitudes among undergraduate students. Journal of American College Health, 70(3), 649–653. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1762607 Huor, A. (2017, August 27). 41 Years later, the CSUF massacre is still heavy on the hearts of those related to the victims. UWIRE Text, 1. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A525470072/HRCA? u¼anon~1b10c843&sid¼sitemap&xid¼9103bede Jang, H., Dierenfeldt, R., & Lee, C. H. (2014). Who wants to allow concealed weapons on the college campus? Security Journal, 27(3), 304–319. https://doi.org/10.1057/sj.2012.31

582

P. Somers et al.

Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. (2022). Gun violence in the United States. https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/gun-violence-in-the-united-states Johnson, D. R., & Zhang, L. (2020). Intrastate and interstate influences on the introduction and enactment of campus carry legislation, 2004–2016. Educational Researcher, 49(2), 114–124. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X20902121 Jones, H. E., & Horan, S. M. (2019). Guns on campus: Campus carry and instructor–student communication. Communication Education, 68(4), 417–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03634523.2019.1643899 Kaminski, R. J., Koons-Witt, B. A., Thompson, N. S., & Weiss, D. (2010). The impacts of the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings on fear of crime on campus. Journal of Criminal Justice, 38(1), 88–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2009.11.011 Keeling, R. P. (1999). Modest reassurance in a season of sadness: Guns in college. Journal of American College Health, 48(1), 3–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448489909595665 Kelling, N. J., Kelling, A. S., Walther, C. A. P., Johnston, A. M., & Elkins, S. R. (2021). Keep calm and conceal carry: Opinions about campus carry on a nontraditional university campus in Texas. Social Science Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/03623319.2021.1908809 Kline, M. (2019). The looming higher ed enrollment cliff. Higher Ed HR Magazine. https://www. cupahr.org/issue/feature/higher-ed-enrollment-cliff/ Kronholz, J. (2004). Utah orders school to open its doors to armed students. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB108534730889818946 Kruis, N. E., Wentling, R. L., Heirigs, M. H., & Ishoy, G. A. (2020). Assessing the impact of knowledge and location on college students’ perceptions of gun control and campus carry policies: A multisite comparison. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 45(1), 25–47. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s12103-019-09499-z Kruis, N. E., McLean, K., Rakhmatullaev, B., & Bish, D. (2022). Who should carry guns on campus? Assessing variations in support for campus carry across campus community membership status. Journal of School Violence. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2022.2081854 Kumagai, J. (1991). Shooting at University of Iowa, claims four physicists, administrator. Physics Today, 44(12), 60. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2810352 Kyle, M. J., Schafer, J. A., Burruss, G. W., & Giblin, M. J. (2017). Perceptions of campus safety policies: Contrasting the views of students with faculty and staff. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 42(3), 644–667. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-016-9379-x LaPlant, K. M., Seckinger, D. M., Lee, K. E., & LaPlant, J. T. (2021). Cocked, locked, and loaded: An analysis of the five policy regimes of concealed carry on college campuses. Politics and Policy, 49(1), 61–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12389 Lavergne, G. M. (1997). A sniper in the tower: The Charles Whitman murders. University of North Texas Press. Lehtonen, M., & Seppälä, M. (2021). “Like a double-edged sword”: Student testimonials on campus carry in Texas. Journal of American Studies, 55(2), 274–285. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0021875820001401 Lervik, L. M. (2013). Guns on campus: Surveying a rugged post-Heller, McDonald landscape. American Studies in Scandinavia, 45(1–2), 77–108. https://doi.org/10.22439/asca.v45i1-2.4902 Lewis, S. K. (2011). Bullets and books by legislative fiat: Why academic freedom and public policy permit higher education institutions to say not to guns. Idaho Law Review, 48(1), 1–28. Lewis, S. K. (2017). Crossfire on compulsory campus carry laws: When the First and Second Amendments collide. Iowa Law Review, 102(5), 2109–2144. Lewis, R. K., & Huynh, H. (2017). Mental health provision, religion, politics, and guns: College students express their concerns. Mental Health, Religion, and Culture, 20(8), 756–765. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2017.1397615 Lewis, R. K., LoCurto, J., Brown, K., Stowell, D., Maryman, J., Dean, A., McNair, T., Ojeda, D., & Siwierka, J. (2016). College students’ opinions on gun violence. Journal of Community Health, 41, 482–487. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-015-0118-x

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

583

Lohrmann, E., Cooper, C., Hooper, S., Washington, A., & Williams-Sledge, Z. (2020). Campus carry in Georgia: Challenges & recommendations. Georgia Journal of College Student Affairs, 36(1), 105. https://doi.org/10.20429/gcpa.2020.360105 Luo, F., & Shi, W. (2022). Frontline support for concealed carry on campus: A case study in a border town. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 47, 98–116. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12103-020-09565-x Magarian, G. P. (2020). Conflicting reports: When gun rights threaten free speech. Law and Contemporary Problems, 83(3), 169–194. https://www.irishpost.com/news/man-shoots-groin156287 Mash, K. M. (2013). Guns on campus: A chilling effect. Thought and Action, 29, 57–60. https:// eric.ed.gov/?id¼EJ1017179 McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (U.S.C.). (2010). McElroy, J. R., & Coley, J. S. (2021). Gun-free zones? Political opportunities, resource mobilization, and shooting sports organizations at U.S. colleges and universities. Sociological Inquiry, 91(2), 398–425. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12402 McGowan, V. F. (2017). Investigation of factors relating to the web-based presentation of policy and information on campus firearm policy and smoking policy. Administrative Issues Journal: Education, Practice, and Research, 7(1), 84–106. https://dc.swosu.edu/aij/vol7/iss1/8/ McMahon-Howard, J., Scherer, H., & McCafferty, J. T. (2020). Concealed guns on college campuses: Examining support for campus carry among faculty, staff, and students. Journal of School Violence, 19(2), 138–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2018.1553717 McMahon-Howard, J., Scherer, H., & McCafferty, J. T. (2021). Examining the effects of passing a campus carry law: Comparing campus safety before and after Georgia’s new campus carry law. Journal of School Violence, 20(4), 430–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2021.1930016 Meilman, P., Leichliter, J., & Presley, C. (1998). Analysis of weapon carrying among college students, by region and institution type. Journal of American College Health, 46(6), 291–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448489809596005 Miller, J. H. (2011). The Second Amendment goes to college. Seattle University Law Review, 35(1), 235–264. Miller, M., Hemenway, D., & Wechsler, H. (1999). Guns at college. Journal of American College Health, 48(1), 7–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448489909595666 Miller, M., Hemenway, D., & Wechsler, H. (2002). Guns and gun threats at college. Journal of American College Health, 51(2), 57–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448480209596331 Morse, A., Sisneros, L., Perez, Z., & Sponsler, B. A. (2016). Guns on campus: The architecture and momentum of state policy action. NASPA-Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. National Center for Education Statistics. (2022). Data by institution: Degree of urbanization. U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/InstitutionByGroup.aspx New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc., et al. v. Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police, et al., 20 U.S. 843. (2022). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_ 7j80.pdf Nodeland, B., & Saber, M. (2019). Student and faculty attitudes toward campus carry after the implementation of SB11. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 15(2), 157–170. http://www. apcj.org/journal/index.php?mode¼view&item¼155. Noga-Styron, K. E., & Britto, S. (2022). Student perceptions of armed campuses: University major, constitutional rights, and campus carry Laws. Journal of Criminal Justice Education. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2022.2025874 Oak Park, Ill., Municipal Code §§27–2–1 (2007), 27–1–1. (2009). Oblinger, L. H. (2013). The wild, wild west of higher education: Keeping the campus carry decision in the university’s holster. Washburn Law Journal, 53(1), 87–117. Patten, R., Thomas, M. O., & Viotti, P. (2013a). Sweating bullets: Female attitudes regarding concealed weapons and the perceptions of safety on college campuses. Race, Gender, and Class, 20(3), 269–290. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43496945

584

P. Somers et al.

Patten, R., Thomas, M. O., & Wada, J. C. (2013b). Packing heat: Attitudes regarding concealed weapons on college campuses. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 38, 551–569. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12103-012-9191-1 Phillips, D. (2016). University of Texas students find the absurd in a new gun law. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/university-of-texas-students-find-the-absurd–in-anew-gyn-law.html Ponder, J. (2018). From the tower shootings in 1966 to campus carry in 2016: Collective trauma at the University of Texas at Austin. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 15(4), 239–252. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1558 Presley, C. A., Meilman, P. W., & Cashin, J. R. (1997). Weapon carrying and substance abuse among college students. Journal of American College Health, 46(1), 3–8. https://doi.org/10. 1080/07448489709595580 Price, J. H., & Khubchandani, J. (2022). Firearms on college campuses: An empirical review of support and opposition. Violence and Gender, 9(2), 63–72. https://doi.org/10.1089/vio. 2021.0046 Price, J. H., Thompson, A., Khubchandani, J., Dake, J., Payton, E., & Teeple, K. (2014). University presidents’ perceptions and practice regarding the carrying concealed handguns on college campuses. Journal of American College Health, 62(7), 461–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 07448481.2014.920336 Price, J. H., Thompson, A., Payton, E., Johnson, J., & Brown, O. (2016). Presidents of historically black colleges and universities perceptions and practices regarding carrying of concealed handguns on their campuses. College Student Journal, 50(1), 135–144. https://www. ingentaconnect.com/content/prin/csj/2016/00000050/00000001/art00017 Rand Corporation. (2022). The effects of concealed-carry laws. The Rand Corporation. https:// www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/concealed-carry.html Rasmussen, C., Johnson, G., & Midwestern Higher Education Compact. (2008). The Ripple Effect of Virginia Tech: Assessing the nationwide impact on campus safety and security policy and practice. Midwestern Higher Education Compact. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ ED502232.pdf Reimal, E., Esthappan, S., Thompson, P. S., & Jagannath, J. (2019). Guns on college campuses students’ and university officials’ perceptions of campus carry legislation in Kansas. The Urban Institute. www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/100963/guns_on_college_campuses_ 1.pdf Reynolds, G. H. (1995). A critical guide to the Second Amendment. Tennessee Law Review, 62, 461–511. https://ir.law.utk.edu/utklaw_facpubs/457/ Ruoppila, S. (2022). Hiding the unwanted: A university-level campus carry policy. Higher Education, 83, 1241–1258. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00740-5 Ruoppila, S., & Butters, A. (2021). Not a “nonissue”: Perceptions and realities of campus carry at The University of Texas at Austin. Journal of American Studies, 55(2), 299–311. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0021875820001425 Sandersen, B., Kupczynski, L. P., Mundy, M. A., & Gibson, A. M. (2018). Perceptions of students regarding carrying of concealed handguns on college and university campuses in Texas. Journal of Academic Administration in Higher Education, 14(2), 19–26. https://jwpress.com/Journals/ JAAHE/BackIssues/JAAHE-Fall-2018.pdf Sargent, R. H., & Newman, L. S. (2021). Attitudes toward guns and mental illness stigma among college students in the United States. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 91(2), 271–279. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000527 Satterfield, S. J., & Wallace, L. N. (2020). College student attitudes towards campus gun carrying in the United States. Social Science Journal, 57(2), 164–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2018. 10.012 Scherer, H. L., McMahon-Howard, J., & McCafferty, J. T. (2021). Hesitant to pull the trigger: How the perceived impact of guns on campus influences support or opposition to campus carry laws. Journal of Crime and Justice, 44(1), 85–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2020.1740103

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

585

Scherer, H. L., McMahon-Howard, J., & McCafferty, J. T. (2022). Examining the extent and predictors of the negative impacts of a campus carry law among faculty and students. Sociological Inquiry, 92(1), 127–152. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12453 Schildkraut, J., Elsass, H. J., & Stafford, M. C. (2015). Could it happen here? Moral panic, school shootings, and fear of crime among college students. Crime, Law, and Social Change, 63, 91–110. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-015-9552-z Schildkraut, J., Carr, C. M., & Terranova, V. (2018a). Armed and academic: Perceptions of college students on concealed carry on campus policies. Journal of School Violence, 17(4), 487–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2018.1449655 Schildkraut, J., Jennings, K., Carr, C. M., & Terranova, V. (2018b). A tale of two universities: A comparison of college students’ attitudes about concealed carry on campus. Security Journal, 31(2), 591–617. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-017-0119-9 Schweit, K. (2021). Stop the killing: How to end the mass shooting crisis. Rowman & Littlefield. Scott, C., Andersen, A., Wilson, J., & Kobayashi, A. (2021). Perceived safety and preparedness for active shooter incidents among undergraduate students. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 58, 102202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102202 Senate Bill 11, 411 Texas Government Code § (2015). Shepperd, J. A., Losee, J. E., Pogge, G. C., Lipsey, N. P., Redford, L., & Crandall, M. (2018a). The anticipated consequences of legalizing guns on college campuses. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 5(1), 21–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000097 Shepperd, J. A., Pogge, G., Losee, J. E., Lipsey, N. P., & Redford, L. (2018b). Gun attitudes on campus: United and divided by safety needs. Journal of Social Psychology, 158(5), 616–625. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2017.1412932 Short, A. (2019). Sane gun policy from Texas: Blueprint for balanced state campus carry laws. Northeastern University Law Review, 11(2), 401–473. Sinai, J. (2016). The active shooter threat: Profiling perpetrators for preemptive prevention. In M. Fredholm (Ed.), Understanding lone actor terrorism: Past experience, future outlook, and response strategies (pp. 206–220). Routledge. Smith, T. N. (2012). To conceal and carry or not to conceal and carry on higher education Campuses, that is the question. Journal of Academic Ethics, 10, 237–242. https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10805-012-9161-8 Smith, M. L. (2013). Second Amendment challenges to student housing firearms bans: The strength of the home analogy. UCLA Law Review, 60(4), 1047–1080. http://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/ 60-4-5.pdf Soboroff, S., Lovekamp, W., & Jenknot, R. (2019). Social status and the effects of legal concealed firearms on college campuses. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 30(3), 376–388. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2018.1520270 Solly, M. (2021). How the 1996 Dunblane massacre pushed the U.K. to enact stricter gun laws. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-1996-dunblane-massa cre-pushed-uk-enact-stricter-gun-laws-180977221/ Somers, P., & Phelps, N. (2018). Not chilly enough? Texas campus carry and academic freedom. Journal of Academic Freedom, 9, 1–15. https://www.aaup.org/JAF9/not-chilly-enough-texascampus-carry-and-academic-freedom Somers, P., & Valentine, M. (Eds.). (2020). Campus carry: Confronting a loaded issue in higher education. Harvard Educational Press. Somers, P., Fry, J. J., & Fong, C. J. (2017). Duck and cover, little lady: Women and campus carry. Thought and Action, 33(2), 37–50. https://eric.ed.gov/?id¼EJ1156030 Somers, P., Fry, J. J., Jones, A., & Newton, A. (2020). Is that a gun in your pocket? Dilemmas of student and academic services professionals in a campus carry state. College Student Affairs Journal, 38(1), 78–90. https://doi.org/10.1353/csj.2020.0005 Somers, P., Gao, H., & Taylor, Z. W. (2021). “I do not speak as freely”: Gendered views on campus carry at a research university. Education and Urban Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 00131245211047207

586

P. Somers et al.

Spofford, T. (1988). Lynch Street: The May 1970 slayings at Jackson State College. Kent State University Press. Stern, M. (2022). Clarence Thomas’ maximalist Second Amendment ruling is a nightmare for gun control. Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/supreme-court-new-york-concealedcarry-law-gun-control-bruen.html Stirgus, E. (2017). Professors ask court to overturn Georgia’s campus carry law. Atlanta Journal Constitution. https://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/professors-ask-court-overturn-geor gia-campus-carry-law/ej36qbMWOwASF6OdIOJiEM/ Svitek, P. (2022). Texas is unlikely to adopt key provision of bipartisan gun bill. Texas Tribune. https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-06-23/texas-is-unlikely-to-adopt-key-provisionof-bipartisan-gun-bill Texas State Law Library. (2022). Do I need a license to carry a handgun in Texas? https://faq.sll. texas.gov/questions/45479 Thompson, A., Price, J. H., Mrdjenovich, A. J., & Khubchandani, J. (2009). Reducing firearmrelated violence on college campuses – Police chiefs’ perceptions and practices. Journal of American College Health, 58(3), 247–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448480903295367 Thompson, A., Price, J. H., Dake, J., & Teeple, K. (2013a). Faculty perceptions and practices regarding carrying concealed handguns on university campuses. Journal of Community Health, 38, 366–373. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-012-9626-0 Thompson, A., Price, J., Dake, J., Teeple, K., Bassler, S., Khubchandani, J., Kerr, D., Fisher, J., Rickard, M., Oden, L., Aduroja, A., Lyde, A., Philips, K., Adeyanju, M., Eggleston, B., FerngKuo, S.-F., Duquette, D., Bartholomew, K., & Stratton, C. (2013b). Student perceptions and practices regarding carrying concealed handguns on university campuses. Journal of American College Health, 61(5), 243–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2013.799478 Torreano, J., & Merkle, H. B. (2019). Guns on college campuses: A clash of perspectives. Other Scholarly Publications, 1. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/coe_otherpubs/1 Tuck, J. A. (2022). The constitutional right to carry firearms on campus. William and Mary Law Review, 63(3), 1047–1077. Updegrove, A. H., Luo, F., & Salinas, M. (2021). Acculturation and campus carry: Examining the effect of Mexico Versus United States cultural orientations on college students’ support for campus carry. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 65(16), 1716–1735. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X20967967 Utter, G. H., & Spitzer, R. J. (2011). Assault weapons ban. In Encyclopedia of gun control and gun rights (2nd ed.). Grey House Publishing. Valentine, M., & Somers, P. (2020). Campus carry in context. In Campus carry: Confronting a loaded issue in higher education (pp. 1–26). Harvard Educational Press. Vann, D. (2011). Last day on Earth: A portrait of the NIU school shooter. The University of Georgia Press. Vermont Republic. (1777). Constitution of the Vermont Republic. http://www.leg.state.vt.us/ statutes/const2.htm Verrecchia, P. J., & Hendrix, N. (2018). College students’ perceptions towards carrying concealed weapons on college campuses. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 29(1), 62–78. https://doi. org/10.1080/10511253.2017.1344260 Vuori, J. (2021). Campus carry and active-shooter-event emotion management. Journal of American Studies, 55(2), 286–298. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875820001413 Waldman, M. (2014). The Second Amendment: A biography. Simon & Schuster. Wallace, L. N. (2019). College student perceptions of the social rewards and costs of gun carrying: Results from a nationwide survey. Journal of College Student Development, 60(2), 139–155. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2019.0010 Wallace, L. N., & Dunn, K. C. (2018). College student attitudes towards “smart” guns: Results from a nationwide survey. Journal of Community Health, 43, 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900017-0387-7

10

Trigger Warnings: From Sword Fights to Campus Carry in Higher Education

587

Walter, G., Anderson, P., Dunn, M., & Florkowski, D. (2020). Students’ drinking status and likelihood of carrying a weapon on campus. American Journal of Health Studies, 30(4). https://doi.org/10.47779/ajhs.2015.182 Ward, L., Nguyen, D. J., & Nguyen, D. H. K. (2018). No smoking guns here: Residence life directors’ perspectives on concealed carry in on-campus living communities. Journal of College and University Student Housing, 44(3), 113–125. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/20766 Wasserman, L. M. (2011). Gun control on college and university campuses in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, 19(1), 1–57. Watt, S., Candal, C. & Quiason, M. (2018). Marginalization and fear? Concealed carry and campus climate in the trump era. Women, Gender, and Families of Color, 6(1), 126–132. https://www. jstor.org/stable/10.5406/womgenfamcol.6.1.0126 Webster, D., Donohue, J., Klarevas, L., Crifasi, C., Vernick, J., Jernigan, D., Wilcox, H., Johnson, S., Greenberg, S., & McGinty, E. (2016). Firearms on college campuses: Research evidence and policy implications. Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. https:// www.issuelab.org/resources/30243/30243.pdf Weinstein, A. (2015). The secret history of the campus carry movement. The Trace. http://thetrace. org/2015/07/the-making-of-the-campus-carry-movement/ Wells, W., Cavanaugh, M. R., Bouffard, J. A., & Nobles, M. (2012). Non-response bias with a web-based survey of college students: Differences from a classroom survey about carrying concealed handguns. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 28, 455–476. https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10940-011-9148-4 White, S. G. (2017). Case study: The Isla Vista campus community mass murder. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 4(1), 20–47. https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000078 Wilson, T. P. (2018). A case study of the Umpqua community college shooting (Doctoral dissertation, University of Arkansas). Proquest Dissertations Publishing. https://www.proquest.com/ docview/2031062897 Wolcott, C. M. (2017). The chilling effect of campus carry: How the Kansas campus carry statute impermissibly infringes upon the academic freedom of individual professors and faculty members. University of Kansas Law Review, 65(4), 875–911. Wombacher, C., & Wallace, L. N. (2019). Childhood gun socialization among college-educated youth: Shaping adult attitudes. Social Science Journal, 56(3), 346–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.soscij.2018.08.005 Wood, P. (2014). Gun-free campuses. Academic Questions, 27, 426–428.

Patricia Somers, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also affiliated with the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies and the Long Lozano Institute for Latin American Studies at the University. Z. W. Taylor, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Southern Mississippi. Broadly, he researches linguistics and technology in education. He has worked in education for 14 years and has published over 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters across the P-20 spectrum. Kelly Soucy serves as the Director of Student Emergency Services in the Office of the Dean of Students at The University of Texas at Austin. She also serves as the co-chair for the behavioral intervention team (BIT) and the co-chair for the University of Texas System BIT committee. Kelly is currently working on her Ed.D., which is anticipated in 2023.

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education: Implications for Research, Practice, and Policy

11

Adrian H. Huerta, Edgar F. Lopez, Maritza E. Salazar, Gabriela Torres, and Miranda Y. Munoz

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K-12 Schooling Disciplining Practices and Their Influences on Entry into the Criminal Justice System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K-12 School Disciplining Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tracking into Continuation or Alternative Schools as Part of the School-toPrison Nexus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Provision of Postsecondary Education for Current or Formerly Incarcerated Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recent Law and Policies Affecting Incarcerated Peoples’ Access to Postsecondary Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Benefits of Prison Education Programs for Individuals and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Variability in Access to Prison Education Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Different Types of Prison Education Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barriers to Accessing Prison Education Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unanticipated or Anticipated Changes in Position or Status Within and Between Prisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conflicts Between Incarcerated Individuals’ Work and Schooling Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limited Access to Student Services to Navigate Program Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barriers to Accessing Postsecondary Education After Release from Prison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Required Self-Disclosure of Criminal Convictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Navigating the Financial Aid Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

590 592 593 598 602 602 604 605 607 609 609 610 610 611 611 612

Anne-Marie Nuñez was the Associate Editor for this chapter. A. H. Huerta (*) · E. F. Lopez · M. E. Salazar · G. Torres Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Y. Munoz Cuyamaca College English Department, El Cajon, CA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_9

589

590

A. H. Huerta et al.

Reentry Program Types That Promote Postsecondary Access for Formerly Incarcerated People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reentry Programs at the Community College Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Community Organizations and Nonprofits’ Role in Reentry Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

614 615 616 618 620

Abstract

The carceral practices embedded in K-12 spaces contribute to whether or not individuals can reach higher education (e.g., community colleges, 4-year universities) and how higher education supports these populations in persistence and degree completion. Over the last few decades, education scholars have concentrated on justice-impacted populations’ unique needs and experiences in the postsecondary education pipeline. Too often, educational researchers have posited that no previous scholarship is available to help contextualize how justiceimpacted individuals navigate their educational journeys and how those journeys are affected by school discipline and criminal judgments. This chapter applies criminal justice scholarship to help inform higher education scholars’ efforts to understand how carceral practices hinder educational opportunities for specific populations. We highlight promising practices in various settings to suggest how educational opportunities can expand. We explore the following topics relevant to the school-to-prison nexus: K-12 school discipline (e.g., suspension and expulsion), alternative schools, and prison higher education programs. In doing so, we seek to understand how these discipline systems create structural barriers to accessing and persisting in higher education. Additionally, bridging criminal justice scholarship into higher education works in tandem with efforts to identify supports and structures that widen opportunities for justice-impacted populations. Keywords

Higher education · School-to-prison nexus · Prison education programs · School discipline · Criminal legal system · System-impacted students · Justice-impacted students · College access · College barriers

Introduction Justice- or system-impacted individuals are those who have previously been involved in or experienced the repercussions of the juvenile or adult justice system. Such repercussions include being incarcerated, over-disciplined by educational agents in the K-12 system, or having a family member currently, or formerly incarcerated. About 700,000 people are released each year from US prisons, and an estimated nine million are released from jails (The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, 2017). To highlight the growing college enrollment of system-impacted students in California, Britton et al. (2021) found that more than 100,000 incarcerated students are

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

591

currently enrolled in a California higher education program across the state. Given a large number of potential college students within the justice system (Murillo, 2021), higher education has an essential role in ensuring that system-impacted people make a successful reentry into the larger community and avoid further involvement in the criminal legal system. As such, there is an urgency for higher education scholars to draw on criminal justice scholarship to address the needs of this population. The long-term effects of involvement in criminality and incarceration include unstable employment, dependence on social services, poverty, and an increased chance of reincarceration (Gilman et al., 2014). System-impacted individuals who have not completed a secondary or college credential may feel a sense of inadequacy with respect to supporting their families (Brown, 2021). The temptation to (re) engage in criminal activity to achieve economic stability may be high when minimum wage positions provide inadequate financial resources (Brown, 2021; Hernandez et al., 2022). Numerous social science fields have documented that access to higher education opportunities and credentials for incarcerated and systemimpacted people contributes to less violence, an increased sense of purpose, and decreased recidivism, while instilling the hope for the possibility of economic stability upon release from prison or jail (Baranger et al., 2018; Britton et al., 2021; Davis et al., 2013; Davis, 2019; Huerta et al., 2020). Higher education can be a space for second or third chances for people who have been impacted by the criminal legal system. Focusing on a population that has not been traditionally courted by higher education is a national imperative for college leaders, as conservative estimates suggest that more than 28,000 students have enrolled in higher education and more than 9000 students have earned a credential because of the Second Chance Pell Grants are a (Chesnut et al., 2022) federal initiative to allowing currently incarcerated people to earn college credentials across more than 300 higher education institutions (Royer et al., 2021d). While the Second Chance Pell pilot program is not the only answer for expanding access to postsecondary education in prisons, it has provided access to educational opportunities for thousands of students. As will be highlighted later in this chapter, college enrollment does not mitigate the numerous obstacles within and outside the criminal legal system for prospective college students. Much of the previous research conducted by higher education scholars on system-impacted students has centered on the institutional need to address their unique needs (Custer, 2018; Giraldo et al., 2017; Hernandez et al., 2022; McTier Jr, 2021). Many institutional policies and practices have not yet adapted to the socio-legal tensions that require modifications for justice-impacted students to succeed in higher education (Custer, 2021; Hénard & Roseveare, 2012; Hernandez et al., 2022; McTier Jr, 2021). For example, McTier et al. (2020) found that students with criminal records were denied access to on-campus housing as a precautionary measure to protect current college students. At the state-level Custer (2021) found that the Georgia and Indiana legislatures denied access to state financial aid to currently incarcerated college students. Collectively, there is an explict or implicit use of carceral logic, which is a hyperfocus on punishment for those who break social bonds and contracts. Higher

592

A. H. Huerta et al.

education continues to be guided by the desire to protect traditional college-aged students in loco parentis from social ills and to serve as a moral compass for many students (Dizon et al., 2022; Evans et al., 2019; Stewart & Uggen, 2020). However, centering the well-being of incarcerated individuals and using evidence-based practices that reduce recidivism, such as participation in higher education opportunities (Berkeley Underground Scholars, n.d.-a; Britton et al., 2021), provides individuals with the chance to restore those broken contracts. The second section of this chapter focuses on the postsecondary educational experiences and trajectories of current or formerly incarcerated individuals. The first section of the chapter focuses more on the factors that can influence entry into the criminal justice system in the first place. It is based on the premise that the K-12 educational system plays a critical role in what has been called the school-toprison nexus. We focus on two areas that can play a role in channeling K-12 students into the carceral system: disciplinary practices and enrollment in the continuation or alternative schools. First, we address how many educators overuse suspensions, expulsions, and involuntary transfers to alternative educational spaces that thwart college-going cultures or support higher education aspirations for students (Huerta, 2018, 2022; Huerta & Hernandez, 2021; Huerta et al., 2020; Kelly, 1993; Kim, 2011). The overuse of school discipline tactics is one contributor to the finding that fewer than one in three white, Black, or Latino/x boys earning a college degree by the age of 28 (Shollenberger, 2015). The infusion of carceral practices in schools, such as metal detectors, police substations in K-12 schools, closed-circuit camera systems, and other tactics that contribute to the prisonization process in schools, contributes to the over-discipline of students of color throughout the education pipeline and exacerbates this process (Hirschfield, 2008; Shedd, 2015). Therefore, the first section of this chapter opens with a discussion of how K-12 school disciplining practices have intertwined with the criminal legal system to limit college access for many students. We address how one consequence of disciplining practices – enrollment in continuation or alternative high schools – can limit college access.

K-12 Schooling Disciplining Practices and Their Influences on Entry into the Criminal Justice System Many students, especially students of color, have high aspirations for long-term success and rely on their K-12 education to promote opportunities to do so. Students who come from low-income families, have a disability, and identify as or are perceived to be a person of color are more likely to be disciplined in school settings and to receive harsher punishments (Annamma, 2017; Gregory et al., 2010; Huerta et al., 2017; Musto, 2019; Noguera, 2003; Rios, 2011). Increasingly, school administrators use suspension, expulsion, and placement in alternative educational settings, restricting students’ access to a safe, quality learning environment (Morris, 2005; Peguero & Shekarkhar, 2011). Overall, school punishment can greatly alter students’ pathways, impacting their social, academic, and economic mobility, and,

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

593

most importantly for our analysis, increasing their likelihood of entering the prison system (Burch, 2022; Mittleman, 2018; Peguero & Shekarkhar, 2011). This section explores how school discipline has become increasingly punitive over the last three decades and examines the shaping influence of disciplinary policies and practices on college-going behaviors. We examine the intersection of school discipline and criminality and how this embeds some of our most at-risk youth in the school-to-prison nexus instead of on a track towards higher education opportunities.

K-12 School Disciplining Patterns In the 2015–2016 academic year, nearly 2.7 million public school students experienced at least one suspension, and 120,000 students received expulsion as school punishments (Novak & Fagan, 2022; Office for Civil Rights, 2018). Research suggests that school suspension increases the likelihood that students will be arrested and placed on probation (e.g., Mittleman, 2018; Rosenbaum, 2020). In the long term, such patterns can affect students’ access to college (Huerta, 2022; Huerta et al., 2017). Increased school disciplining practices have been linked with efforts to promote safer schools. In the 1990s, the US government allocated federal resources to implement safer school campuses that included zero-tolerance policies to reduce crime and violence that stemmed from fears caused by the Columbine High School shooting (Casella, 2003). K-12 schools soon adopted zero-tolerance policies to mitigate and control students’ potential violent threats and behaviors. Suspensions often depended on the type of infraction and policy interpretation of the school administration (Carter et al., 2017).

Suspensions and Expulsions as School Discipline Types with Implications for Entry into the Criminal Justice System In- and out-of-school suspensions and expulsions have been used as traditional methods to discipline students and maintain order on school grounds (Bock et al., 1998; Shollenberger, 2015). Depending on the district for in-school suspension, students may be under the watch of a security monitor, substitute teacher, or a rotating educator who attends and supervises the students as they complete daily classroom assignments with little to no instruction or support from a subject-matter educator (Bettini et al., 2015; Morris & Howard, 2003). Out-of-school suspension, by contrast, means a student must not attend daily school functions and may be sent home with a packet of work for a few days or up to a few weeks, depending on the infraction (Vavrus & Cole, 2002). School districts can approve the use of out-of-school suspensions to send students away from their schools, but the intentional removal of students impacts the financial resources of the school and district, hence the development and use of in-school suspension. However, when the suspension is insufficient or when the disruption is a more severe violation (e.g., criminal behavior or violent actions), teachers may strongly request,

594

A. H. Huerta et al.

verbal or written, that the school administration expel a student (Heaviside et al., 1998). School suspensions have impacted many students nationwide. In the 2015–2016 academic year, nearly 2.7 million public school students experienced at least one suspension, and 120,000 received expulsion as school punishments (Novak & Fagan, 2022; Office for Civil Rights, 2018). Although research has confirmed that suspension and expulsions are not the best practices in K-12 to mitigate and correct student behaviors, the unfortunate reality is that a little over one-third of all students are suspended at least once throughout their schooling experience (Rosenbaum, 2020). This highlights the liberal use of school suspensions at the hands of educators. Children as young as preschool age have been suspended for talking back, acting out, fighting with peers, or in some cases, being arrested and processed for disorderly conduct (Ferguson, 2000; Gilliam & Shahar, 2006). Students of color, especially boys, are often treated differently through the adultification process. Adults believe that elementary and middle school students especially boys of color, can understand the consequences as an adult, rather than as an age appropriate child (Ferguson, 2000; Rios, 2017). Expulsion involves a more severe practice where school authorities deem a student’s behavior dangerous and remove them from the school campus to protect other students and staff from potential harm (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2003; Kupchik, 2010; Gilliam & Shahar, 2006). Depending on the school district, these personnel may recommend removing the student from the district entirely to attend a neighboring district school, or the home district would require the student to complete coursework in the district office under the supervision of a substitute or administrator (Wiley et al., 2022). School suspension and expulsion practices are an ordinary reality for many students of color, low-income students, and students with disabilities, as they tend to be treated more harshly than students from dominant groups for similar minor infractions in K-12 (Annamma, 2017; Ferguson, 2000; Gregory et al., 2010; Musto, 2019; Noguera, 2003; Rios, 2011). Importantly, once students are marked as having “disciplinary problems” school counselors and other educators are less likely to provide students with college knowledge and other college access resources (Huerta, 2022; Huerta et al., 2020). These students can come to believe that they are not worthy of a postsecondary education credential or degree, so they may opt out of the college pipeline, due to the fear of their perceived persona impacting their college eligibility (Huerta, 2016).

Understanding How K-12 Educators Use School Discipline Practices For most K-12 educators, there is intense pressure to teach and prepare their students for standardized state and federal testing and meet academic performance standards in order to maintain employment (Darling-Hammond, 2007). However, many teachers deal with daily disruptive behaviors and must act quickly to restore classroom order and resume their lessons, as class sessions are limited to cover the curriculum and support students’ learning (Morris & Howard, 2003). These educators then label certain students as having discipline problems, which can have

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

595

longer-term influences on students’ postsecondary trajectories (Huerta 2015; Huerta et al., 2017; Shollenberger, 2015; Wolf & Kupchik, 2017). Scholars have noted how some educators have tried to regain control of their student’s behavior in class through threats of school removal (Hirschfield, 2008; Huerta, 2016; Yeager & Dweck, 2012). Large class sizes, limited support from teacher aides, or inadequate training on restorative practices can also result in a quicker removal of students deemed as “problem students” from the classroom. When unsuccessful in managing classroom disruptions, educators escalate the situation through the use of suspension to remove the student(s) from the school so that they can offer other students the opportunity to focus on the curriculum or classroom task (Arcia, 2006; Brown, 2007). When that is insufficient, teachers will write a referral to the school administration to expel a student in response to more serious violations such as criminal behavior or violent actions (Heaviside et al., 1998). Unfortunately, there is a mismatch in policy design and execution. Educators often believe that school suspension will help students understand the severity of their classroom disruptions and inspire students to correct their behaviors (Eggleton, 2001). The long-term use of school disciplinary records on students’ college admissions is also an underexplored research area. In the last few years, limited scholarship has explicitly focused on college access and disciplinary records. Some research has found that students who experience suspensions and expulsions are more likely than others to choose not to pursue higher education, due to their perceived stigma around their disciplinary history and its potential to affect their college eligibility (Curran, 2022; Huerta, 2016; Huerta et al., 2017, 2020). For example, Huerta et al. (2017) found that high school students often felt alienated and discouraged by the mistreatment in school after suspensions and expulsions, which contributed to a type of “burnout” from educational systems, where they did not want to subject themselves to further mistreatment. Curran (2022) found that previously suspended high school students were about 8% less likely than their non-suspended peers to apply to colleges and universities that asked these students to complete their disciplinary histories on postsecondary applications. Suspension and expulsion practices can reinforce students’ longer-term academic deterioration and delinquency, especially when they are not immediately provided with a quality educational alternative.

The Negative Consequences of Suspensions and Expulsion for College Access School leaders have heavily relied on suspension and expulsion as primary disciplinary practices for disruptive students. Yet, once students are removed from school, they cannot recover the lost classroom learning time, which adversely impacts their academic trajectories (Arcia, 2006; Bacon, 1990; Brown, 2007). Although some educators believe suspensions will somehow alter classroom or school (mis)behaviors, this approach remains ineffective in reducing deviant behavior or promoting reformed behaviors (Bear, 2010). Educators have a lot of discretion on how and if to apply for suspension or expulsion. Just one single case of suspension can drastically impact

596

A. H. Huerta et al.

students’ confidence in course materials and strain trusting relationships with teachers and administrators. Outside of missing important class time due to suspensions or expulsions, students of color who are disciplined cannot easily repair fractured relationships with peers or educators (Bell, 2021). Bell (2021) found that several educators see suspension as a misuse of time, resources, and energy that does not repair the student-educator relationship nor alter student behaviors. In a study comparing educational and criminal justice outcomes between suspended and non-suspended youth, Rosenbaum (2020) found that suspended youth have worse outcomes than their counterparts throughout their lives. Students who have been suspended are less likely to earn a high school diploma or continue to higher education and are more likely to be arrested and placed on probation in their lifetime (Safer et al., 1981). Rather than encouraging students to change their behavior, such punishments may further agitate and provoke students to continue their behavioral patterns (Bell, 2021; Rios, 2011), resulting in ineffectiveness in “reforming” student behavior (Skiba et al., 2012; Skiba & Peterson, 2000; SimmonsReed & Cartledge, 2014).

Detrimental Effects of School Disciplining Practices on Black and Latinx Students of Color School leaders have heavily relied on suspension methods to control students’ school-based behaviors and maintain control on campus. However, education, social work, criminology, and sociology scholars have noted disturbing trends and patterns resulting from the overuse of K-12 school disciplinary practices (Losen & Martinez, 2013; Meek & Gilliam, 2016; Shollenberger, 2015; Smith & Harper, 2015). Suspension and expulsion practices have severe long-term repercussions across multiple racial, ethnic, gender, class, and special needs student populations, especially in high school completion and college enrollment. These K-12 exclusionary practices disproportionately and negatively affect the educational experiences of Black and Latino/x boys and girls, compared with those of their white and Asian counterparts. Overwhelmingly, boys of color are more often targeted and criminalized in schools, which are then funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline (Basile, 2020; Rios, 2011). Even in elementary school, boys of color are punished more severely and frequently than their white peers, regardless of any infractions (Basile, 2021; Ferguson, 2000). By the time they reach middle school, 50% of all Black boys and 49% of all Latino boys already have a suspension record (Shollenberger, 2015). Collectively, these practices contribute to a type of socialization that signals to boys of color that they are not welcomed or appreciated in K-12 schools (Halx & Ortiz, 2011; Saenz & Ponjuan, 2009). School teachers and administrators often view Black and Latino/x boys through a deficit lens as lazy, incapable, at-risk students with minimal life goals (Dizon et al., 2022; Laura, 2014). These practices and views can adversely affect the access of Black and Latino/x boys to college information, aspirations, and support systems (Huerta, 2022; McElrath et al., 2020). They gradually push these students away from pathways to postsecondary education and toward involvement in the justice system and mass incarceration (Alexander, 2012; Rocque & Snellings, 2018).

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

597

Girls of Color and Negative Schooling Experiences Although research on minoritized girls is less developed, scholars have also found that Black girls are more likely to be disciplined in K-12 education (Butler-Barnes & Inniss-Thompson, 2020; Murphy et al., 2013). For example, Annamma et al. (2019) found that schools often are sites of racialized and gendered terror for Black girls. Black girls are expected to be actively learning in classrooms, yet also navigate challenges to feel safer in these spaces. Such challenges include avoiding suspicious behavior, which is prone to be criminalized or misunderstood, and minimizing interactions with school officials and police, to prevent targeted punishment (Khalifa, 2010). Many scholars, including Blake et al. (2011), emphasize the need to increase in-depth research and expand critical dialogue on the adverse outcomes Black girls experience in K-12 schooling. The collective calls to bring awareness to the needs of Black girls and their educational experiences is paramount to identifying misguided K-12 schooling practices in the hopes of locating and reimagining new methods to create support systems and practices to welcome and support Black girls. Black girls are more likely to experience suspensions and other exclusionary discipline actions than their peer student groups, significantly impacting their development and identity formation (Hines-Datiri & Carter Andrews, 2020). Historically, Black girls have experienced practices that layer school policing surveillance and cause students to live in fear of danger or abuse from educators or school police (Wun, 2016a). This reality is reaffirmed by the constant social media videos of educators’ physical and verbal violence toward Black girls in K-12 schools (Wun, 2016a). Wun highlights that schools create an atmosphere similar to a type of emotional captivity through constant surveillance and punishment in classrooms, cafeterias, or after-school programming. In his study of disciplinary practices in one urban school district, Khalifa (2010) observed that white educators tended to misunderstand Black girls’ hairstyles and often believed that these students deserved to be punished when Black girls fixed each other’s braids or hair in the classroom. Wun found that suburban schools’ discipline practices escalated minor infractions to involve police or severe exclusionary efforts to alienate Black girls. In fear of receiving suspension or expulsion, Black girls are forced to strictly follow and obey all directions from school authorities, even when requests are unjust and unwarranted. One minor criminal activity can set a reaction chain where Black girls will receive extraneous punishment and be labeled status offenders (Arnold, 1990). It is easy to see how deficit perceptions of Black girls with disciplinary records can influence teachers and school staff to limit or restrict sharing of college-going information, impacting their academic trajectory and long-term success (Kennedy-Lewis & Murphy, 2016). Compared with their white counterparts, disproportionate levels of school punishment are also applied to Latinas (Peguero & Shekarkhar, 2011). Using an ethnographic approach to study an urban school, Morris (2005) found that school authorities often reproduce race, class, and gender inequalities by regulating the bodies of young girls to be more gender appropriate and altering the level of punishment based on their discretion. For example, Latinas are constantly

598

A. H. Huerta et al.

scrutinized for how they dress and present themselves and are immediately punished when they violate the dress code or have gang-like attire (Morris, 2005). Latina students have a much lower high school graduation rate than white girls (Cammarota, 2004; Gándara & Contreras, 2009). Scholars have attributed disproportionate school punishment and altercations to this educational inequity.

Tracking into Continuation or Alternative Schools as Part of the School-to-Prison Nexus In addition to disciplinary practices, tracking students into continuation or alternative schools constitutes a major component of the K-12 school-to-prison nexus. In about 40% of all school districts across the USA, there is some type of continuation or alternative learning environment for students who have been (in)voluntarily transferred to a smaller educational space (Verdugo & Glenn, 2006). It is estimated that over 600,000 students are enrolled in a type of continuation school across US school districts (Carver et al., 2010). Continuation schools, also called alternative or opportunity schools, often house students who have a history of suspensions, expulsions, academic, behavioral, truancy, or are currently pregnant (Kelly, 1993; Huerta & Hernandez, 2021; Muñoz, 2005). These learning environments are often touted as informal and smaller learning spaces for the “bad kids” who do not demonstrate the desired qualities that signal the promise of completing high school or eventually pursuing higher education (Kelly, 1993; Kim & Taylor, 2008). Depending on the school district, the category or label of these schools can vary from continuation school, alternative school, behavioral school, day school, community day school, option school, or opportunity school. Collectively, these environments are intended to provide specialized instruction to students who have been discontinued from the traditional middle or high schools in the local district (Muñoz, 2005; Kim & Taylor, 2008). A 1997 report on continuation high schools noted that the advantages of attending these educational institutions included: (1) a reduction in dropout rates, (2) a reduction in student truancy, (3) a redirection of disruptive and inattentive students from traditional institutions into more productive and successful learning environments, and (4) re-engagement with learning and the community (Paglin & Fager, 1997). The current model of continuation schools can be traced back to the 1960s and 1970s. As the general concern about violence, weapons, and drug use in schools increased, educators and policymakers’ interest in these alternative school settings and programs. They saw continuation schools as an opportunity to improve safety and well-being for educators and non-disruptive students to feel comfortable learning without distractions (US Department of Education, 2002; Paglin & Fager, 1997; Kelly, 1993), with little to no concern about how these sites could also funnel youth away from higher education opportunities (Huerta, 2022; Huerta & Hernandez, 2021). Since the late 1990s, the number of continuation schools has increased in states like California. Barr and Parret (2001) reported that approximately 20,000 continuation high schools existed across the United States. The US Department of Education (2020) highlighted that California housed more than 400 continuation schools

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

599

throughout the state. The most cited reasons for being transferred to a continuation high school include behavioral issues, truancy, academic performance, pregnancy, or court order (Muñoz, 2005; Huerta & Rios-Aguilar, 2021). Some students’ involvements in the justice system that result in court-ordered transfers to continuation high schools serve as prime examples of the interconnected relationship between the criminal legal system and educational systems. Together, the criminal legal system and continuation high school sites can work jointly to push out youth deemed “at risk” out of traditional high schools, shaping the mechanisms of the school-to-prison nexus. Although disciplinary alternative schools were initially intended to be reserved for students who committed criminal offenses, such as drugs, guns, and assaultrelated activities, students were eventually also sent to alternative schools for disciplinary reasons. While zero-tolerance policies have significantly influenced the criteria for mandatory placement in alternative school settings, discretionary placements allow school administrators to decide which conduct warrants placement and involuntary transfer (Booker & Mitchell, 2011). The discretionary power of educators, staff, and administrators is troublesome, considering the race and genderbased differences observed among disciplinary infractions (Cortez & Cortez, 2009; Musto, 2019). For example, Black and Latino/x students experience higher rates of attendance-related disciplinary infractions when compared to their white peers, with referral rates being two times higher among Latino/x students than Black students (Frank, 2019). Young maken students, compared with those of other gender identifications, are significantly more likely to receive referrals to alternative schools based on attendance issues, delinquency, aggression, and perceived disrespect of instructors and administrators (Frank, 2019). However, Frank’s (2019) study focused on alternative schools that had adopted a common set of standards that structurally defined student misconduct. While the schools included in this study had a system to track disciplinary referrals, the reality is that many other school sites do not follow suit. Although the original intentions of continuation or alternative schools were to provide students with specialized instruction, smaller class sizes, and flexible schedules, the education literature suggests that students at these schools endure heightened surveillance, monitoring, and criminalization (Huerta & Hernandez, 2021; Selman, 2017; Malagón, 2010). Many continuation schools abide by a standard code of conduct that students are mandated to abide by or face repercussions and disciplinary outcomes. A content analysis of code of conduct handbooks from Texas Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEP), Selman (2017) indicates that alternative schools restrict and closely monitor students’ behaviors, including physical and verbal interactions with peers. For example, Huerta (2016) found that educators would not allow alternative school students to shake hands, hug, or exhibit any physical contact due to fear of exchanging drugs. If students did not abide by the educational code of conduct, staying at the continuation high school was subject to an extension (Huerta, 2016). Regarding the code of conduct, talking back to an educator, bringing prohibited items like a cell phone or gum to class can result in students being subjected to

600

A. H. Huerta et al.

extended enrollment in continuation schools or losing extracurricular activities, with a possible combination of both penalities. These extensions, which mirror the experiences that incarcerated people are sanctioned with for behavioral infractions, can inhibit students’ potential to reintegrate into traditional high schools and reinforce the idea that students’ behavior must be corrected before they can exit or leave their respective continuation high school. One of the first studies of continuation schools found that students’ outcomes in these schools’ lag behind those of other students, including in terms of access to postsecondary education (Kelly, 1993), and that these schools are less wellresourced than traditional schools (Lehr et al., 2009). These findings on continuation schools indicate that through carceral logics, continuation schools punish and imprison youth of color both ideologically and materialistically (Huerta & Hernandez, 2021; Selman, 2017, 2019). Selman (2017) notes that continuation schools imprison youthful futures as practices of school removal and transfer to a continuation school. This serves as the mechanism whereby the “bars of imprisonment” inch closer to students and their futures (p. 224). As noted already, the culture of continuation schools emphasizes classroom control and behavior modification over individual learning and growth (Kelly, 1993; Muñoz, 2005; Rios, 2017). In multiple studies, scholars report that continuation schools do not aim to educate students, but instead emphasize compliance to: (a) make sure they attend classes, (b) complete a packet of work, (c) earn a few academic units, and (d) eventually drift away, before earning a high school diploma (Huerta & Hernandez, 2021; Muñoz, 2005). These findings indicate that such schools offer diluted and reduced academic curricula, including limited access to college preparatory courses. They can be a “dumping ground” for low-income youth of color (Kelly, 1993). Many continuation schools do not foster a career or college-going culture, due to a prevailing belief that students are incapable of rigorous curriculum or hold an overall disinterest in postsecondary educational opportunities (Huerta, 2016, 2022; Huerta et al., 2020; Kim, 2011; Lea et al., 2020). Huerta et al. (2022) found that although several Latino boys at two continuation schools expressed interest in attending college, teachers at these schools often missed opportunities to support Latino boys’ college aspirations. Unlike many public high schools that promote college and career readiness using specialized learning academies (Lanford & Maruco, 2018), college days, dual enrollment with local postsecondary education institutions, continuation schools do not provide similar types of enrichment and academic opportunities for their students (Huerta, 2016; Huerta et al., 2020). Structurally, continuation schools are dissimilar from traditional middle and high schools; they often do not offer differentiated courses such as Advanced Placement (AP), Honors, Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), science labs, or a dedicated library (Huerta, 2016, 2022; Huerta et al., 2020; Lehr et al., 2009; Malagón, 2010). Malagón and Alvarez (2010) examined how Chicana girls attending a continuation high school felt “robbed” of quality education, because of the low standards that teachers had set for them. Once these young women

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

601

matriculated into college, they expressed that they held a negative self-concept about their academic capabilities (Malagón & Alvarez, 2010). The young women described feeling angry toward their educational institution, which they felt had failed them (Malagón & Alvarez, 2010). Students enrolled in continuation schools endure stigmatizing labels and stereotypes about their academic capabilities, hold decreased educational expectations, and have diminished future life outcomes (Huerta, 2022; Malagón, 2010; Muñoz, 2005; Rios, 2017). It is difficult for continuation school students to develop or locate college-going identities, as they are subjected to an academically substandard daily curriculum (Huerta, 2016; Muñoz, 2005; Malagón & Alvarez, 2010), negative experiences with teachers (Huerta & Rios-Aguilar, 2021; Malagón, 2010), increased surveillance (Huerta et al., 2017; Selman, 2017), and inequitable access to college information (Huerta, 2022; Huerta et al., 2020). Students attending continuation high schools can, however, resist the multiple societal expectations that they are not worthy of postsecondary education (Hernandez & Ortez, 2022; Huerta, 2018, 2022; Huerta et al., 2020; Malagón & Alvarez, 2010). Some scholars have found that women in continuation schools can take an active role in their academic success and defy societal expectations by matriculating into community colleges, 4-year universities, and graduate programs (Hernandez & Ortez, 2022; Malagón & Alvarez, 2010). Recent research has used an asset-based perspective to explore continuation school students’ prosocial behaviors, such as educational persistence and college aspirations (Hernandez & Ortez, 2022; Huerta, 2018, 2022; Huerta et al., 2020; Malagón & Alvarez, 2010), along with students’ aspirations to attend college to create change and serve their communities (Hernandez & Ortez, 2022; Huerta, 2018). Collectively, the research challenges common perceptions that students at continuation high schools do not value their education or do not hold aspirations for postsecondary education. Factors influencing students’ educational aspirations include personal and familial experiences with the criminal legal system, parenthood, and students’ desires to make their families proud (Huerta, 2018; Hernandez & Ortez, 2022). It is critical for school leaders and educators to reflect on the mechanisms, including the lack of college-going cultures, that are in place that deprive students of envisioning a future in higher education (Selman, 2017). While the literature suggests that students successfully resist the educational expectations set for them, this should not be the trend across these educational institutions. Instead, students should be met with an unwavering commitment and levels of support to actualize their educational goals. It is critical for school leaders and educators to address the mechanisms related to disciplinary practices with negative educational consequences and to challenge practices in continuation schools that deprive students of envisioning a future in higher education (Selman, 2017). Now that we have delineated the roles of disciplinary practices and the culture in continuation schools in potentially channeling students into the carceral system, we turn to understand opportunities for individuals who have already been incarcerated.

602

A. H. Huerta et al.

The Provision of Postsecondary Education for Current or Formerly Incarcerated Individuals The second section of this chapter focuses on educational opportunities for current or formerly incarcerated individuals. Some postsecondary programs are offered in prisons, and others are designed to support incarcerated individuals in the transition to enroll in and attend existing higher education institutions. We address these different kinds of programs. Many higher education audiences are unaware of the long history of prison education programs in the United States. Such programs can be traced back to the 1780s, when their primary objectives were to help incarcerated people become literate by reading the Bible for redemption and soul purification (Messemer, 2011). For more than 200 years, correctional education programs then evolved to meet the growing social and academic needs of incarcerated people, including opportunities to earn a high school diploma or GED, develop a vocational, pursue a career or technical education, and participate in non-credit enrichment programs like yoga or painting, among others (Messemer, 2011; Bozick et al., 2018). A majority of current or formerly incarcerated people have lower educational attainment levels than the general public (Couloute, 2018; Rampey et al., 2016). In their analysis, Tewksbury and Stengel (2006) found that 60% of such people had earned less than a high school diploma, and over a third of them had never completed more than a 10th-grade education. Only 14% of incarcerated individuals had finished some college level, with about 3% having earned a college degree. The aim of programs designed for current or formerly incarcerated people has largely been to prepare them for employment opportunities upon their release (Castro & Gould, 2018). Yet, wide disparities in educational offerings across correctional facilities exist. These disparities are influenced by access to resources, political concerns, and the capacity to build partnerships with nonprofits, higher education institutions, and justice reform advocates. This analysis of such programs focuses on the 1960s to the present. We examine the evolution and implementation of policies, practices, and educational programming for system-impacted students. Next, we offer a history of law and policies influencing the development of such programs.

Recent Law and Policies Affecting Incarcerated Peoples’ Access to Postsecondary Education During the 1960s, educational programming became integral to rehabilitation efforts within correctional systems. On November 8, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) to increase higher education participation. Title IVof the HEA outlined the provision that incarcerated individuals could access federal resources that allowed them to enroll in postsecondary education programs (Brown & Bloom, 2018). Through this access to federal resources in this provision, by 1982, more than 350 college-in-prison programs were enrolling

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

603

27,000 incarcerated students, and by the 1990s, approximately 772 programs were operating in 1287 correctional facilities across the United States (Robinson & English, 2017). However, social and educational progress for incarcerated individuals was upended during the George H.W. Bush administration, with an amendment to the Higher Education Act in 1992. The framework of this amendment prohibited anyone serving a life sentence without parole and residing on death row from using federal resources to attend college. In 1994, under the support of President Bill Clinton, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed. This bill contained a provision that barred federal and state inmates from receiving federal financial aid for postsecondary education. Support for the provision was based on the erroneous assumption that access to federal financial aid for incarcerated people would result in reduced funding for non-incarcerated students to attend postsecondary education (Mastrorilli, 2016). In reality, the amount allocated or used by incarcerated people was less than 1% of total Pell-Grant spending (Robinson & English, 2017). After the passage of this bill, enrollment in prison education programs immediately declined. By 1997, only eight college-in-prison programs existed as the result of the decline in access to federal funds (Robinson & English, 2017). By 2004, only 7% of incarcerated students participated in college courses, compared to 14% in 1991 (Mastrorilli, 2016). Many of the remaining prison education programs were funded through philanthropic donations, private-sector grants, or volunteer efforts to educate and empower incarcerated students (Royer et al., 2021c). There have been efforts in some states to develop programs to facilitate access to postsecondary education for incarcerated individuals. In 2014, after continuous advocacy by various community-based organizations, the California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 1391, allowing California community colleges to offer and be reimbursed for face-to-face college programs and courses that lead to degrees and certifications for incarcerated people. Several in-person college programs in California prisons were implemented in 34 (out of 35) state prisons, representing a fundamental shift in educational opportunities for incarcerated students (Britton et al., 2021). As previously mentioned, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 barred federal aid eligibility for incarcerated individuals, reducing the number of postsecondary education programs in prisons. In 2015, during the final year of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Education launched the Second Chance Pell (SCP) pilot program, which gave incarcerated students access to federal Pell Grants to attend up to 67 postsecondary education programs offered by 131 colleges and universities within state and federal prisons (U.S Department of Education, 2021a). After a 22-year ban between 1994 and 2015, the reinstatement of access to federal student aid for incarcerated individuals represented a major policy milestone for the US Department of Education to facilitate access to postsecondary education for these individuals. Ultimately, the initiative’s goal was to examine whether expanding access to financial aid would increase the participation of incarcerated people in postsecondary educational opportunities. Since the program’s implementation, student enrollment in prison education programs has increased by 236% (Tahamont et al., 2020; Castro et al., 2018). The US Government Accountability Office (2019)

604

A. H. Huerta et al.

indicated that as of the second year of the pilot program, the total number of students enrolled nationally in prison education programs hovered near 8800 students. Further, across 47 states, at least one postsecondary institution provides creditbearing coursework to incarcerated students (Castro et al., 2018). The expansion of the Second Chance Pell Grant has resulted in an additional 200 institutions offering prison education programs in the 2022–2023 academic year.

The Benefits of Prison Education Programs for Individuals and Society Incarcerated individuals who pursue a college education in prison most often report increased self-esteem and self-perception, obtaining employment after release, or improving transferable skills as key motivations to participate in prison education programs (Tewksbury & Stengel, 2006). Specifically, Tewksbury and Stengel (2006) found that incarcerated students enrolled in academic programs (adult basic education, GED preparation, or college courses) were more likely than incarcerated students enrolled in vocational programs to report increasing their self-esteem as a motivation to participate in such programs. Many incarcerated women who were college students and mothers expressed a desire to improve the economic well-being of their families, as well as professional growth, as key motivations to participate in these programs (Baranger et al., 2018; Huerta et al., 2022). According to Rose and Rose (2014), incarcerated women are more likely to participate in educational programs if they receive child visitations, so the benefits of providing access to family members may also be an important factor in helping mothers set and achieve goals related to higher education while incarcerated. Research suggests that incarceration experiences affect the way people view themselves, especially during the early years of their sentence. Evans et al. (2018) studied how participation in higher education affected self-stigmatization and the degree to which formerly incarcerated individuals were empowered to resist it. All the respondents in the Evans et al. (2018) study mentioned that prior to starting a prison education program, they wrestled with a personal sense of failure, loss of confidence, and other psychological hardships resulting from the experience of being incarcerated. Such sentiments are powerful contributors to depression and other mental health challenges that incarcerated people experience during their transition into correctional facilities (Evans et al., 2018). The current evidence suggests that access to college courses for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals offers promising benefits for both these individuals and for society. The immediate individual and social benefits include decreased recidivism (Britton et al., 2021; Mastrorilli, 2016; RAND, 2013), increased selfconfidence and self-esteem (Evans et al., 2018), and overall safer environments for incarcerated people and correctional staff (Binda et al., 2020). In a meta-analysis of prison education programs, researchers at RAND (2013) found that, on average, incarcerated individuals who participated in a correctional education program had 43% lower odds of returning to jail or prison than those who did not attend any

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

605

college educational programs. Recidivism rates for women who participated in a college-in-prison experience were 7.7%, compared to an average of 29.9% for non-participants (Binda et al., 2020). In one study, incarcerated individuals who participated in prison education programs acknowledged that they felt a sense of empowerment and viewed themselves in a more positive manner (Baranger et al., 2018). Frerich and Murphy-Nugen (2019) found that prison education programs empowered women participants to feel restored, have an increased sense of humanity, and experience increased agency and self-efficacy. Many previously incarcerated people also have expressed that prison education program participation helped them develop critical-thinking skills, a stronger work ethic, study routines, and a gradual improvement in their self-esteem (Binda et al., 2020; Evans et al., 2018). Participants in college prison programs experience an increased sense of self-worth and their involvement in these programs helped them develop long-term aspirations for success, even after the program ended (Baranger et al., 2018; Evans et al., 2018). For example, an evaluation conducted by the Government Accountability Office (2019) found that participants in these programs felt that they moved closer to pursuing long-term goals of completing their degrees, starting businesses, and gaining employment. Other research suggests that students in these programs express a greater understanding of their individual agency, including the ability to imagine a different self and future (Binda et al., 2020; Harris, 2011). Conversely, Brown (2021) found that previous system-impacted adults without educational credentials felt a sense of “worthlessness” about their inability to support themselves or their families. Participants wrestled with the temptation to return to criminal activities to support themselves, their children, and family members who had covered legal fees and basic needs, and to provide for others who had supported them throughout their incarceration experiences. Prison-based educational programs have demonstrated the capacity to provide an opportunity for education, personal growth to gain valuable skills to prepare for life outside correctional facilities (Murillo, 2021). Outside the personal benefits for system-impacted students, the social and community gains through significant decreases in recidivism rates warrant additional investments in prison education programs. The trend toward prison privatization in recent decades has shifted emphasis away from rehabilitation through enrichment and educational opportunities to a focus on commercial and industrial production by cheap, confined labor (Castro & Gould, 2018; Gotsch & Basti, 2018).

Variability in Access to Prison Education Programs Of the existing prison education programs that do exist, enrollment has increased by more than 20% since 2018 (Royer et al., 2020). Participation across various racial or ethnic groups in prison education programs is not equitable. Britton et al. (2021) found that Latino/x and Black students in California state prisons were slightly underrepresented in college courses compared to their numbers in the total

606

A. H. Huerta et al.

incarcerated population. Their study revealed that while Latino/x individuals make up 44% of the incarcerated population, they made up 41% of the incarcerated student population. Black individuals made up 28% of the incarcerated population, and only 21% of the incarcerated student population. By contrast, white and Asian inmates have been found to be overrepresented in educational programs (Britton et al., 2021). It is difficult to discern the enrollment trends and patterns across racial and ethnic demographics, as a majority of prison education programs across the USA do not collect data in ways similar to traditional higher education institutions (Royer et al., 2021b). For this reason, Royer et al. (2021b) highlight the need for more systematic data collection to understand the enrollment and completion patterns across race, ethnicity, gender, and other critical areas to support the needed investment in more resources for prison education programs. Similarly, programs are unable to report exact demographic information about faculty, coordinators, volunteers, and others who manage and teach in prison education. When the general public thinks about prison education programs, incarcerated women are often left out of the picture. Much of the empirical literature on the effects of postsecondary education on incarcerated individuals has focused on men (Abrams et al., 2011; Binda et al., 2020; Evans et al., 2018). Women comprise a small percentage of the total prison population, accounting for about roughly 7%, or 1 million, of the entire population of 7.5 million people involved in the criminal legal system, which spans prison, jail, probation, and parole (Sokoloff & SchenckFontaine, 2017). The number of incarcerated women across the USA has increased by more than 700% over the last 40 years (The Sentencing Project, 2020). Women have become the fastest-growing population in jails and prisons, doubling the growth rate of incarcerated men since 1980 (The Sentencing Project, 2020). The disparities in educational program offerings between women’s and men’s correctional facilities are notable, with women’s programs often under-resourced and with a narrow focus, compared with those of men (Brown & Bloom, 2018). One analysis found that in Texas, men’s correctional facilities had three times as many higher education programs as women’s facilities (The Education Trust, 2022). This same study found that while bachelor’s degree programs were the highest degree programs available to women, master’s degrees were the highest available to men (The Education Trust, 2022). The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition’s (2018) found that incarcerated men had access to twice as many technical education courses as incarcerated women. The relatively low number and lower level of college-based programs for incarcerated women limit their opportunities to prepare for better careers once they leave jail or prison. Foster (2005) found that of the 98 adult women’s correctional facilities that provided educational enrichment, only 20% had access to any college programming. In a similar example, Brown and Bloom (2018) found that much of the carceral educational programming designated for women remains vocationally focused, emphasizing women-dominated occupations, such as cosmetology or administrative assistant programs. These opportunities are unlike prison education programs for men that are designed to enable men to learn how to become computer

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

607

programmers, entrepreneurs, or pursue transferable units to earn a bachelor’s degree (Arambula & LeBlanc, 2018; Sokoloff & Schenck-Fontaine, 2017). This opportunity gap within correctional facilities can leave incarcerated women feeling more stigmatized in their educational and career potential than men and more likely to be economically disadvantaged than formerly incarcerated men in their postincarceration lives (Kajstura, 2019).

Different Types of Prison Education Programs A majority of prison education programs (76.4%) offer postsecondary, vocational, or career and technical coursework for credit, and 25.5% offer college preparatory coursework (Royer et al., 2020), though as the previous section indicates, access to these programs in uneven. From a review of the literature, we identified three modalities of instruction for prison programs: (a) in-person, (b) remote (e.g., correspondence courses, limited online access, or live or prerecorded video lectures), and (c) hybrid models blending face-to-face and remote instruction (Royer et al., 2020). The academic institutions affiliated with higher education prison programs include private or public institutions, nonprofit and for-profit entities, and 2-year and 4-year colleges and universities. Incarcerated students ability to receive educational benefits vary widely (Royer et al., 2020). Funding for prison education programs comes from local, state, and federal budgets; philanthropic dollars; federal grant programs (e.g., Second Chance Pell, Post-9/11 GI Bill); and student loans. Royer et al. (2020) found that the majority of prison education programs are housed within public 2-year colleges because they align with the mission of many community colleges to serve the local community with educational opportunities. The resources and student support services available for incarcerated students vary between prison education programs. Some programs provide registration support, access to academic library services, and computer labs. Other programs also offer a variety of reentry support services, such as admissions counseling and pathways to a college or university campus after release from a correctional facility. Given the variability in admissions and enrollment processes, there is no singular typology for prison education programs. Some programs are facilitated and managed by the correctional program staff or through the affiliated postsecondary education institution. Admissions criteria differ across programs, but most require some kind of written application form and completion of a secondary credential such as a high school diploma or GED (Royer et al., 2020). A further component of prison education programs involves the qualifications and backgrounds of their instructors. The most common instructor is an adjunct faculty member at a participating academic institution in the program. Due to the wide variety of policies regulating access to correctional facilities, the process for vetting instructors and their educational credentials to teach incarcerated students is complicated (Castro & Brawn, 2017). In some instances, how faculty instructors are classified to teach in prison education programs varies by the local, state, or federal department of corrections and can influence the type of access or quality of

608

A. H. Huerta et al.

instruction available to students (Royer et al., 2021d). For example, faculty instructors classified as volunteers by the Department of Corrections had less autonomy within the prison and could not communicate with former students or enter the prison during the COVID-19 crisis (Royer et al. 2021c). Entrance to prison teaching faculty depends on local politics and the acceptance by prison officials who either support, tolerate, or welcome college instruction (Custer, 2021). In some cases, postsecondary institutions directly offer higher education within prisons. Castro et al. (2018) noted that 47 states have at least one postsecondary educational institution providing credit-bearing coursework to incarcerated people. During the 2019–2020 academic year, 153 prison programs offered certificates and 244 offered degree pathways, including 196 associate, 63 bachelor’s, and 8 master’s programs (Royer et al., 2020). For the last two decades, several 2- and 4-year higher education institutions have offered academic programs for incarcerated people. For example, Bard College, a highly selective liberal arts institution in New York, has become a national model offering academic opportunities to incarcerated people, including bachelor’s degree programs. The Bard College Prison Initiative (BPI) provides college education to incarcerated individuals and reentry services to BPI alumni as they transition back into society. For the last 23 years, Bard College has conferred nearly 550 college degrees on students at six New York State Prisons. The BPI education model is important to highlight, as it signals to other selective institutions that incarcerated students are capable of excelling in selective higher education institutions once given the opportunity and resources to support their intellectual growth and development. More recently, the California State University (CSU) system, Los Angeles campus created the Prison Graduation Initiative to offer an in-person bachelor’s degree program to currently incarcerated and system-impacted individuals in local state prisons. This initiative ensures incarcerated students can earn a Bachelor of Arts in Communication. If they are released prior to degree completion, students are automatically eligible for enrollment at CSU-Los Angeles. This bold step is critical, as the CSU system is the world’s largest public higher education system, serving more than 480,000 students, including a large share of Latino/x and Black students (Office of the Chancellor, 2022). We anticipate that peer CSU institutions will implement similar initiatives to support system-impacted and currently incarcerated populations throughout the state. Royer et al. (2021b) found that in the 2019–2020 academic year, more than 370 higher education prison programs were associated with over 350 educational institutions offering 199 associate degree pathways and 70 bachelor’s degree pathways. The New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prison (NJ-STEP) Consortium is an association of higher education institutions, including both community colleges and universities, that work in partnership with the State of New Jersey Department of Corrections and the New Jersey State Parole Board to accomplish two things: (a) provide postsecondary courses that lead to a college degree for incarcerated students and (b) assist them in their transition to college life upon release (NJ-STEP, n.d.). Participants can pursue an associate degree in liberal arts or a bachelor’s degree in justice studies from partner institutions (community college

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

609

and 4-year institution, respectively). Counselors are assigned to each prison facility to recruit prospective students and work on-site with students as academic advisors, ensuring students stay on track with their degree plans. In addition, counselors offer financial aid application assistance and prepare a pre-release educational plan (Lampe-Martin & Beasley, 2019; NJ-STEP, n.d.). After their release, students who did not complete their associate degree receive support in enrolling in a community college and then transfer to a 4-year state school. Additionally, STEP participants receive ongoing support through campus networking, housing assistance, legal assistance, peer support, and employment opportunities on and off campus. Collectively, these national efforts to support and educate incarcerated people are essential to highlight the growing promise to provide new methods to support the transition back into society.

Barriers to Accessing Prison Education Programs Despite these opportunities, several barriers within the criminal legal system can affect incarcerated students’ ability to access, persist, and complete a college course or degree. These include unanticipated transfers within the prison system, scheduling conflicts, attitudes of correctional staff, and access to support services. In the following sections, we highlight some of the most common challenges in incarcerated individuals’ capacity to gain access to prison education opportunities.

Unanticipated or Anticipated Changes in Position or Status Within and Between Prisons Incarcerated students are often transferred to different yards, units, or prisons unexpectedly, which interrupts their learning process and ability to complete coursework, hindering their educational achievement (Arambula & LeBlanc, 2018; Mastrorilli, 2016; Palmer, 2012). Not only does the student get dropped from the prison college program, but they also have a withdrawal on their transcript. Such a withdrawal can be viewed negatively by college admissions officers reviewing applications to transfer into a campus-based program. In the longer term, such changes in an incarcerated individual’s status within or between prisons can jeopardize future access to state or federal financial aid, if students fail to meet academic progress requirements and do not achieve satisfactory academic progress (Huerta & Martinez Jr., 2022; Mastrorilli, 2016). Some prison education programs have attempted to alleviate the educational inequities related to unexpected transfers by supporting students in completing their courses or waiving withdrawal deadlines that would negatively impact financial aid or degree progress (Arambula & LeBlanc, 2018). More systematic practices to support course and program completion are needed, as short-term solutions proposed by prison programs are not sustainable, nor do they help justice-impacted students achieve their degrees within the degree timelines set by the federal government.

610

A. H. Huerta et al.

Conflicts Between Incarcerated Individuals’ Work and Schooling Schedules Another structural barrier affecting prison education programs is scheduling conflicts between incarcerated students’ prison work assignments and course offerings. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (2018) report reviewed statewide prison education programs and found that face-to-face community college programs had persistent scheduling challenges that negatively impacted students. This report found that most prison education program classes are offered between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. to meet the scheduling needs of college faculty, but incarcerated students who are assigned prison employment may be unable to access and attend courses available during those time periods. Moved such courses to later hours often offered in local community colleges, such as between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., maybe less amenable or possible for the instructors.

Limited Access to Student Services to Navigate Program Completion Although Stanton-Salazar’s research (2011) on the importance of institutional agents did not focus on prison education or justice-impacted students, it is applicable to the needs of incarcerated students, who need tailored support to succeed in higher education. According to him, institutional agents, such as faculty, college admissions counselors, and other college personnel, can act as conduits to postsecondary opportunities for vulnerable student populations. Yet, many incarcerated students who are enrolled in college-level prison education programs have limited or no access to support services and other resources that are typically available to college students in traditional programs. Such services include financial aid services, tutoring, disabled student services, or other student support services. Incarcerated students have relatively limited access to instructors, which may be further constrained by program modality (i.e., face-to-face, correspondence, or hybrid). Unlike those studying in traditional college settings, incarcerated students cannot email, call, or drop by a professor’s office if they are experiencing an unexpected challenge in the course (Arambula & LeBlanc, 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the precarious nature of student-instructor relationships. As with other populations in traditional education, the pandemic disrupted incarcerated students’ educational opportunities, due to limited modalities for teaching and engaging students, negatively impacting their academic progress during the pandemic (Royer et al., 2021a). Such restrictions limited the ability of incarcerated students to forge relationships with instructors who may provide letters of recommendation in support of future transfer or employment. The combination of unexpected movement from one correctional facility to a new facility, the availability of courses during non-peak prison work assignments time periods, and access to support are important considerations for prison education programs. It is important for college admissions representatives and academic affairs officers to consider the unique academic challenges of incarcerated students and

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

611

approach the evaluation of their college applications and transcripts with grace and strong consideration of the structural challenges within prison education programs.

Barriers to Accessing Postsecondary Education After Release from Prison Now, we turn to some barriers that formerly incarcerated individuals can encounter when they are trying to pursue traditional higher education. These barriers include the criminal background check and financial aid processes typically required to complete postsecondary application forms,

Required Self-Disclosure of Criminal Convictions For justice-impacted individuals, one prominent challenge is to obtain employment or admission is the typical requirement for these individuals to report whether they have a criminal record (Johnson et al., 2021; Stewart & Uggen, 2020). Many students with criminal records begin the college application process, but choose not to continue, when questioned about their criminal history (Curran, 2022). For example, the Center for Community Alternatives (2015) reviewed college applications throughout the State University of New York and found that about two-thirds of a group of 2924 formerly incarcerated potential college applicants elected not to complete the college admissions applications, after being required to check a box reporting whether or not they had a prior felony conviction. Studies suggest individuals with previous involvement in the criminal legal system, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, have reason to be hesitant to report their criminal history. In a randomized control trial, Pager et al. (2009) and colleagues found that employers were less likely to hire individuals with criminal records for liability reasons. This trend disproportionately impacted Black applicants, as they were less likely to interact with hiring managers and were less likely to be invited for an interview. Personnel at many college campuses and state policymakers often do not have clear guidance on how to approach, interpret, or use previous criminal records in admissions decisions (Stewart & Uggen, 2020). Stewart and Uggen (2020) conducted a nationwide study of how college admissions offices at over 1000 four-year colleges responded to fictitious college applicants with criminal records. In a comparison of admissions outcomes between applicants with a felony record, who were slightly better academically qualified (i.e., slightly higher GPA and/or ACT score) than their “no record” counterparts, white applicants with a felony conviction were rejected at a rate of 23.8%, while Black applicants with a felony conviction were rejected at the slightly higher rate of 26.7%. This was the first largescale project to examine how college admissions offices respond to college applicants with criminal records, with specific attention to felony convictions.

612

A. H. Huerta et al.

In another study, 68 out of the 112 responding higher education institutions (about two-thirds) collected information on applicants’ criminal histories (Pierce et al., 2014). The top three most common reasons for collecting information about criminal histories identified in this study included reducing violence (64.9%), protecting against legal liability (55.4%), and reducing illegal drug use (50%). Among the institutions that collected criminal histories, 35% indicated that they denied admission to an applicant based on their criminal history. In sum, requiring disclosure of previous criminal convictions on college applications contributes to decreased access to college for those with contact with the criminal legal system. In some cases, college admissions offices may not have explicit policies on how to process criminal history disclosures on college applications. Thus, it is important to revisit the protocols and framing of how that information is used in the admissions process. This knowledge is valuable for college admissions representatives, and formerly incarcerated applicants who may be reluctant to disclose their disciplinary or incarceration histories.

Navigating the Financial Aid Process Incarcerated students are more likely to come from low-income backgrounds, and thus more likely to benefit from Pell Grants to finance their education. For incarcerated students to qualify for the Second Chance Pell Grant pilot program, applicants must satisfy: • The federal eligibility criteria set forth by the US Department of Education (i.e., have registered for selective service by age 26, if male, and be a US citizen or eligible non-citizen). • Department-specific criteria set by the relevant correctional authority, which may include the Test of Adult Education (TABE) scores, an assessment used in adult education to determine the academic level, and minimum release date. • Program-specific criteria set forth by the Second Chance Pell-grantee education provider. While all applicants must meet these federal criteria, correctional authority and program-specific criteria do vary across program sites. Although access to prison education programs has increased due to Second Chance Pell grants, technical eligibility issues restrict access for some students, as found in Pennsylvania prisons. Tahamont et al. (2020) collected data on a sample of individuals in Pennsylvania prisons to estimate population-level eligibility for the Second Chance Pell Grant. Their findings indicated that only approximately 28% of the Pennsylvania prison population was potentially Pell-eligible. In addition, 85% of respondents experienced more than one barrier surrounding Pell eligibility, and over 56% had three or more obstacles to eligibility. While incarcerated students may be able to resolve most of these barriers, one must meet all eligibility requirements to receive the Pell Grant, leaving many unable to enroll.

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

613

Incarcerated students face several challenges in accessing the Second Chance Pell Grant. One of the major challenges for incarcerated students is navigating the verification process. Schools that award federal aid must flag at least 30% of their FAFSA applications to undergo verification, especially students who would be eligible for Pell Grant funding (Tahamont et al., 2020). Guzman-Alvarez and Page (2021) found that low-income students are required to verify their financial aid at higher rates. Tahamont et al. (2020) found that three-fourths of incarcerated students in Pennsylvania prisons were screened for verification in the pilot program’s first year and reached nearly 60% in the following year. Similarly, Delaney and Montagnet (2020) at the Vera Institute of Justice found verification rates of 76% in Year 1 and 59% in Year 2. The verification process is time-consuming, requiring students to obtain either personal, familial, or spousal financial information that may not be easily accessible for incarcerated students who cannot easily email, or text loved ones for tax information. Another barrier to the verification process is providing proof of identity, such as an unexpired passport, driver’s license, or another state-issued identification card. Yet, nearly half of incarcerated individuals do not have a current or valid form of government-issued identification (Tahamont et al., 2020), and prison identification cards are insufficient to complete this verification process. As such, requiring proof of identity to prevent financial aid fraud creates additional hurdles for incarcerated students. Finally, the lack of unrestricted internet access prevents incarcerated students from submitting the required forms. The time it takes to gather information to complete the forms can delay the application process and result in missing a deadline to enroll or persist in a higher education institution. In the statewide study, Tahamont et al. (2020) found that approximately 25% of students who would be eligible for the Pell Grant did not continue with the verification process due to its multiple forms, administrative processes, and required materials. Fortunately, many of the systematic barriers incarcerated students experience are being addressed in new legislative policies. The FAFSA Simplification Act, passed by Congress in December 2020, significantly changed the processes and methodologies for determining financial aid eligibility. More specifically, the bill established vital provisions that would significantly impact all college students, especially incarcerated students enrolled in prison education programs. Two of these provisions began with the 2021–2022 financial aid award year: (a) the requirement for male students under the age of 26 to register with the Selective Service System will no longer impact a student’s Title IV aid eligibility and (b) FAFSA will not require applicants to provide information about drug-related convictions (Wachendorfer & Budke, 2020). While the Selective Service and drug conviction questions remain on the 2021–2022 FAFSA, if incarcerated students meet all other eligibility requirements, they could receive Title IV aid (Federal Student Aid, 2021). Other provisions of the FAFSA Simplification Act include the law being “sentence-blind,” meaning regardless of conviction or sentence length, incarcerated students are eligible for federal aid if they meet the general eligibility requirements. The number of questions on the FAFSA application will be reduced to 36 questions

614

A. H. Huerta et al.

and replace the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) with the Student Aid Index (SAI), increasing the number of students eligible to receive the maximum Pell Grant. These new provisions were initially intended to be fully implemented for the 2023–2024 award year; however, the government has delayed the phased implementation to the 2024–2025 academic year.

Reentry Program Types That Promote Postsecondary Access for Formerly Incarcerated People Once released, formerly incarcerated people face myriad barriers to reintegrating into society, especially accessing, and pursuing postsecondary educational opportunities (Giraldo et al., 2017; Hernandez et al., 2022; Yucel, 2022). In a qualitative case study, Harris (2011) examined how previously incarcerated people negotiated the tensions of positive change and the difficulty of navigating their communities. What helped the individuals in Harris’s study move forward was access to role models who possessed street credibility and had experienced the criminal legal system. By contrast, Hernandez et al. (2022) found in another study that previously incarcerated college students with less access to such role models were more likely to feel isolated. They were more likely to report having to depend on themselves for resources, peer support systems, and networks that advocate for their persistence in higher education. Further, they found that many colleges had not adapted to the needs of previously incarcerated students as many postsecondary education faculty and staff could not empathize with or understand their lived experiences of incarceration or probation. This research signals that previously incarcerated and system-impacted people benefit from structured resources and credible messengers to serve as advocates and role models on how to transition successfully back into society. Reinforcing the importance of local reentry efforts, Abrams et al. (2011) investigated community-based reentry programs and found that the length of participant engagement in a supportive program could protect against recidivism, especially for young men who may be at a higher risk for returning to criminal activities. They stressed the powerful value of access and participation in education and employment opportunities as those are strongly associated with a reduced probability of adult recidivism (Abrams et al., 2011). Reentry programs vary with respect to services provided, when recruitment and participation begin, the formerly incarcerated populations they serve, sponsoring institutions, and their outcomes (Huerta et al., 2018b). The primary objective of many reentry programs is to help justice-impacted people successfully reintegrate into society and support them in meeting the many challenges they may experience in and outside of higher education. This section begins with a description of college-in-prison programs and then focuses on true reentry programs in community colleges, universities, and community organizations and nonprofits.

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

615

Reentry Programs at the Community College Level In early 2019, the California Community Colleges (CCC) system launched the Rising Scholars Network, a resource that provides access to educational opportunities for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system-impacted students attending community colleges in California. Participating colleges offer degree-granting programs in correctional facilities and on-campus support once students are in community colleges. Currently, only 33 of the 116 California community colleges have on-campus program initiatives, and only 16 offer post-release programming for formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students (Abetya et al., 2021). In California, Rio Hondo College’s RISE Scholars program received NASPA’s Outstanding New Program award in 2020 and was selected as 1 of 20 community colleges in the state of California to participate in the 2019 Leadership Institute for California Community College-Serving Formerly Incarcerated Students (Rio Hondo College, n.d.). The program currently operates on campus, working with formerly incarcerated students (on or off parole or probation) or students who have had prior criminal legal system involvement. Students have access to a biweekly support group led by a licensed therapist; receive scholarship and financial aid application assistance; receive laptops, mobile hotspots, and bookstore vouchers; and participate in academic and personal development workshops and tutoring. The Rising Scholars program at Bakersfield College saw its first cohort graduate in August 2019, with 17 students at Kern Valley State Prison receiving their associate degrees. While in prison, participants can fulfill lower-division general education requirements for any CSU campus prior to transfer. Access to these courses can lead to earning an associate degree with their transfer into communication studies, sociology, history, and psychology majors. Once released, students can join the on-campus club “Free on the Outside”’ and receive academic advice. The Rising Scholars Network has reached and served almost 20,000 system-impacted students on campuses and in prisons, jails, and juvenile detention centers throughout California (California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, n.d.).

University Level Project Rebound is a program that supports formerly incarcerated individuals who wish to enroll at 1 of 14 California State University campuses as part of their educational journey and successful reintegration into society. In 1967, Professor John Keith Irwin, a formerly incarcerated student, founded Project Rebound at San Francisco State University (SFSU). The program aimed to matriculate individuals from the criminal legal system into the university (Associated Students SFSU, 2022). Project Rebound encourages past participants to mentor current students to facilitate networking and cultivate a community on and off campus. Some of the program’s resources and services include academic advising, mental health counseling, transportation assistance, employment and internship placement, access to health care, and financial aid assistance (Lampe-Martin & Beasley, 2019). The program educates prospective students regarding the admissions process, providing detailed guidance on satisfying academic requirements for admission to

616

A. H. Huerta et al.

the respective institution. Individuals are eligible to participate if they have prior criminal justice involvement, including incarceration, and are living or paroling in a specified area. Applicants are required to submit an admission and financial aid application, demonstrate their ability to perform college-level coursework, and maintain satisfactory academic progress by completing a certain number of units each semester (CSUF Project Rebound, 2022). The program has seen success, with a 0% recidivism rate between 2016 and 2020 and student retention/persistence rates at 89.8% for fall 2018 and 93.7% for spring 2019 (CSU Project Rebound, n.d.) Similar to Project Rebound, Underground Scholars bridges the gap between prison and higher education, building a prison-to-university pipeline. Underground Scholars was started in the spring of 2013 by formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students at UC Berkeley as the Underground Scholars Initiative (USI), a campus student organization (Berkeley Underground Scholars, n.d.-b). The following year, USI was granted funding through UC Berkeley’s fee referendum, which students voted on in 2016. USI partnered with state senator Loni Hancock to secure funding from the state to initiate the development of a statewide academic support program to serve formerly incarcerated students, with that, Berkeley Underground Scholars was formed. This inspired USI chapters to develop at other UC campuses, including Los Angeles, Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Davis, and Merced. The program provides one-on-one support to currently and formerly incarcerated community college students who pledge to join the campus’s transfer cohort. Retention efforts include offering students access to tutoring, financial aid advising, research opportunities with highly acclaimed programs, and leadership development. More recently, UC Berkeley personnel developed a recruitment program called Incarceration to College, which began remotely in spring 2020 due to COVID-19. The program is a 9-unit, A-G verified (series of high school courses students must complete to be eligible for admission to UC and CSU) Career Training Education (CTE) college readiness course designed to be taught inside juvenile facilities and allow students to earn CTE credits towards graduation (Berkeley Underground Scholars, n.d.-a). UCI has partnered with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children on their annual Elder Freeman Policy Fellowship, a yearlong policy training institute for formerly incarcerated UC students where students participate in a weekly policy course and join coalitions to submit bills or propositions throughout the legislative season. One example of legislative or ballot advocacy student leaders engaged in, with other organizations including Project Rebound, was SB 118, which banned the box asking students about their criminal convictions on all California college applications (Berkeley Underground Scholars, n.d.-b).

Community Organizations and Nonprofits’ Role in Reentry Programs It is also important to note that community organizations and nonprofits, in addition to postsecondary institutions, have developed re-entry programs. One of the largest gang interventions, rehabilitation, and reentry programs in the world is Homeboy Industries, serving marginalized communities and welcoming thousands of formerly

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

617

gang-involved and previously incarcerated people through its door each year (Homeboy Industries, n.d.). The program was originally created in 1988 by Father Greg Boyle to improve the lives of former gang members in the Pico-Aliso housing projects of East Los Angeles. It has since evolved into a global network, serving as a blueprint for more than 400 organizations (Homeboy Industries, n.d.). Homeboy Industries offers a broad spectrum of free programs and services to former “homeboys” that include both short-term and long-term counseling, job and technical training, life skills courses, educational services, legal aid, court-mandated classes, and tattoo removal, among others (Giraldo et al., 2017). In terms of educational services, Homeboy Industries offers several classes open to both 18-month program participants and on-site community clients that cover topics including assistance with GED preparation, adult continuation/high school diploma, literacy support, tutoring, and college access. Pathways to College is a series of workshops led by students, former students, community organizers, and faculty and staff from surrounding college campuses that help new and prospective students through the enrollment and educational process. The goal is to demystify higher education and provide a space of reciprocal learning and empowerment. In 2020, the total number of academic, life skills, arts enrichment, and work readiness class sessions attended was 14,748, with an average student enrollment of 94 each month (Homeboy Industries, 2020). Break It to Make It (BITMI) is a unique program developed in 2017 in a collaboration between Los Angeles City College, the Strindberg Laboratory (a nonprofit organization), and the Los Angeles Mission with support from the California Department of Corrections and Los Angeles County Jails to provide formerly incarcerated people successful reintegration through art, higher education, and rehabilitative services. Los Angeles Mission, a nonprofit, privately supported, faith-based organization, is among the nation’s largest service providers to the homeless community, supporting the immediate and long-term needs of homeless and disadvantaged communities (Los Angeles Mission, n.d.). Their role is to provide case management, housing, meals, clothing, legal assistance, counseling through the Chicago School of Psychology, spiritual support, job training, and career development for up to 1 year. The Strindberg Laboratory is a professional theater company that creates community-based theater with individuals from diverse backgrounds and is actually one of the only theater companies in Los Angeles County whose members consist entirely of formerly incarcerated people (The Strindberg Laboratory, n.d.). The company hosts college-credited theater training workshops inside Los Angeles County Jails and California State Prisons, providing space for incarcerated individuals to write and produce plays for themselves and others, focusing on changing their lives upon release. Members of this reentry program can enroll in college coursework and receive specialized support from academic counselors to develop their academic and career plans, assistance with financial aid, book vouchers, and health care and mental health counseling. They have access to a peer support network (Huerta et al., 2018a, b). In a program evaluation report conducted by Huerta et al. (2018a, b), 100% of respondents agreed that they would recommend the BITMI program to others, 96% agreed

618

A. H. Huerta et al.

or strongly agreed that the program would enhance their success, and 90% strongly agreed or agreed to feeling connected to the BITMI program. For more than 20 years, College and Community Fellowship in New York has worked with women who have been involved in the criminal legal system, addressing individual, institutional, and systematic change through their programming (College & Community Fellowship, n.d.). It is one of the first organizations to focus on access to higher education for women affected by the criminal legal system. College and Community Fellowship (CCF) was founded in 2000 by Barbara Martinsons, a women’s prison professor who saw a need for higher education services and resources upon release. The program has three main components: (a) college and career, (b) policy and advocacy, and (c) technical assistance. Under their college and career programs, CCF provides long-term support services such as peer mentoring, one-on-one counseling, financial support, and career coaching/ development tools. Other opportunities under the umbrella of policy and advocacy are women’s participation in a variety of programming and campaigns, including an 8-week advocacy training program, that target system-impacted communities. At its inception, CCF was serving only 10 women in their program. Today, they serve more than 650 people in all three areas of their programming (College & Community Fellowship, n.d.). Even with the increase in participation, the recidivism rate is less than 2% (Lampe-Martin & Beasley, 2019).

Conclusion This chapter has presented many structural pitfalls that derail system-impacted students from efficiently pursuing a higher education degree or credential. We have illustrated how K-12 school discipline practices hinder historically marginalized and excluded ethnic and gender groups from gaining access and support to pursue higher education. These exclusionary practices negatively affect students and their academic trajectories, straining the broken social trust between students and educators or derailing educational opportunities altogether. Once students are perceived as troublemakers, educators are less likely to invest time to support them and any college-going aspirations, and these students are more likely to end up in the criminal legal system (Huerta, 2018, 2022; Huerta et al., 2020). Students who are disciplined may feel unworthy or afraid of the college application process. As found by Curran (2022), where current high school students who have been disciplined often “opt out” of applying to colleges that specifically ask about previous discipline records. As admissions representatives create their incoming class, they may not take the time to investigate the individual story or context that led a student to be disciplined within K-12, and make the quick decision to exclude such a student from admissions consideration (Dizon et al., 2022; Huerta et al., 2020; McTier Jr, 2021; Custer, 2018; Stewart & Uggen, 2020). Once low-income system-impacted or formerly incarcerated individuals have opportunities for college educational programming, the effort required to complete the necessary financial aid forms becomes another barrier, as it can prevent current

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

619

and previously incarcerated students from enrolling or persisting in higher education. We stress that these examples are prevention practices. Higher education leaders and practitioners can revise local policies to better support students who have been victims of racist and discriminatory practices. Many administrators would argue that current efforts are meant to create a safe college campus for those who have had missteps (Dizon et al., 2020, 2022). Higher education scholars and practitioners can enhance their understanding of approaches to correct past institutional missteps that continue to punish those impacted by the criminal legal system. Current efforts to support system-impacted students (e.g., justice scholars, underground scholars) originate from the student activism of students who felt alienated and invisible to student affairs practitioners. As noted in the first section of this chapter, having a disciplinary record in K-12 education unleashes a multitude of long-term repercussions that last persist to the postsecondary education level. Though higher education practitioners are improving their efforts to support system-impacted students, specific areas need to be addressed in more detail and with more care. These areas include system-impact students’ restricted access to campus housing, employment, financial aid, and certain degree programs. As higher education researchers, we stress the importance of engaging with scholars in criminal justice and related fields on the design of research and practice that addresses the transition of system-impacted youth or adults into postsecondary education. Simply gaining admission to higher education does not resolve the extended range of challenges system-impacted students endure to persist and graduate from these institutions. If policies bar these same students from living on campus, accessing financial aid, or working on campus, due to prior involvement with the criminal legal system, such students may not be able to access postsecondary education at all. Therefore, higher education practitioners and leaders must be proactive in the development of current policies and practices to truly create an inclusive campus. Typically, system-impacted students also require additional support to learn about available resources to navigate their campuses. To enhance the experiences of system-impacted students in higher education, practitioners are highly encouraged to advocate for more resources, allocate support, and validate and elevate the presence of system-impacted students in higher education. As practitioners further study how to support system-impacted students, we encourage them to shy away from employing a “savior agenda” that may minimize the humanity of system-impacted students they wish to support. We stress the importance of listening and learning, being authentic and empathetic without trivializing the lives of system-impacted individuals. Higher education researchers should be encouraged to further examine the lived experiences, institutional barriers, and success of system-impacted students in postsecondary education. More than 30 years of research, practice briefs, and monographs in other fields have been reviewed in this chapter and can offer tools to examine these issues. Interdisciplinary collaboration to study system-impacted students’ sense of belonging or campus climate experiences and to identify their mental health, social, and basic needs can offer more holistic solutions to serve and support these students.

620

A. H. Huerta et al.

It is essential to understand how and why higher education leaders and policymakers allow known policy barriers to continue to hinder access of systemimpacted students to postsecondary education. Practitioners need to be aware of system-impacted students’ stresses related to childcare, access to legal counsel, drug addiction, and more situations. Training about these structural factors can be included in higher education and student affairs programs, for example, in education that involves case studies in student affairs. Higher education researchers and practitioners can draw on this review of research on system-impacted students in K-12 and postsecondary education to address barriers that contribute to the schoolto-prison nexus and to expand these students’ postsecondary opportunities.

References Abeyta, M., Torres, A., Hernandez, J. L., & Duran, O. (2021). Rising scholars: A case study of two community colleges serving formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students. Journal of Applied Research in the Community College, 28(1), 99–109. Abrams, L. S., Terry, D. L., & Franke, T. (2011). Community-based juvenile reentry services: The effects of service dosage on juvenile and adult recidivism. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 50, 492–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2011.596919 Alexander, M. (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press. American Academy of Pediatrics. (2003). Out-of-school suspension and expulsion. Pediatrics, 112(5), 1206–1209. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2012-3932 Annamma, S. A. (2017). The pedagogy of pathologization: Dis/abled girls of color in the schoolprison nexus. Routledge. Annamma, S. A., Anyon, Y., Joseph, N. M., Farrar, J., Greer, E., Downing, B., & Simmons, J. (2019). Black girls and school discipline: The complexities of being overrepresented and understudied. Urban Education, 54(2), 211–242. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916646610 Arambula, R., & LeBlanc, L. (2018). Incarcerated students: Encouraging results from pilot program, 2018 report. California Community Colleges, Chancellor’s Office. https://files.eric. ed.gov/fulltext/ED596593.pdf Arcia, E. (2006). Achievement and enrollment status of suspended students: Outcomes in a large, multicultural school district. Education and Urban Society, 38(3), 359–369. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0013124506286947 Arnold, R. A. (1990). Processes of victimization and criminalization of black women. Social Justice, 17(3(41)), 153–166. Bacon, E. H. (1990). Using negative consequences effectively. Academic Therapy, 25(5), 599–611. https://doi.org/10.1177/105345129002500506 Baranger, J., Rousseau, D., Mastrorilli, M. E., & Matesanz, J. (2018). Doing time wisely: The social and personal benefits of higher education in prison. The Prison Journal, 98(4), 490–513. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0032885518776380 Barr, R. D., & Parrett, W. H. (2001). Hope fulfilled for at-risk and violent youth. Allyn and Bacon. Basile, V. (2020). Standin’ tall: Criminalization and acts of resistance among elementary school boys of color. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(1), 94–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324. 2018.1497964 Basile, V. (2021). Decriminalizing practices: Disrupting punitive-based racial oppression of boys of color in elementary school classrooms. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 34(3), 228–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1747661 Bear, G. G. (2010). School discipline and self-discipline: A practical guide to promoting \ prosocial student behavior. Guilford Press.

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

621

Bell, C. (2021). Suspended: Punishment, violence, and the failure of school safety. JHU Press. Berkeley Underground Scholars. (n.d.-a). Incarceration to college. Retrieved 8 Feb 2022 from https://undergroundscholars.berkeley.edu/our-work Berkeley Underground Scholars. (n.d.-b). Our work. Retrieved 8 Feb 2022 from https:// undergroundscholars.berkeley.edu/our-work Bettini, E., Kimerling, J., Park, Y., & Murphy, K. M. (2015). Responsibilities and instructional time: Relationships identified by teachers in self-contained classes for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 59(3), 121–128. https://doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2013.859561 Binda, H., Weinberg, J., Maetzener, N., & Rubin, C. L. (2020). “You’re almost in this place that doesn’t exist”: The impact of college in prison as understood by formerly incarcerated students from the Northeastern United States. Journal of Prison Education and Reentry, 6(2), 242–263. https://doi.org/10.25771/54ad-9z55 Blake, J. J., Butler, B. R., Lewis, C. W., & Darensbourg, A. (2011). Unmasking the inequitable discipline experiences of urban Black girls: Implications for urban educational stakeholders. The Urban Review, 43, 90–106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-009-0148-8 Bock, S. J., Tapscott, K. E., & Savner, J. L. (1998). Suspension and expulsion: Effective management for students? Intervention in School & Clinic, 34(1), 50–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 105345129803400108 Booker, K., & Mitchell, A. (2011). Patterns in recidivism and discretionary placement in disciplinary alternative education: The impact of gender, ethnicity, age, and special education status. Education and Treatment of Children, 34(2), 193–208. https://doi.org/10.1353/etc. 2011.0016 Bozick, R., Steele, J., Davis, L., & Turner, S. (2018). Does providing inmates with education improve postrelease outcomes? A meta-analysis of correctional education programs in the United States. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 14(3), 389–428. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11292-018-9334-6 Britton, T., Friedmann, E., & Adan, S. (2021). Higher learning inside: An exploration of the demographic make-up of incarcerated persons taking postsecondary courses in California. UC Davis Wheelhouse Center for Community College Leadership and Research. https:// education.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/wheelhouse_research_brief_vol_6_no_1_final.pdf Brown, T. M. (2007). Lost and turned out: Academic, social, and emotional experiences of students excluded from school. Urban Education, 42(5), 432–455. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0042085907304947 Brown, T. M. (2021). Uncredentialed young adults: Beyond economic loss to the emotional aftermath of school failure. Urban Education, 56(2), 167–192. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0042085918802615 Brown, M., & Bloom, B. E. (2018). Women’s desistance from crime: A review of theory and the role higher education can play. Sociology Compass, 12(5), e12580. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4. 12580 Burch, P. (Ed.). (2022). System failure: Policy and practice in the school-to-prison pipeline. Routledge. Butler-Barnes, S. T., & Inniss-Thompson, M. N. (2020). “My teacher doesn’t like me”: Perceptions of teacher discrimination and school discipline among African-American and Caribbean black adolescent girls. Education Sciences, 10(2), 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10020044 California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. (2018). Incarcerated students encouraging results from pilot program. https://www.cccco.edu/-/media/CCCCO-Website/About-Us/ Re po rts /Fi les /C CC CO_ R epo rt_ In carc erat ed_ St ud en ts - fin a l - A D A . p d f ? l a ¼e n & hash¼0838B0F373CDFC9B058BCB86146440B73652C630 California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. (n.d.). Rising Scholars Network. Retrieved 16 Jan 2022, from https://www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Chancellors-Office/Divisions/EducationalServices-and-Support/What-we-do/Rising-Scholars-Network California Department of Education (2020). Continuation education – CalEdFacts. Retrieved from https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/eo/ce/cefcontinuationed.asp

622

A. H. Huerta et al.

Cammarota, J. (2004). The gendered and racialized pathways of Latina and Latino youth: Different struggles, different resistances in the urban context. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 35, 53–74. https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2004.35.1.53 Carter, P. L., Skiba, R., Arredondo, M. I., & Pollock, M. (2017). You can’t fix what you don’t look at: Acknowledging race in addressing racial discipline disparities. Urban Education, 52(2), 207–235. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916660350 Carver, P. R., Lewis, L., & Tice, P. (2010). Alternative schools and programs for public school students at risk of educational failure: 2007–2008. First Look. NCES 2010-026. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010026.pdf Casella, R. (2003). Zero tolerance policy in schools: Rationale, consequences, and alternatives. Teachers College Record, 105(5), 872–892. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9620.00271 Castro, E. L., & Brawn, M. (2017). Critiquing critical pedagogies inside the prison classroom: A dialogue between student and teacher. Harvard Educational Review, 87(1), 99–121. Castro, E. L., & Gould, M. R. (2018). What is higher education in prison? Critical Education, 9(10), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v9i10.186439 Castro, E. L., Hunter, R. K., Hardison, T., & Johnson-Ojeda, V. (2018). The landscape of postsecondary education in prison and the influence of Second Chance Pell: An analysis of transferability, credit-bearing status, and accreditation. The Prison Journal, 98(4), 405–426. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885518776376 Center for Community Alternatives. (2015). Boxed out: Criminal history screening and college application attrition. https://communityalternatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/boxedout.pdf Chesnut, K., Taber, N., & Quintana, J. (2022). Second Chance Pell: Five years of expanding higher education programs in prisons, 2016–2021. Vera. https://www.vera.org/downloads/publica tions/second-chance-pell-five-years-of-expanding-access-to-education-in-prison-20162021.pdf College & Community Fellowship. (n.d.). About CCF. Retrieved 16 Jan 2022, from https://www. collegeandcommunity.org/about-ccf Cortez, A., & Cortez, J. D. (2009). Disciplinary alternative education programs in Texas: A 2009 update. Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA). https://files.eric.ed.gov/ fulltext/ED509896.pdf Couloute, L. (2018). Getting back on course: Educational exclusion and attainment among formerly incarcerated people. Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/ education.html CSU Office of the Chancellor. (2022). Enrollment. https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/about-% 20the-csu/facts-about-the-csu/enrollment[1] CSU Project Rebound. (n.d.). Project Rebound. Retrieved 16 Jan 2022, from https://www.calstate. edu/impact-of-the-csu/student-success/project-rebound CSUF Project Rebound. (2022). Am I eligible for Project Rebound? http://www.fullerton.edu/ rebound/prospective_students/eligibility.php. Curran, F. C. (2022). Ban the discipline box? How university applications that assess prior school discipline experiences relate to admissions of students suspended in high school. Research in Higher Education, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09683-x Custer, B. D. (2018). Reconsidering policy barriers for justice-involved college students. Journal of College Access, 4(1), 51–63. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jca/vol4/iss1/6 Custer, B. D. (2021). Why policymakers in Georgia and Indiana barred incarcerated college students from state financial aid. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(7), 1059–1084. Darling-Hammond, L. (2007). Race, inequality and educational accountability: The irony of ‘No Child Left Behind’. Race Ethnicity and Education, 10(3), 245–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13613320701503207 Davis, L. M. (2019). Higher education programs in prison: What we know now and what we should focus on going forward. RAND. https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE342.html

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

623

Davis, C., Bahr, S. J., & Ward, C. (2013). The process of offender reintegration: Perceptions of what helps prisoners reenter society. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 13(4), 446–469. https://doi. org/10.1177/1748895812454748 Delaney, R., & Montagnet, C. (2020, April). Second Chance Pell: A snapshot of the first three years. Vera Institute of Justice. https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/second-chancepell-snapshot-first-three-years.pdf Dizon, J. P. M., Salazar, M. E., Yucel, E., & Lopez, E. F. (2020). Campus policing: A guide for higher education leaders. Pullias Center for Higher Education. Dizon, J. P. M., Enoch-Steven, T., & Huerta, A. H. (2022). Carcerality and education: Toward a relational theory of risk in educational institutions. American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi. org/10.1177/00027642211054828 Eggleton, T. (2001). Discipline in schools. U.S. Department of Education: Educational Resources Information Center. https://eric.ed.gov/?id¼ED451554 Evans, D. N., Pelletier, E., & Szkola, J. (2018). Education in prison and the self-stigma: Empowerment continuum. Crime & Delinquency, 64(2), 255–280. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0011128717714973 Evans, D. N., Szkola, J., & St John, V. (2019). Going back to college? Criminal stigma in higher education admissions in Northeastern US. Critical Criminology, 27(2), 291–304. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10612-019-09443-x Federal Student Aid. (2021, June 11). Early implementation of the FAFSA Simplification Act’s removal of selective service and drug conviction requirements for Title IV eligibility. https:// fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/dear-colleague-letters/2021-06-11/early-implemen tation-fafsa-simplification-acts-removal-selective-service-and-drug-conviction-requirementstitle-iv-eligibility Ferguson, A. (2000). Bad boys: Public schools in the making of Black masculinity. University of Michigan Press. Foster, J. E. (2005). Bringing college back to prison: The state of higher education programs for incarcerated women in the U.S. [Paper presentation]. International Women’s Policy Research Conference. Frank, J. L. (2019). Establishing empirical benchmarks for disciplinary infractions in alternative school settings: Findings from a national sample. Preventing School Failure, 63(3), 242–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2019.1579166 Frerich, M. A., & Murphy-Nugen, A. B. (2019). Women’s voices: An appreciative inquiry of off-site postsecondary correctional education. Affilia, 34(1), 8–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0886109918796250 Gándara, P., & Contreras, F. (2009). The Latino education crisis: The consequences of failed social policies. Harvard University Press. Gilliam, W. S., & Shahar, G. (2006). Preschool and child care expulsion and suspension: Rates and predictors in one state. Infants and Young Children, 19(3), 228–245. https://doi.org/10.1097/ 00001163-200607000-00007 Gilman, A. B., Hill, K. G., & Hawkins, J. D. (2014). Long-term consequences of adolescent gang membership for adult functioning. American Journal of Public Health, 104(5), 938–945. Giraldo, L. G., Huerta, A. H., & Solórzano, D. G. (2017). From incarceration to community college: Funds of knowledge, community cultural wealth, and critical race theory. In C. Rios-Aguilar & J. M. Kiyama (Eds.), Funds of knowledge in higher education: Honoring students’ cultural experiences and resources as strengths (pp. 48–65). Routledge. Gotsch, K., & Basti, V. (2018). Capitalizing on mass incarceration: U.S. growth in private prisons. The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-massincarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/#II.%20Trends%20in%20Privatization Gregory, A., Skiba, R. J., & Noguera, P. A. (2010). The achievement gap and the discipline gap: Two sides of the same coin? Educational Researcher, 39, 59–68. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 0013189X09357621

624

A. H. Huerta et al.

Guzman-Alvarez, A., & Page, L. C. (2021). Disproportionate burden: Estimating the cost of FAFSA verification for public colleges and universities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 43(3), 545–551. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737211001420 Halx, M. D., & Ortiz, M. (2011). Voices of Latino male high school students on their disconnect with education: Perspectives of “drop-outs” and those on the brink. Latino Studies, 9(4), 416–438. https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2011.49 Harris, A. (2011). Constructing clean dreams: Accounts, future selves, and social and structural support as desistance work. Symbolic Interaction, 34(1), 63–85. https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2011.34.1.63 Heaviside, S., Rowand, C., Williams, C., & Farris, E. (1998). Violence and discipline problems in U.S. public schools: 1996–1997. National Center for Education Statistics. Hénard, F., & Roseveare, D. (2012). Fostering quality teaching in higher education: Policies and practices: An IMHE Guide for Higher Education Institutions. OCED Institutional Management in Higher Education. https://www.oecd.org/education/imhe/QT%20policies%20and% 20practices.pdf Hernandez, E., & Ortez, J. O. (2022). “I am not a failure”: Embracing the assets of Latinas in continuation high schools. Journal of Latinos and Education, 21(5), 438–451. Hernandez, J. L., Murillo, D., & Britton, T. (2022). Hustle in higher education: How Latinx students with conviction histories move from surviving to thriving in higher education. American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642211054827 Hines-Datiri, D., & Carter Andrews, D. J. (2020). The effects of zero tolerance policies on Black girls: Using critical race feminism and figured worlds to examine school discipline. Urban Education, 55(10), 1419–1440. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085917690204 Hirschfield, P. J. (2008). Preparing for prison? The criminalization of school discipline in the USA. Theoretical Criminology, 12(1), 79–101. Homeboy Industries. (2020). Annual report. https://readymag.com/u18075929/3025033/5/ Homeboy Industries. (n.d.). About homeboy. Retrieved 16 Jan 2022, from https://homeboyin dustries.org/our-story/about-homeboy/ Huerta, A. H. (2015). “I didn’t want my life to be like that”: Gangs, college, or the military for Latino male high school students. Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies, 7(2), 119–132. Huerta, A. H. (2016). Gangs and college knowledge: An examination of Latino male students attending an alternative school. University of California. Huerta, A. H. (2018). Educational persistence in the face of violence: Narratives of resilient Latino male youth. Boyhood Studies, 11(2), 94–113. https://doi.org/10.3167/bhs.2018.110206 Huerta, A. H. (2022). Accessing possible selves with limited college knowledge: Case studies of Latino boys in two urban continuation high schools. American Behavioral Scientist, 66(10), 1342–1367. Huerta, A. H., & Hernandez, E. (2021). Capturing the complexity of alternative schools: Narratives of Latino males in an overlooked educational space. The Urban Review, 53(5), 814–837. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11256-021-00596-0 Huerta, A. H., & Martinez, E., Jr. (2022). Strategies and support services for community college Latino/x men on academic probation. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(4), 406. Huerta, A. H., & Rios-Aguilar, C. (2021). Treat a cop like they are God: Exploring the relevance and utility of funds of gang knowledge among Latino male students. Urban Education, 56(8), 1239–1268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918794766 Huerta, A. H., Calderone, S., & McDonough, P. M. (2017). School discipline policies that result in unintended consequences on Latino male students’ college aspirations. In G. Q. Conchas, M. Gottfried, B. M. Hinga, & L. Oseguera (Eds.), Policy goes to school: Case studies on the possibilities and limitations of educational innovation (pp. 157–172). Routledge. Huerta, A. H., McDonough, P. M., & Allen, W. R. (2018a). “You can go to college”: Employing a developmental perspective to examine how young men of color construct a college-going identity. The Urban Review, 50(5), 713–734. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-018-0466-9

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

625

Huerta, A. H., Venegas, K. M., & Estrada, J. N. (2018b). Evaluation of the break it to make it program. https://strindberglaboratory.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/BITMI-evaluation-0807-18.pdf Huerta, A. H., McDonough, P. M., Venegas, K. V., & Allen, W. R. (2020). College is. . .: Focusing on the college knowledge of gang-associated Latino boys and young men. Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920934854 Huerta, A. H., Rios-Aguilar, C., & Ramirez, D. (2022). “I had to figure it out”: A case study of how community college student parents of color navigate college and careers. Community College Review, 50(2), 193–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/00915521211061425 Johnson, R. M., Alvarado, R. E., & Rosinger, K. O. (2021). What’s the “problem” of considering criminal history in college admissions? A critical analysis of “ban the box” policies in Louisiana and Maryland. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(5), 704–734. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00221546.2020.1870849 Kajstura, A. (2019, October 29). Women’s mass incarceration: The whole pie 2019. Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019women.html Kelly, D. M. (1993). Last chance high: How girls and boys drop in and out of alternative schools. Yale University Press. Kennedy-Lewis, B. L., & Murphy, A. S. (2016). Listening to “frequent flyers”: What persistently disciplined students have to say about being labeled as “bad”. Teachers College Record, 118(1), 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811611800106 Khalifa, M. (2010). Validating social and cultural capital of hyper-ghettoized at-risk students. Education and Urban Society, 42(5), 620–646. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124510366225 Kim, J. H. (2011). Narrative inquiry into (re) imagining alternative schools: A case study of Kevin Gonzales. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 24(1), 77–96. https://doi. org/10.1080/09518390903468321 Kim, J. H., & Taylor, K. A. (2008). An alternative for whom? Rethinking alternative education to break the cycle of educational inequality and inequity. The Journal of Education Research, 101(4), 207–219. https://doi.org/10.3200/JOER.101.4.207-219 Kupchik, A. (2010). Homeroom security. New York University Press. Lampe-Martin, L. R., & Beasley, C. R. (2019). Do the pipes align? Evaluating the effectiveness of prison-to-college programs. Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, 37–44. http:// libproxy.usc.edu/login?url¼https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/do-pipes-align-evalu ating-effectiveness-prison/docview/2316972965/se-2?accountid¼14749 Lanford, M., & Maruco, T. (2018). When job training is not enough: The cultivation of social capital in career academies. American Educational Research Journal, 55(3), 617–648. https:// doi.org/10.3102/0002831217746107 Laura, C. T. (2014). Being bad: My baby brother and the school-to-prison pipeline. Teachers College Press. Lea, C. H., Crumé, H. J., & Hill, D. (2020). “Traditions are not for me”: Curriculum, alternative schools, and formerly incarcerated young black men’s academic success. Social Sciences, 9(12), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9120233 Lehr, C. A., Soon Tan, C., & Ysseldyke, J. (2009). Alternative schools: A synthesis of state-level policy and research. Remedial and Special Education, 30(1), 19–32. Los Angeles Mission. (n.d.). History. Retrieved 16 Jan 2022, from https://losangelesmission.org/ who-we-are/history/ Losen, D. J., & Martinez, T. E. (2013). Out of school and off track: The overuse of suspensions in American middle and high schools. The UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies at The Civil Rights Project. Malagón, M. C. (2010). All the losers go there: Challenging the deficit educational discourse of Chicano racialized masculinity in a continuation high school. Educational Foundations, 24, 59–76.

626

A. H. Huerta et al.

Malagón, M. C., & Alvarez, C. R. (2010). Scholarship girls aren’t the only Chicanas who go to college: Former Chicana continuation high school students disrupting the educational achievement binary. Harvard Educational Review, 80(2), 149–173. Mastrorilli, M. E. (2016). With Pell Grants rising: A review of the contemporary empirical literature on prison postsecondary education. Journal of Correctional Education (1974), 67(2), 44–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26506636 McElrath, K., Guevara, L., Shekarkhar, Z., & Brown, J. M. (2020). Out-of-school suspensions: Counter-narratives from the student perspective. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology. https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.ee4217b2 McTier, T. S., Jr. (2021). Between a rock and a hard place: Navigating institutional barriers as a graduate student with a criminal record. American Behavioral Scientist, 00027642211054823. McTier, T. S., Smith, C. T., Smith, G., Hodges, A., & Bah, S. (2020). Full-time students with parttime benefits: How being denied on-campus housing affects college students with criminal records. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1521025120960667 Meek, S. E., & Gilliam, W. S. (2016). Expulsion and suspension in early education as matters of social justice and health equity. NAM Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.31478/201610e Messemer, J. E. (2011). The historical practice of correctional education in the United States: A review of the literature. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1(17), 91–100. http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_1_No_17_Special_Issue_November_2011/9.pdf Mittleman, J. (2018). A downward spiral? Childhood suspension and the path to juvenile arrest. Sociology of Education, 91(3), 183–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040718784603 Morris, E. W. (2005). “Tuck in that shirt!” Race, class, gender, and discipline in an urban school. Sociological Perspectives, 48(1), 25–48. https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2005.48.1.25 Morris, R. C., & Howard, A. C. (2003). Designing an effective in-school suspension program. The Clearing House, 76(3), 156–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098650309601994 Muñoz, J. S. (2005). The social construction of alternative education: Re-examining the margins of public education for at-risk Chicano/a students. The High School Journal, 88(2), 3–22. Murillo, D. (2021). The possibility report: From prison to college degrees in California. Campaign for College Opportunity. Murphy, A. S., Acosta, M. A., & Kennedy-Lewis, B. L. (2013). “I’m not running around with my pants sagging, so how am I not acting like a lady?”: Intersections of race and gender in the experiences of female middle school troublemakers. The Urban Review, 45(5), 586–610. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11256-013-0236-7 Musto, M. (2019). Brilliant or bad: The gendered social construction of exceptionalism in early adolescence. American Sociological Review, 84(3), 369–393. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0003122419837567 NJ-STEP. (n.d.). About. Retrieved 16 Jan 2022, from https://njstep.newark.rutgers.edu Noguera, P. A. (2003). Schools, prisons, and social implications of punishment: Rethinking disciplinary practices. Theory Into Practice, 42(4), 341–350. https://doi.org/10.1207/ s15430421tip4204_12 Novak, A., & Fagan, A. (2022). Expanding research on the school-to-prison pipeline: Examining the relationships between suspension, expulsion, and recidivism among justice-involved youth. Crime & Delinquency, 68(1), 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128721999334 Office for Civil Rights. (2018). School climate and safety. 2015–16 Civil Rights Data Collection. United States Department of Education. Pager, D., Western, B., & Sugie, N. (2009). Sequencing disadvantage: Barriers to employment facing young Black and white men with criminal records. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 623, 195–213. https://doi-org.libproxy1.usc.edu/10.1177/ 0002716208330793 Paglin, C., & Fager, J. (1997). Alternative schools: Approaches for students at risk (by request series). Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Available: http://www.nwrel.org/request/ sept97/

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

627

Palmer, S. M. (2012). Postsecondary correctional education: Recognizing and overcoming barriers to success. Adult Learning, 23, 163–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159512457918 Peguero, A. A., & Shekarkhar, Z. (2011). Latino/a student misbehavior and school punishment. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 33(1), 54–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0739986310388021 Pierce, M. W., Runyan, C. W., & Bangdiwala, S. I. (2014). The use of criminal history information in college admissions decisions. Journal of School Violence, 13(4), 359–376. https://doi.org/10. 1080/15388220.2013.870061 Rampey, B. D., Keiper, S., Mohadjer, L., Krenzke, T., Li, J., Thornton, N., & Hogan, J. (2016). Highlights from the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their skills, work experience, education, and training: Program for the international assessment of adult competencies: 2014. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016040.pdf RAND (2013). 2013 RAND Annual Report. https://www.rand.org/pubs/corporate_pubs/CP1-2013. html Rio Hondo College. (n.d.). About RISE scholars. Retrieved 15 Jan 2022, from https://www. riohondo.edu/rise/mission/ Rios, V. M. (2011). Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys. NYU Press. Rios, V. M. (2017). Human targets: Schools, police, and the criminalization of Latino youth. University of Chicago Press. Robinson, G., & English, E. (2017). The second chance Pell pilot program: A historical overview. https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Second-Chance-Pell-Pilot-Program.pdf? x91208 Rocque, M., & Snellings, Q. (2018). The new disciplinology: Research, theory, and remaining puzzles on the school-to-prison pipeline. Journal of Criminal Justice, 59, 3–11. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2017.05.002 Rose, K., & Rose, C. (2014). Enrolling in college while in prison: Factors that promote male and incarcerated women to participate. Journal of Correctional Education, 65(2), 20–39. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/26507646 Rosenbaum, J. (2020). Educational and criminal justice outcomes 12 years after school suspension. Youth & Society, 52(4), 515–547. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X17752208 Royer, C. E., Castro, E. L., Gould, M. R., & Lerman, A. E. (2020). The landscape of higher education in prison 2019–2020. Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. https://assets-global. website-files.com/5e3dd3cf0b4b54470c8b1be1/619db1bc9daf730844a239e6_TheLandscapeof HigherEducationinPrison-2019-2020_v3.pdf Royer, C. E., Castro, E. L., Lerman, A. E., & Gould, M. R. (2021a). COVID-19 and higher education in prison. Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. https://assets-global.websitefiles.com/5e3dd3cf0b4b54470c8b1be1/60f9c07dc42dd4aa81157892_COVID-19%20and% 20Higher%20Education%20in%20Prison%20Programs.pdf Royer, C. E., Castro, E. L., Lerman, A. E., & Gould, M. R. (2021b). Understanding the landscape of higher education in prison survey: 2018–2019: Demographic data collection for higher education in prison programs. Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. https://assets-global. website-files.com/5e3dd3cf0b4b54470c8b1be1/61009112770d7932b5cd738d_3UnderstandingTheLandscape_Demographics.pdf Royer, C. E., Castro, E. L., Lerman, A. E., & Gould, M. R. (2021c). Understanding the landscape of higher education in prison survey: 2018–2019: Funding for higher education in prison programs. Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. https://assets-global.website-files.com/ 5e3dd3cf0b4b54470c8b1be1/60eee676c4ce10fac978564f_4-UnderstandingTheLandscape_ Funding.pdf Royer, C. E., Castro, E. L., Lerman, A. E., & Gould, M. R. (2021d). Understanding the landscape of higher education in prison survey: 2018–2019: Instructors for higher education in prison programs. Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. https://assets-global.website-files.com/ 5e3dd3cf0b4b54470c8b1be1/61158a091a4f944fd20221f0_2-UnderstandingTheLandscape_ Instructors.pdf

628

A. H. Huerta et al.

Saenz, V. B., & Ponjuan, L. (2009). The vanishing Latino male in higher education. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 8(1), 54–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192708326995 Safer, D. J., Reaton, R. C., & Parker, F. C. (1981). A behavioral program for disruptive junior high school students: Results and follow-up. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 9(4), 483–494. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00917797 San Francisco State University. (2022). Project Rebound. https://asi.sfsu.edu/project-rebound Selman, K. J. (2017). Imprisoning ‘those’ kids: Neoliberal logics and the disciplinary alternative school. Youth Justice, 17(3), 213–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225417712607 Selman, K. J. (2019). Building the necropolis through time and space: Racial capitalist forces in the disciplinary alternative school. Contemporary Justice Review, 22(4), 309–333. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/10282580.2019.1672045 Shedd, C. (2015). Unequal city: Race, schools, and perceptions of injustice. Russell Sage Foundation. Shollenberger, T. L. (2015). Racial disparities in school suspension and subsequent outcomes: Evidence from the national longitudinal survey of youth. In D. J. Losen (Ed.), Closing the school discipline gap: Equitable remedies for excessive exclusion (pp. 31–43). Teachers College Press. Simmons-Reed, E. A., & Cartledge, G. (2014). School discipline disproportionality: Culturally competent interventions for African American males. Interdisciplinary Journal of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), 95–109. https://eric.ed.gov/?id¼EJ1063075 Skiba, R. J., & Peterson, R. L. (2000). School discipline at a crossroads: From zero tolerance to early response. Exceptional Children, 66(3), 335–346. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 001440290006600305 Skiba, R. J., Shure, L. A., Middelberg, L. V., & Baker, T. L. (2012). Reforming school discipline and reducing disproportionality in suspension and expulsion. In Handbook of school violence and school safety (pp. 516–529). Routledge. Smith, E. J., & Harper, S. R. (2015). Disproportionate impact of K-12 school suspension and expulsion on Black students in southern states. University of Pennsylvania, Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education. Sokoloff, N. J., & Schenck-Fontaine, A. (2017). College programs in prison and upon reentry for men and women: A literature review. Contemporary Justice Review: CJR, 20(1), 95–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580.2016.1262772 Stanton-Salazar, R. D. (2011). A social capital framework for the study of institutional agents and their role in the empowerment of low-status students and youth. Youth & Society, 43(3), 1066–1109. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X10382877 Stewart, R., & Uggen, C. (2020). Criminal records and college admissions: A modified experimental audit. Criminology, 58(1), 156–188. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12229 Tahamont, S., Hyatt, J., Pheasant, M., Lafferty, J., Bell, N., & Sheets, M. (2020). Ineligible anyway: Evidence on the barriers to Pell eligibility for prisoners in the Second Chance Pell pilot program in Pennsylvania prisons. Justice Quarterly, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2020. 1853798 Tewksbury, R., & Stengel, K. M. (2006). Assessing correctional education programs: The students’ perspective. Journal of Correctional Education (1974), 57(1), 13–25. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/23282685 Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. (2018). An unsupported population: The treatment of women in Texas’ criminal justice system. https://texascje.org/system/files/publications/TCJC%20Womens %20Report%20Part%202.pdf Texas State Legislature. (2022). Texas education code—Title Public Education, Chapter 37— Discipline; Law and order, Subchapter—Alternative settings for behavior management. Retrieved from https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ED/htm/ED.37.htm#37.008 The Education Trust. (2022). Beyond the ban: A toolkit for advancing college opportunity for justice-impacted students. https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Texas-Beyond-theBan-A-Toolkit-for-Advancing-College-Opportunity-for-Justice-Impacted-Students-March2022.pdf

11

Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship into the Field of Higher Education:. . .

629

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. (2017, March 27). Barriers to successful re-entry of formerly incarcerated people. http://civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/criminal-justice/ReEntry-Fact-Sheet.pdf The Sentencing Project. (2020, November 24). Incarcerated women and girls. https://www. sentencingproject.org/publications/incarcerated-women-and-girls/. The Strindberg Laboratory. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https:// strindberglaboratory.com/about/ U.S. Department of Education. (2002). Public alternative schools and programs for students at risk of education failure: 2000–01. Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002004.pdf U.S. Department of Education. (2021a, July 30). U.S. Department of Education announces it will expand the Second Chance Pell experiment for the 2022–2023 award year. https://www.ed.gov/ news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-it-will-expand-second-chance-pellexperiment-2022-2023-award-year U.S. Department of Education. (2021b). Continuation education – CalEdFacts. Retrieved from: https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/eo/ce/cefcontinuationed.asp U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2019). Federal student aid: Actions needed to evaluate Pell grant pilot for incarcerated students. Retrieved from: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao19-130 Vavrus, F., & Cole, K. (2002). “I didn’t do nothin’”: The discursive construction of school suspension. The Urban Review, 34(2), 87–111. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015375215801 Verdugo, R. R., & Glenn, B. C. (2006). Race and alternative schools. In In the annual meeting of the conference alternatives to expulsion, suspension, and dropping out of school, Orlando, FL. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx Wachendorfer, A. & Budke, M. (2020, April). Lessons from Second Chance Pell: A toolkit for helping incarcerated students complete the free application for federal student aid. Vera Institute of Justice. https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/lessons-from-second-chancepell-toolkit.pdf Wiley, K. E., Townsend, C., Trujillo, M., & Anyon, Y. (2022). Deep punishment and internal colony: A critical analysis of in-school suspension rooms inside two racially “integrated” middle schools. The Urban Review, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-021-00629-8 Wolf, K. C., & Kupchik, A. (2017). School suspensions and adverse experiences in adulthood. Justice Quarterly, 34(3), 407–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2016.1168475 Wun, C. (2016a). Against captivity: Black girls and school discipline policies in the afterlife of slavery. Educational Policy, 30(1), 171–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904815615439 Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets that promote resilience: When students believe that personal characteristics can be developed. Educational Psychologist, 47(4), 302–314. https:// doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2012.722805 Yucel, E. (2022). Analyzing reentry services for formerly incarcerated Californians in higher education. Urban Institute.

Adrian H. Huerta is a faculty member in the Pullias Center for Higher Education located in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. He is a national expert on boys and men of color, college access, equity, and success, the college pathways for gang-associated populations, and the high school-to-college transition. His research appears in American Behavioral Scientist, Education & Urban Society, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, The Urban Review, Urban Education, and other scholarly/practitioner outlets. Edgar F. Lopez is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Urban Education program in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, where he also serves as a Research Associate in the Pullias Center for Higher Education. His research agenda focuses on Latino/x

630

A. H. Huerta et al.

college students, doctoral student mentoring experiences, first-generation college students, and graduate education for minoritized populations. Maritza E. Salazar is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Urban Education program in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, where she also serves as a Research Associate in the Pullias Center for Higher Education. Her research agenda focuses on Latina/x students in the educational pipeline, the school-to-prison nexus, prison-reentry programs, and the intersection of education and criminology. Gabriela Torres is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Urban Education program in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, where she also serves as a Research Associate in the Pullias Center for Higher Education. Her research agenda focuses on first-generation college students; Latina/x students in the educational pipeline, and the intersection of education and criminology. Miranda Y. Munoz is a recent graduate of San Diego State University (SDSU) Master of Arts program with an emphasize in American Literature with a special focus on Indigenous storytelling during the emergence of the digital age. She currently serves as a Lecturer within the English Department at Cuyamaca College and at SDSU within the Rhetoric and Writing Department.

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory of Racialized Quantitative Systems

12

Samuel D. Museus

Contents A Few Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author Positionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critiques of Quantitative Research and Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exposing Racial Bias in Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Highlighting the Role of Racial Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critiquing the Quantitative Data Use in Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Outer Edges and Expanding the Critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical Systemic and Theoretical Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neoliberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Systemic Racism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of Social Structures in Systems of Oppression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History and Evolution of the Quantitative Research Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rise of Eugenics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rise of Neoliberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rise of the Quantitative Research Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elements of the Quantitative Research Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Systems Theory of Racialized Quantitative Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

634 634 637 638 639 639 640 641 641 643 645 647 647 648 650 652 655 657 657

Abstract

There is growing interest in efforts to theorize the role of race in the formation of quantitative methodologies and how quantitative inquiry shapes racial inequity throughout social systems. Scholars have previously critiqued positivist

Nicholas Hillman was the Associate Editor for this chapter. S. D. Museus (*) University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2_5

631

632

S. D. Museus

assumptions about the race neutrality of quantitative methodologies, argued for a greater engagement of critical race perspectives in quantitative inquiry, and proposed critical frameworks to advance these discussions. In the current analysis, the author adds to this existing discourse through an analysis of complex racialized quantitative systems. Specifically, he offers a way to think about quantitative systems as a complex ecology of schemas, ideologies, structures, individuals, and activities, which is labeled the quantitative research complex (QRC). In addition, he presents a QuantCrit theory of racialized quantitative systems that might advance a more thorough critical analysis of quantitative structures (e.g., research communities, survey operations, and large-scale datasets). This analysis is intended to advance a more comprehensive view of how quantitative systems are reproduced and how systemic racism, quantitative structures, and individual actors all interact to ultimately reify systems of racial inequality. Keywords

Bias · Big data · Critical race theory · Critical theory · Epistemic injustice · Higher education · Inequality · Interest convergence · Neoliberalism · Power · Quantitative methods · Social justice · Sociological theory · QuantCrit · Whiteness as property

Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners have historically treated quantitative methodologies as objective and therefore race neutral (Garcia & Mayorga, 2018). Race is often included as a single isolated variable or a few variables in large quantitative data systems, but the ways in which race shapes the conceptualization, collection, and understanding of quantitative data are not thoroughly understood (Lynn & Dixson, 2013). Only recently have education researchers more explicitly increased efforts to theorize the role of race in the formation of quantitative methodologies and how quantitative inquiry shapes racial inequity throughout social systems (Lynn & Dixson, 2013; Garcia & Mayorga, 2018; Garcia et al., 2018). Some scholars have more recently critiqued positivist assumptions about the race neutrality of quantitative methodologies and argued for a greater engagement of critical race perspectives in quantitative inquiry (Garcia & Mayorga, 2018; Garcia et al., 2018), and others have proposed conceptual frameworks to advance these discussions (Garcia et al., 2022b; Gillborn et al., 2018). In doing so, these researchers have made valuable contributions to understandings of quantitative inquiry in the field of education. Yet, the discourse surrounding critical quantitative inquiry (QuantCrit) is evolving, and there is much room to theorize the relationship between race and quantitative research. For example, scholars have yet to thoroughly theorize the role of social structures, such as research networks and organizations, in these discussions. To contribute to this discourse, I (re)focus attention on the structural analysis of complex racialized quantitative systems. My interest is not in debunking assumptions that quantitative methods and data are neutral, as other scholars have already convincingly advanced such critiques (Zuberi, 2001; Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008). Instead, the purpose of this discussion is twofold. First, I present a way to think about

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

633

quantitative systems as a complex ecology of schemas, ideologies, structures, individuals, and activities, which I label the quantitative research complex (QRC). Second, I offer a QuantCrit theory of racialized quantitative systems that is based on this systems perspective and might be useful in expanding the critical analysis of quantitative structures (e.g., research communities, survey operations, and largescale datasets) more thoroughly. Such structural analysis advances a more comprehensive view of how quantitative systems are reproduced and how systemic racism, quantitative structures, and individual actors all interact to ultimately reify systems of racial inequality. While the ideas and arguments discussed here are relevant to many social systems, I provide a deeper analysis of the quantitative ecosystem within one sector: higher education. To accomplish these tasks, I draw from multiple bodies of literature. I integrate critical theory perspectives and the work of sociologists who have theorized the process through which racial structures are formed and reproduce race in society (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Giroux, 2008, 2011; Harvey, 2005; Horkheimer, 1993; Museus & LePeau, 2019; Ray, 2019; Ray & Seamster, 2016; Sewell Jr, 1992; Wooten, 2006). Critical theory has been thoroughly deployed in education to effectively center macro-level ideologies and state policies in the analysis of micro-level individual experiences within education systems (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), but much remains to be learned about the role of meso-level structures in shaping and reinforcing inequities within the field of education. Sociological theory prompts the explicit examination of how meso-level societal structures shape human thought and behavior in profound ways (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Ray, 2019; Ray & Seamster, 2016; Sewell Jr, 1992; Wooten, 2006), but these perspectives have yet to be systematically applied to discussions about quantitative inquiry in the field of education. This theoretical integration is grounded in the assumption that engaging both discourses can advance conversations about quantitative inquiry as a racialized system with greater complexity. The first half of this chapter is dedicated to delineating key contexts. In the following sections, I synthesize existing and emerging critiques of quantitative research in the field of education, highlighting their contributions and their outer edges that might be extended. In doing so, I underscore the need for greater emphasis on how neoliberalism and racism interact to reinforce racial inequities in quantitative research and the role of meso-level structures in this conversation. Then, I discuss the critical systemic contexts surrounding the current discussion, paying particular attention to theoretical critiques of neoliberalism and white supremacy. This overview of systemic contexts is followed by discussion of racialized quantitative structures to highlight how a multilevel structural analysis that accounts for both macro-level ideologies and meso-level configurations (e.g., organizations and networks) can contribute to more holistic understandings of the relationship between race and quantitative inquiry. After synthesizing key contexts, I turn to detailing the nature of the QRC. First, I delineate how sociohistorical forces have shaped the current quantitative research enterprise within the education sector. Building on this history, I discuss the nature and key elements of the QRC. Then, I offer a framework of racialized quantitative systems that might be a useful tool for critiquing quantitative structures and the role

634

S. D. Museus

that they play in upholding systemic forms of oppression. Before moving forward, I offer a few caveats to minimize any potential misinterpretation of the current arguments and discuss how my positionality shapes my critical perspective of racialized quantitative inquiry. In doing so, I also aim to model the important role of positionality in all quantitative discourse and research.

A Few Caveats A few caveats are in order. First, it is important to acknowledge that positivist epistemologies, quantitative research, and numbers or statistics are not inherently oppressive or inequitable in and of themselves. Moreover, it can be argued that other noncritical epistemological paradigms and qualitative or mixed-methods research can also function to reinforce systemic inequities (Collins & Cannella, 2021). The important assumption undergirding the current analysis is that a convergence of unequal racialized power dynamics and positivist quantitative paradigms can and has created a system that masks the former and perpetuates inequities through the latter. Second, the intent of the current analysis is not to critique the actions of individual researchers. The goal is to shift the focus to systems and structures that precipitate and constrain knowledge production and deployment in inequitable ways to generate insight about how we might reenvision a quantitative enterprise inclusive of perspectives and voices of communities of color in all aspects of the research process and the products that result from it. That said, individual researchers do possess important agency (Johnson & Parry, 2022; Mertens, 2008), and the hope is that this analysis will lead to more discussion about the power inequities embedded in quantitative systems and encourage increased disruption of them, as well as the mobilization of new resources to create more equitable agendas and structures. Finally, it is important to acknowledge that this analysis builds on a long lineage of scholarship that complicates understandings of existing knowledge systems and structures to advance the well-being of diverse communities (Bell Jr, 1980; Brayboy, 2005; Cho, 2003; Crenshaw, 1993; Delgado, 1989; Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Espiritu, 1993; Gotanda, 1995; Grillo, 1995; Harris, 1994, 2003; Lowe, 1996; Omi & Winant, 1994; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). This research has centered the voices of indigenous communities and people of color to critique existing inequitable colorblind academic discourses and expose power dynamics in knowledge systems and social structures throughout society and education. Through this analysis, I seek to contribute one additional perspective to these efforts.

Author Positionality Researchers are instruments of all research, regardless of whether qualitative, quantitative, or conceptual (Hope et al., 2019; Pezalla et al., 2012; Ryan & Golden, 2006). Researchers’ worldviews shape the questions they ask, the concepts they center, the

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

635

potential solutions they consider, their interpretation of data, and their execution of every aspect of the research process. Consistent with a critical epistemological orientation, the current discussion is grounded in the assumption that researcher positionality is always a vital part of the picture, both enabling and constraining research processes, regardless of whether researchers choose to acknowledge this reality (Delgado Bernal, 1998; Milner IV, 2007). The current positionality statement is intentionally thorough because many aspects of my identity and professional trajectory are relevant to the current analysis. I am multiracial, with a father from a working-class white community and a mother who is indigenous Okinawan (Uchinanchu) and an immigrant in the USA. I am also a settler in the USA, actively participating in the nation’s system of ongoing colonization of indigenous culture, communities, and environment. Thus, settler colonialism, racism, and classism all heavily shape the way I understand the world, our education system, and quantitative research. The fact that I identify as an able-bodied cisgender heterosexual man also shapes how I view the world, in ways that I am ill-equipped and must continuously seek to understand. As is the case with any other scholars, my positionality sensitizes me to certain realities and desensitizes me to others when I design, execute, or engage in discourse surrounding quantitative inquiry. Just as my social identities shape my perspective, so do my scholarly experiences and identity. For over a decade, I have critiqued inequitable systems and advocated greater inclusion of the voices, knowledge, and priorities of marginalized communities in the cultures and structures of the academy (Museus et al., 2012, 2015, 2021; Yi et al., 2020). I have also been involved in the development of theoretical perspectives and efforts to advance knowledge about these communities and contribute to social justice (Iftikar & Museus, 2018; Museus & Sifuentez, 2020). As such, I am deeply aware of how dominant paradigms erase the histories, perspectives, and concerns of people of color within society and higher education. My desire to become a scholar was driven by my commitment to equity and I was trained in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies (Griffin & Museus, 2011). The early years of my research career were grounded in recognition of the erasure of voices and priorities of communities of color from dominant theories and discourses related to college student success. This awareness led me to conduct several years of qualitative inquiry into aspects of educational environments that allow diverse populations to thrive but were decentered in conversations about student success (Museus, 2008; Museus & Neville, 2012; Museus et al., 2016a). My equity commitments, methodological training, and awareness of the power inequities in theory and practice around college success also led me to utilize my qualitative efforts and data to generate a new theoretical perspective of college student success that centers the voices, knowledge, and priorities of historically underserved communities (Museus, 2014). My research team and I at the National Institute for Transformation and Equity (NITE) also developed a related set of quantitative surveys to measure the ability of students, and eventually faculty and staff, to access inclusive and equitable environments (Museus et al., 2016a, b).

636

S. D. Museus

The initial model and surveys were constructed to shift power imbalances in mainstream conversations by integrating equity into the core of student success theory and discourse (Museus, 2014; Museus & Smith, 2016). Compared to many climate surveys, these tools more thoroughly integrated conversations about culture and identity into discussions about the learning and success of all students. As a result, the instruments were designed to minimize the likelihood that they would be relegated to peripheral diversity or climate conversations, decoupled from what those in power deem more central institutional foci, such as student learning and success. As such, they were created to prompt leaders and organizations to invest significant energy in reckoning with the pervasive campus cultures and structures that have historically functioned to erase underserved students’ cultures and identities from student success discourse and what it means to transform them (Museus & Smith, 2016; Museus & Yi, 2015). However, this required investment in institutional transformation also meant that organizations serious about adopting our tools would have to be committed to investing the substantial energy necessary to shift the cultures and structures of their campus to be more equitable. Because our tools could not be relegated to marginal climate initiatives and decoupled from top institutional priorities, they brought into question the decontextualized individualized ways we think about and measure student success. Pursuing such forms of transformation that deviate so significantly from neoliberal logics of individualistic competition, which I discuss below, is seldom financially lucrative and therefore rarely a top priority at most universities. Strategically embracing the increasing neoliberal pressures to advance academic work through entrepreneurialism and seeking to capitalize on the accountability movement discussed in the following sections to advance equity, my research team and I created an operation designed to administer the surveys to colleges and universities across the nation that seek to advance their equity agendas (Museus & Smith, 2016). While these efforts were successful in many ways and several dozens of campuses across the nation have meaningfully adopted our tools, we faced many challenges building and advancing this agenda that are relevant to the current discussion. Compared to dominant student success survey operations that white scholars generated primarily based on the perspectives of white students, such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), philanthropic foundations did not provide an infusion of financial resources to catalyze our efforts. When we pursued such efforts anyway, we increasingly became a threat to people in positions of privilege and experienced backlash, receiving heated emails and phone calls from researchers and administrators demanding that we remove information from our website critiquing (colorblind) highimpact practices that purportedly “improve education for all” students or expressing discontent with their campuses adopting surveys that deviated from what they saw as “more valid” agendas. The defense of dominant student success agendas and dismissal of ideas that threatened them was obvious and difficult to ignore. Although our model and surveys have been adopted by researchers and organizations across the nation and became more visible, these discussions have been slow to penetrate dominant discourses around student success. A decade later, most dominant discussions around high-impact practices, college student involvement and engagement, and student success have continued to minimize or completely

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

637

ignore the decades of research and evidence grounded in the voices of communities of color that informed these tools (Museus, 2014). Given that the field of higher education has always valued practical knowledge, it should not be necessary to explain the value of my own. Yet, I am aware that power brokers can and often do weaponize such experiences to dismiss knowledge claims from communities at the margins. While some might believe my own experiences and the bias that they have generated invalidate the current analysis, the opposite is true. Scholars note that experiential knowledge is an asset that sensitizes researchers to vital cultural, social, and political realities (Delgado Bernal, 1998). In the current context, these experiences undoubtedly allowed me to understand the ways in which racial and neoliberal forces have converged to shape systemic dynamics in the QRC. It is these insights that also allow me to integrate knowledge of historical trends to understand and illustrate how the QRC emerged and evolved over time. In sum, these experienced equipped me to see the racialized and neoliberalized nature of quantitative research structures in more complex ways and the value of critical analysis of quantitative systems.

Critiques of Quantitative Research and Data Over the last few decades, scholars have increasingly explicitly critiqued quantitative understandings of central phenomena within higher education. For example, researchers have employed anti-essentialist critiques of the ways in which overly simplistic analyses of data can mask the racial and ethnic inequities faced by communities of color (Rios-Aguilar, 2014; Sólorzano et al., 2005; Stage, 2007). They have critiqued dominant theories and concepts that undergird quantitative discourses surrounding widely shared priorities such as student success (Dowd et al., 2011; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Museus & Maramba, 2011). This research has provided a foundation for the formation of new theoretical perspectives grounded in the perspectives of communities of color (Dowd et al., 2011; Museus, 2014; Yosso, 2005). These theoretical frameworks have served as a foundation for new lines of quantitative instrumentation and research (Museus et al., 2016a, b; Sablan, 2019). Together, these scholars have challenged dominant deracialized narratives throughout the field. However, it is only in the last decade that critical race theory (CRT) scholars have begun to have more pointed conversations about the role of quantitative research in perpetuating systemic oppression within the field of higher education and the possibilities of utilizing critical perspectives in quantitative inquiry. In the 1990s, scholars introduced CRT to the field of education, as a valuable tool to analyze systems through the voices of people of color (Ladson-Billings, 2019; LadsonBillings & Tate, 1995). Thereafter, researchers developed sets of CRT tenets specifically tailored to educational contexts and methodologies (McCoy & Rodricks, 2015; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). Solórzano and Yosso (2002) offered arguable the most cited of these frameworks, which underscored key factors in critical race analyses in education, including the centrality of race and racism, intersection of racism and other forms of systemic oppression, vital role of voices from communities of color in challenging dominant narratives, and focus on advancing social

638

S. D. Museus

justice goals (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). Many would argue that this framework accelerated the expansion of CRT scholarship within the field of education. Over the last 5 years in particular, quantitative researchers have begun to apply CRT to understand the role of critical epistemologies and theory in quantitative inquiry (Garcia et al., 2018; López et al., 2018; Pérez Huber et al., 2018; Street et al., 2022). Some have adapted the aforementioned CRT lens in their analysis of quantitative data (Sólorzano et al., 2005), while Gillborn et al. (2018) adapted this framework to discussions about quantitative inquiry and proposed a QuantCrit perspective, which included the following tenets: 1. The centrality of racism: Racism is a complex and fluid aspect of society that is not necessarily amenable to statistical analysis. Quantitative analysis divorced from critical perspectives can reinforce racial inequities. 2. Numbers are not neutral: White elite interests and perspectives shape the collection and utilization of quantitative data in ways that reinforce white supremacy. 3. Categories are neither natural nor given: QuantCrit analyzes racial categories and their consequences, recognizing that racial inequalities are a manifestation of racism but are often attributed to race categories. 4. Voice and insight: Quantitative data can be interpreted in numerous ways and QuantCrit foregrounds experiential voice from people of color to understand statistical numbers more holistically. 5. Social justice and equity: QuantCrit perspectives reject assumptions that quantitative inquiry is objective and value free, while underscoring the importance of engaging and quantitative inquiry toward social justice goals. This framework centers the inherent racial bias and false neutrality of quantitative methodologies and tools that are often framed as objective and value-free. It also opens possibilities to better understand the role of quantitative inquiry and reifying systemic racism, centering the voices of people of color, and advance quantitative inquiry in more socially just ways. As should become apparent, much of the recent QuantCrit scholarship aligns with the aforementioned framework (Garcia et al., 2018; López et al., 2018; Pérez Huber et al., 2018; Street et al., 2022). While arguably still in its infancy, this QuantCrit scholarship has gained increased attention in education in recent years (López et al., 2018; Pérez Huber et al., 2018; Street et al., 2022). Herein, I outline a few themes that can be seen across this scholarship.

Exposing Racial Bias in Numbers Quantitative methods are typically grounded in a positivist epistemological paradigm, with origins in Western philosophy and assumptions that human beings can seek and find objective truth through pure logic and mathematics (Garcia et al., 2018; Gillborn et al., 2018; Street et al., 2022). Positivism assumes that common sense is distinct from objective scientific evidence. According to this perspective, common sense and bias inherent in it should be rejected because science should be

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

639

value-free. This perspective is inextricably intertwined with the belief that statistical analysis and the numbers upon which they rely are free of bias (Street et al., 2022). From positivist perspectives, numbers are treated as “facts” that often constitute the only or most valid form of legitimate data uncontaminated by human subjectivity (Garcia et al., 2018; Gillborn et al., 2018; Street et al., 2022). QuantCrit scholars have challenged this objectivity by excavating the bias in quantitative analyses (Baker, 2019). For example, QuantCrit researchers expose how data use and interpretation can mask racial disparities and the ways that critical perspectives can aid in excavating these inequalities (Anyon et al., 2021; Campbell, 2020; Guenther, 2021; Suárez et al., 2021). They have also demonstrated how the convergence of a failure to acknowledge systemic oppression and quantitative data showing disparate educational outcomes can lead to problematic deficit narratives (Cruz et al., 2021) or views that blame underserved communities rather than systemic racism for the disparities they face (Patton Davis & Museus, 2019).

Highlighting the Role of Racial Context In addition, positivism seeks to decontextualize and isolate variables so that effects and trends can be validly and reliably attributed to them (Gatimu, 2009). This decontextualization can be especially problematic when viewed from a critical standpoint, which centers context as a powerful force shaping reality and underscores the importance of the former in understanding the latter (Garcia et al., 2022a, b; Pérez Huber et al., 2018; Reynolds & Tabron, 2022). QuantCrit scholars have addressed this problem by leveraging quantitative methods to center how racialized historical and social contexts shape the realities of people on college campuses (Garibay & Mathis, 2021; Garibay et al., 2020, 2022). Just as ignoring the context of numbers can be problematic, erasing the context surrounding the production of knowledge and data can fuel inequities (Gatimu, 2009). When people in positions of privilege hold and deploy the power to determine the concepts that are centered in the theory and ideas that drive quantitative data collection and analyses, their priorities and perspectives can limit what questions are asked, topics are analyzed, and conclusions are reached. In addition, the racial bias inherent in such inquiry processes can be masked by positivist claims of objectivity. That is, positivist values of decontextualizing and isolating phenomena under examination and emphasis on removing bias from scholarly discourse can minimize or dismiss any efforts to highlight the bias inherent in the foundations of such areas of inquiry. All of this contributes to what Zuberi and Bonilla-Silva (2008) labeled the White logic embedded in quantitative inquiry.

Critiquing the Quantitative Data Use in Policy Scholars have also highlighted how those in power have engaged statistics in inequitable education policy formation and implementation (Rose, 1999; Ozga & Lingard, 2007; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010; Sabzalian et al., 2021). They note that social

640

S. D. Museus

institutions and actors have engaged numbers as a key form of technology through which education is reshaped, improved, or advanced. Even when statistics are deployed to measure, track, and foster accountability to facilitate espoused efforts to improve education for all people, they can play a key role in sustaining inequities in practice (Rose, 1999; Ozga & Lingard, 2007; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). For example, performance funding systems might be constructed and implemented with the goal of encouraging institutions of higher education to increase success among all populations, including those historically subjugated, but punish organizations that disproportionately serve underserved communities and are already under-resourced in practice (Hillman & Corral, 2017). This contradiction is important, as it exposes how use of quantitative research grounded in espoused moral objectives can function as a mechanism to inhibit racial progress.

The Outer Edges and Expanding the Critique There are at least two areas where previous QuantCrit scholarship can be extended. First, QuantCrit analyses in education tend to focus on white supremacy and race, while analyses that explicitly examine how systemic racism intersects with other oppressive systems, such as neoliberalism, are difficult to find. Given that neoliberalism now arguably shapes everything that happens in US education systems (Davies, 2005; Giroux, 2008, 2011; Harvey, 2007; Museus & LePeau, 2019; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004), such intersectional analyses are necessary to generate a more complex and comprehensive understanding of the role of quantitative research in reproducing systemic oppression. Second, previously proposed QuantCrit tenets and associated scholarship both arguably foregrounds the intersection between macro-level (white supremacy) and microlevel (e.g., gathering and utilizing data) elements of social systems in their analysis. This focus is consistent with much racial theory, which has typically focused on macro-level ideological and state-based contexts (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Feagin & Elias, 2013) and individual dynamics while downplaying the role of meso-level societal structures, such as networks and organizations, in the social production of race and racism (Ray, 2019). Such analyses are powerful in exposing the ways that racial ideology shapes the realities of people and racial inequities faced by communities of color. At the same time, given that some scholars assert that such structures hold significant power that parallels the state and has the power to reshape their larger institutional environment, the marginality of meso-level social structures in this discourse is a notable outer edge that should be extended (Meyer & Bromley, 2013; Perrow, 1991). The current analysis seeks to expand QuantCrit discourse in both of these areas. I now turn to theory related to systemic ideological contexts and multilevel structural analyses. The former underscores the importance of both neoliberalism and racism in understanding existing higher education systems, while the latter highlights the value of considering both ideological and meso-level structures in the analysis of social systems and processes. Both are used to understand the emergence and durability of the QRC in the following sections.

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

641

Critical Systemic and Theoretical Contexts In 1983, Cedric Robinson published Black Marxism, in which he critiqued the inadequacy of Marxism in explaining the racialized nature of capitalism. Through historical analysis, Robinson demonstrated that processes of racialization existed in Europe prior to the emergence of capitalism and the former eventually came to permeate the latter. In doing so, he advances the argument that all capitalism is racial and proposes the concept of racial capitalism, which denotes the ways in which capitalist ideologies and agendas are advanced through the differentiation of racial groups and the division, exploitation, and commodification of the working class, indigenous people, communities of color, and natural resources. The system of racial capitalism that exists within the USA is vital context for understanding the ways in which neoliberalism and racism operate within and through the higher education system.

Neoliberalism While capitalism is an economic ideology promoting free markets with minimal government intervention, neoliberalism infuses these logics into political structures throughout society (Brown, 2006; Davies, 2005; Giroux, 2008, 2011; Harvey, 2007). As I discuss below, the threat that mid-twentieth century social movements posed to society’s capitalist foundations, infrastructure, and agendas led the nation’s elite to advance a neoliberal agenda that has dominated educational policy and practice for several decades (Ferguson, 2017). In the context of the current discussion, research and policy agendas that converge with dominant ideologies might be considered more worthy of philanthropic, researcher, policymaker, and practitioner investments. In the following sections, I demonstrate how these power dynamics can fuel the formation of neoliberal research structures. Neoliberalism results in political and social systems and agendas that are increasingly driven by free market rationalities and competition that often deviate from moral objectives (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). As those who already hold disproportionate influence over the rules of the market, neoliberal forces funnel increasing amounts of political and economic power, control, and resources into the hands of the elite1 through the exploitation of the masses (Chomsky, 1998; McChesney, 1998). Neoliberal ideologies also shape individual cognitive frames and worldviews, making it difficult to critique and change the neoliberal nature of social systems (Brown, 2006; Museus, 2020). While the complexity of neoliberalism cannot be captured in a single framework, prior literature consistently highlights particular elements of neoliberalism. Building on this work (Adsit et al., 2015; Darder, 2012; Davies, 2005; Giroux, 2008, 2011;

The term “elite” is not used here to imply greater ability, assets, quality, or value but is instead deployed to refer to the small segment of the nation that possesses most of society’s power and privilege.

1

642

S. D. Museus

McChesney, 1998; Morrison, 1992; Muehlebach, 2013), Museus and LePeau (2019) outlined five key components or manifestations of the neoliberal apparatus. First, neoliberalism is grounded in ideals of consumerism and commodification. Specifically, neoliberalism promotes a culture where people and things are commodified, and their value is increasingly determined by their ability to generate revenue (Brooks et al., 2016; Naidoo & Williams, 2015). In the following sections, I demonstrate how investments are made in racialized research structures, which generate surveys and data that can be sold for financial gain. These racialized structures also legitimize Western ideas, perspectives, and associated data, which researchers and practitioners can then leverage as tools to generate revenue. In other words, research and data become commodified, and those that align with white neoliberal logics are imbued with relatively greater value in the knowledge economy. Second, neoliberalism emphasizes individualistic competition to maximize market value (Heath & Burdon, 2013; Museus, 2020). This competition is intertwined with meritocratic beliefs that encourage people to prioritize individual self-interest over the public good. As mentioned, the elite who already possess most of society’s resources are always significantly advantaged in this game (Chomsky, 1998). In the current context, those aligned with dominant research structures and the ideas and data that they promote might enjoy enhanced individual competitiveness in the knowledge economy. This competitiveness can translate into increased prestige, publications, visibility, and ultimately market value in this economy. Third, despite the emphasis on free markets and individualism, individual autonomy within neoliberal contexts is deceptive (Museus & LePeau, 2019). Neoliberalism fuels the development of systems of hyper-surveillance used to monitor, report, and reward or punish (Gane, 2012; Lorenz, 2012; Shore, 2010). Across higher education, such systems might give rise to organizational classification, accountability, and ranking systems. Within the context of research communities, such surveillance systems might include peer-review processes and funding opportunities that place increased value on decontextualized (and deracialized) nationally representative samples, experimental and quasi-experimental designs, and other measures of research quality that align with positivist principles. Such surveillance systems ensure that individuals comply with neoliberal ideals, such as hyper-competition. This hyper-surveillance functions to erode trust, which in turn can increase levels of competition within and across communities (Davies, 2005; Museus, 2020). Fourth, neoliberal systems perpetually fuel a precarity and scarcity mindset (Hamer & Lang, 2015; Loher & Strasser, 2019; O’Keefe & Courtois, 2019). Neoliberal systems economically starve already underserved communities and individuals to promote increased competition, individualize fiscal responsibility, and create a perpetual state of precarity in which the masses must fight each other for resources to ensure their own survival (Hamer & Lang, 2015). If neoliberalism perpetuates a culture of precarity and scarcity, it might be argued that those whose status is grounded in research agendas and structures that align with white elite interests are likely to protect them to ensure their own individual security, even if the former reinforces power inequities in the research field. Finally, neoliberalism promotes declining morality (Darder, 2012). As neoliberal surveillance systems and competition enhance the focus of masses on individual responsibility to minimize

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

643

precarity, these priorities take increasing precedent over moral imperatives related to social justice and the public good (Darder, 2012). As I demonstrate in the following analysis, quantitative structures can be designed, engaged, utilized, and protected to uphold neoliberal logics and priorities. In turn, research that flows from these structures helps perpetuate a culture in which the analysis of racism is secondary to what are deemed more pressing concerns, such as accumulating capital for colleges and universities, optimizing efficiency of these organizations, maximizing the quality of output in the form of highly qualified skilled workers, and ultimately leveraging available human resources to enhance the nation’s competitiveness in a global economy (Slaughter, 1998; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). These neoliberal priorities reinforce the normality of pervasive hierarchies throughout the political and social sphere, making all systems of oppression with which they are interconnected more durable (Museus & LePeau, 2019). Scholars have critiqued the neoliberal turn in higher education and its impact on university life (Case & Ngo, 2017; Darder, 2012; Hurtado, 2021; Kezar & Posselt, 2019; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004; Wright-Mair & Ieva, 2022; Wright-Mair & Museus, 2021). While much of this literature focuses on the impact of neoliberalism in individual faculty life, scholars have also discussed how neoliberalism shapes organizational behavior in the academy (Kezar & Posselt, 2019; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). For example, Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) thoroughly analyzed how neoliberal forces affect colleges and universities, but also how these organizations became competitors within an academic capitalist regime and consequently proactively reinforce neoliberal logics. In doing so, they demonstrate the value of understanding how meso-level structures (the university) mediate the relationship between macro-level ideologies (neoliberalism) and micro-level individual realities, behaviors, and experiences (the actions of campus constituents). However, researchers have seldom applied a similar lens to analyze the relationship between other structures in the education sphere, such as philanthropic organizations, government agencies, collective research communities, or research entities.

Systemic Racism Just as capitalism and racism are inextricably intertwined, neoliberalism and white supremacy are intricately bound (Mohanty, 2013; Morrison, 1992). Scholars note how white supremacy plays a powerful role in shaping the US society and reality (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Early legal and other CRT scholars, for example, thoroughly examined how racial ideologies are infused into social structures, aiming to understand how they together functioned to reinforce existing systems of racial oppression (Bell Jr, 1980; Cho, 2003; Delgado, 1989, 1992; Gotanda, 1995; Grillo, 1995; Harris, 1994, 2003; Lipsitz, 2006). Multiple CRT concepts can be useful in understanding how race has intersected with taken-for-granted neoliberal logics to generate and sustain meso-level quantitative research structures. First, CRT scholars have argued that whiteness is property (Harris, 1994). Harris discussed how society merged whiteness and property rights to construct conceptions of whites’ personal freedom and sovereignty in juxtaposition with racial slavery and

644

S. D. Museus

the conquest of indigenous peoples. She illustrated how whiteness determined who had access to capital and freedom, as well as functioned as an implicit precondition for development of complex organizations in society. Lipsitz (2006) adds to this analysis that the majority becomes possessively invested in whiteness and take measures to actively maintain the social power that comes with it. In the context of analyzing quantitative systems, the notion of whiteness as property might raise questions about whether and how whiteness can converge with intellectual property to shape racialized research and knowledge systems. If, for example, wealthy white elite donors and policymakers prioritize investing in white researchers and agendas aligned with Western neoliberal logics and positivist epistemologies, and these efforts resonate with a majority of educational policymakers and practitioners who hold similar worldviews, such dynamics can imbue research enterprises with white neoliberal and positivist assumptions. Whiteness as property also raises questions about whether and how researchers, policymakers, and practitioners who benefit from these dominant research systems and structures might become invested in these arrangements and actively protect them. The concept of epistemic injustice is useful in understanding how such dynamics might transpire (Fricker, 2007). Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners might consciously or subconsciously protect dominant research structures through two forms of epistemic injustice. Testimonial injustice describes how people who hold the power to evaluate knowledge claims espouse prejudices that lead them to dismiss the credibility of claimants, while hermeneutical injustice refers to instances in which limitations in collective interpretive capacity inhibit the ability to make sense of the perspectives and experiences of socially disadvantaged groups (Fricker, 2007). However, this process is not objective, and it can serve the interests of people in privileged positions to exclude underserved communities through misinterpretation of them (Fricker, 2007; Fricker et al., 2016). In the context of meso-level research structures, predominantly white research communities that benefit from them might engage in epistemic injustice to ensure the dominance and economic sustainability of said organizations, thereby protecting the capital that they access through these structures. Specifically, it could be hypothesized that research agendas and associated resources grounded in non-Western epistemologies and priorities might be viewed as a threat to the capital of those who see dominant research structures, as well as the agendas and resources attached to them, as a form of property in which they are invested. This perceived threat to power and resources could be one reason that research produced by scholars of color and women scholars are disproportionately ignored and excluded from dominant discourses in some academic fields (Delgado, 1989; Lorde, 2003). As a result, those invested in dominant structures might move to protect and sustain the flow of resources to them, while funneling such resources away from structures that center the priorities of people of color, which consequently remain at the margins or never materialize at all. CRT scholars have also created and advanced the concept of interest convergence, which suggests that those in power selectively allow limited progress for people of color if and when it advances the positions of white elites more than it compromises these interests. In his seminal interest convergence work, Bell (1980) critically analyzed the dominant narrative around civil rights legislation and racial

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

645

integration. He noted that dominant discourses decontextualize civil rights legislation, fueling perceptions that white elites decided to end racial segregation and provide Black communities with equal access to societal resources while ignoring the benefits of this decision to the white majority. Bell (1980) revisionist historical analysis demonstrates how assumptions that the moral reckoning of the white majority was responsible for civil rights victories was misguided, and the USA’s involvement in the Cold War during this time was a key factor in the advancement of civil rights legislation. He discusses how communist factions utilized media coverage of law-enforcement dehumanizing Black people in the U.S. to propagate messages that capitalism was inhumane and increased support for communist agendas. Thus, fears of the nation’s waning position in geopolitics and the global war against communism rendered it in the best interest of white elites to end racial segregation to invalidate communist claims. He argues, therefore, that the racial integration agendas of people of color were only advanced because these interests temporarily converged with those of white elites (Delgado, 2002). The concept of interest convergence might be especially useful in understanding the durability of quantitative data systems and the limited contexts in which they might adapt to advance the interest of people of color. Given the pervasive and uncritical adoption of neoliberal logics throughout society and education, diversity and equity efforts are more likely to be advanced in incremental ways if they reinforce neoliberal agendas through advancing free-market values, expanding systems of surveillance, and exacerbating hyper-competition (Darder, 2012; Museus & LePeau, 2019). If this is the case, those in positions of power and privilege would limit adaptations of research and data systems to those that reinforce the neoliberal logics that ultimately fortify their influence and capital. Analyzing the interplay among the three levels of social systems can enhance the explanatory power of theoretical analyses of neoliberalism and race, including a critical analysis of the role of quantitative inquiry and racialized systems (Ray, 2019). Accordingly, I now turn to sociological racial theory that helps understand the relationship between these varied levels of social systems and how interplay among them sustains racial inequities.

The Role of Social Structures in Systems of Oppression Sociological researchers have highlighted the reality that race theorists have often studied racial phenomenon through macro- and micro-level linkages in society (Golash-Boza, 2016). In doing so, they underscore the reality that these theorists generally agree that racism is systemic, institutional, and structural (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Feagin, 2000). Such framings tend to collapse the institutional2 (i.e., state-

For the purposes of this analysis, “institutional” is used to refer to broader state-level structures and processes, departing from higher education scholars’ common use of institutional to refer to characteristics of college campuses. 2

646

S. D. Museus

level) and structural (i.e., organization-level) laws, policies, and practices into a broad macro-level institutional category and object of analysis. While scholars acknowledge that collapsing state-level institutions and mesolevel organizations into a unified aspect of systemic racial dynamics can productively highlight the pervasive and endemic nature of racism (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Feagin, 2000), it downplays the powerful role that meso-level organizations can play in maintaining the racial order (Ray, 2019). Ray (2019) argues that meso-level structures are not simply linkages between macro-level ideologies and individual realities but are a primary site where racial meanings are contested, challenged, and changed. As such, these meso-level structures both mediate and heavily determine the way race is experienced at the individual level and can influence broader institution-level (e.g., state policies) manifestations of race (Ray, 2019; Ray & Seamster, 2016). Minimizing the role that meso-level structures play in the racial order, then, misses an opportunity to paint a more holistic and complex picture of how race works in society. Sewell (1992) theorizes social structures as functions of both cultural schema and the mobilization of resources. Schemas are often subconscious sets of assumptions that exist throughout a society and drive human action (DiMaggio, 1997). Racial schemas can be considered sets of interrelated racialized assumptions that shape how resources are distributed and accumulated to form social structures. Sewell defined resources broadly to encompass any vehicle of power that can be used to maintain or enhance one’s position in the social order. These resources might include both material and less tangible forms of capital, such as financial resources to support launching and sustaining research endeavors or the formation of researcher and practitioner communities around a particular research-informed agenda. Sociologists have provided salient examples of how cultural schemas become connected to resources to lead to the formation of social structures. For example, they note how capitalism’s schema of commodification, or the accumulation and marketization of capital, fuels the transformation of commonly held resources (e.g., water) into marketable commodities (e.g., bottled water; Sewell, 1992). For example, the convergence of the commodification schema with the nature resource of water shapes the existence of organizations that sell water and how individuals experience water as a private good, but also their reification of capitalism and reinforcement of the commodification schema. Scholars have also discussed how racial segregation schemas historically converged with resources to determine the nature of racialized schools, transportation systems, and industries (Ray, 2019). In turn, these racialized structures heavily shaped how people experienced racism, fueled the development of white supremacist ideology to justify the racially inequitable distribution of resources, and reinforced the segregation schema. These organizations also eventually became critical symbols of the existing racial order and the site of civil rights conflict and a potential place to challenge larger racial ideologies. In both examples, the relationships between macro-level ideology, meso-level social structures, and schemas that exist in the minds of individuals are mutually reinforcing rather than unidirectional (Ray, 2019; Sewell Jr, 1992).

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

647

In his discussion of racial structures, Ray (2019) discusses the role of power or the capacity of schemas to mobilize resources. He notes that the level of resources that cultural schemas can mobilize might partly determine the degree to which the resulting structures reinforce the racial schema and ideology to which it is attached. In addition, he argues that racialized structures emerge whenever racial schemas converge with resources to disadvantage racially subordinated groups. He asserts that social structures, then, are institutionalized when they emerge across and at any level throughout society (Ray, 2019). This knowledge around the formation and role of racialized structures is especially useful for thinking about quantitative research enterprises as an ecosystem, as opposed to a population of independent researchers and policymakers who deploy quantitative tools. Utilizing this framing might prompt the analysis of the relationship between cultural schemas, how they are encoded with racialized and neoliberal logics, how they converge with the distribution of resources to fuel the creation of research structures, the ways in which the structures operate, and how quantitative structures reinforce larger ideologies through channeling power toward activities that reify them. To understand the QRC in this way, it is necessary to consider the historical context surrounding current scholarly discourse and research endeavors. Doing so can trace the ways in which racial, neoliberal, and positivist logics shaped the formation of the QRC.

History and Evolution of the Quantitative Research Complex Historical context is vital to any comprehensive and complex understanding of the nature and role of existing quantitative research systems in US higher education. White supremacy and settler colonialism shaped the founding of the USA and its higher education system (Wolfe, 2006). White European settlers engaged in largescale efforts to accumulate land through forced removal of and broken treaties with Native American communities (Akee, 2021; Wolfe, 2006). It is these stolen lands that most US higher education organizations currently occupy (Akee, 2021). In some cases, benefactors of colleges and universities were involved in violent efforts to remove native people (Fowler, 2015). During this time, the slave trade also contributed to the foundation of the higher education system, as many benefactors of the nation’s colleges and universities profited from this blatant dehumanization of Black slaves (Wilder, 2013).

Rise of Eugenics After the Civil War and the emancipation proclamation in the late 1800s, white elites sought new justifications and tools to solidify their power. As scientists aimed to utilize research to generate evidence of the superiority of the white race and eliminate unfavorable genetic characteristics in the human population, the American eugenics movement was born (Allen, 1997). In 1903, the American Breeder’s

648

S. D. Museus

Association was founded as the first national professional association legitimizing the eugenics movement (Kimmelman, 1983). In 1911, the Kellogg Cereal Fortune funded the creation of the Race Betterment Foundation, which supported conferences, publications, and a registry to gather biological and social data about the US citizens (Fee & Brown, 2002). In 1923, the American Eugenics Society was formed and fostered the development of 28 state committees design to infuse eugenics throughout the US society (Baker, 2014). The schema of biological racial differences in human capacity had converged with the mobilization of resources to fuel formation of structures designed to advance eugenics agendas. The eugenics movement utilized positivist approaches and statistical analyses to support claims of white superiority (Garcia et al., 2018). In 1899, Du Bois (1899) challenged the decontextualized nature of such analyses, which ignored racism in efforts to explain racial inequality within the existing capitalist regime and attributed such disparities to biological differences in ability and the inferiority of non-whites (Zuberi, 2001). Du Bois offered a more complex analysis of the role of social systems and the power embedded within them in shaping racial disparities, and acknowledged the institutional, organizational, and individual elements of social systems. His critiques also constitute one of the earliest examples of tensions between positivist and critical epistemological paradigms (Garcia et al., 2018). Scholars have built on this work to critique the racialized axiological, epistemological, and ontological foundations of quantitative inquiry in Western societies and advocate leveraging statistics for purposes of racial liberation (Morris, 2015; Zuberi, 2001; Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008). It was not until the 1930s and the emergence of Nazi Germany that the US eugenics movement began to wane (Bashford & Levine, 2010). As the Nazis gained power and deployed rationales from the eugenics movement to justify segregation, sterilization, and genocide of subjugated classified groups, eugenics agendas and policies were abandoned in the USA (Bashford & Levine, 2010). In other words, the schema, resources, and structures that fueled the nation’s eugenics movement began to lose their ability to mobilize resources and therefore their power. However, the schema of biological racial differences and racial inferiority undergirding this movement was planted and continued to shape the US society. In fact, debates about whether race is a biological or socially constructed phenomenon have continued despite overwhelming evidence that race is socially constructed (Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Relatedly, deficit perspectives of communities of color are still pervasive today (Davis & Museus, 2019).

Rise of Neoliberalism After World War II, geopolitics and racial dynamics were substantially reshaped. As mentioned, the Cold War and civil rights movement facilitated the end of de jure racial segregation in the mid-twentieth century (Bell Jr, 1980). In addition, social movements of the 1960s disrupted the social order and threatened society’s capitalist foundations so significantly that predominantly white elites feared that these activists

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

649

threatened the foundations of capitalism (Ferguson, 2017). Elites in government and industry acknowledged the need to suppress the ensuing societal democratization, and this recognition resulted in efforts to infuse neoliberal logics, heavily focused on meritocracy and individualistic competition to enhance one’s own social mobility, throughout society. The intent was to stabilize existing social structures and detract attention and energy away from collective efforts to disrupt the system (Ferguson, 2017). At least three major relevant trends in the higher education system resulted from the enhanced neoliberalization of society in the late twentieth century. First, the elite supported the expansion of bureaucracy at colleges and universities (Ferguson, 2017; Peters et al., 2013). Many organizational theorists would argue that such expansion inhibits change and therefore contributes to further entrenching existing systems (Damanpor, 1996). Thus, bureaucracy functions to solidify neoliberal logics throughout the fabric of colleges and universities, as well as make it increasingly difficult to refuse them. This bureaucratization of higher education also involved the rapid growth of administrative offices and professionals designed to serve as mediators between students pushing for change at their institutions (Peters et al., 2013). The effect was the institutionalization of equity agendas, which ultimately functioned to diffuse the pressures that social justice movements placed on universities (Ferguson, 2017). By the end of the twentieth century, although student activism continued (Rhoads, 1998, 2016), scholars argue that the civil rights movement’s focus on radical systemic transformation in the 1960s had been overshadowed by campuses’ emphases on neoliberal multiculturalism, aiming to realize the individual benefits of diverse cultures and the value of those benefits for overall society than envisioning and creating a more equitable education system and society (Case & Ngo, 2017). Second, expanding neoliberal forces also advanced the privatization of higher education (Giroux, 2011). Governments progressively divested from public higher education, creating a political economic context in which colleges and universities were compelled to act increasingly like private corporations to maximize their financial stability (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). This privatization further fueled the expanding bureaucracy in higher education organizations as they invested more in units and positions that had potential returns on investment and would maximize the accumulation of resources. The privatization of higher education led to a plethora of other changes, including the emergence of a knowledge economy where administrators and faculty are evaluated according to their market value and capacity to accumulate capital for their organizations, leading to increased amounts of energy diverted to fundraising, entrepreneurial endeavors, and research agendas more focused on generating external revenue (Olssen & Peters, 2005; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Many would argue that professionals, families, and students also increasingly understood higher education as a private good, reinforced by pervasive national conversations about the economic benefits of attaining a college degree (Tilak, 2008). Third, what Giroux and Giroux (2004) called the neoliberal “assault” on higher education in the late twentieth century catalyzed the significant expansion of

650

S. D. Museus

surveillance systems. The 1970s and decades that would follow saw the rise of the accountability movement in education, expanding the influence of accrediting agencies to monitor quality at colleges and universities (Flores, 2015). Accreditation was not the only expanding set of accountability structures. In 1983, the U.S. News and World Report launched its national undergraduate college ranking system. While earlier efforts to rank higher education entities had been made, U.S. News worked with mainstream media outlets, such as Time and Newsweek, to embed rankings in the collective psyche of the American public (Stuart, 1995). Since this time, rankings have evolved into a big business, while mobilizing resources in ways that continuously reinforce neoliberalism’s hyper-competition and hyper-surveillance schemas (McDonough et al., 1998). Campus leaders became increasingly focused on and invest resources in endeavors that improve their standing in the rankings (Ehrenberg, 2003), while faculty and students are encouraged to increasingly compete for positions at highly ranked campuses so they can benefit from the capital associated with these organizations (Kim & Lee, 2006). Neoliberalism’s schema of meritocracy perpetuates beliefs that organizational and individual effort and performance relative to others, assessed primarily through positivist and allegedly objective quantitative data, is deterministic of outcomes. In turn, the outcomes serve as a natural form of accountability in and of themselves.

Rise of the Quantitative Research Complex The expansion of neoliberal logics in higher education was coupled with an increased need for data that could be used to evaluate educational organizations and individuals in them (Beer, 2015). Perhaps not surprisingly, the expansion of the accountability movement coincided with the establishment of data systems that were grounded in neoliberal rationalities. For example, while the US Department of Education collected data as early as the 1800s, they expanded these efforts significantly in the late twentieth century (Aliyeva et al., 2018). They founded the National Center for Education Statistics, which expanded organizational data collection efforts and launched several surveys, such as the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) in the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) survey, to collect individual-level data to facilitate the analysis of educational phenomena using highquality national representative samples (Ingels, 1994; Wine et al., 2002). Consistent with neoliberalism’s focus on promoting decontextualized individualism, federal and state datasets reduced powerful and pervasive contextual factors that heavily determine the conditions and pathways of organizations and students to individual demographic variables. For example, the complexities of race, ethnicity, culture, and identity were collapsed into a singular race variable in the NELS and BPS surveys (Ingels, 1994; Wine et al., 2002). The powerful impact of capitalism and social class on experiences were encompassed in a few variables related to parental education and income (Ingels, 1994; Wine et al., 2002). At the same time that federal and state governments were expanding their capacity and infrastructure to collect large volumes of data, higher education

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

651

organizations across the country and researchers employed at them were mobilizing to do the same (Dressel, 1981). In the 1950s, institutional research positions emerged. In the 1960s, institutional researchers established the Association for Institutional Research. In the decades that followed, the presence of institutional research offices rapidly increased across the nation (Taylor et al., 2013). Through collecting and reporting data for accrediting bodies and organizational constituents, these offices have increasingly become key players in the accountability movement as well (Brittingham et al., 2008; Morest, 2009). Institutional researchers across the nation have also played an important role in generating evidence of “impact” to increase their organizations’ competitiveness for external resources in an environment of increased precarity and scarcity (Volkwein, 2008). There were still other large-scale efforts to institutionalize quantitative data systems that were grounded in Western neoliberal positivist logics and could function to advance them in the broader higher education sector. In the 1990s, for example, private foundations invested in the formation of research and assessment entities that were housed on university campuses and designed to collect, analyze, and disseminate big data (Ewell, 2010; McCormick et al., 2013). These developments promoted enhanced competition among universities and researchers vying for resources to establish major survey operations and the national visibility and prestige that would follow, further fueling the entrepreneurial turn of the social sciences in academia. Much like the US Department of Education’s large-scale datasets, the most influential campus-based survey operations were primarily grounded in dominant Western theories and concepts of the time that gave little attention to issues of culture and identity (Tinto, 1975; Astin, 1984; Pike & Kuh, 2005), while decentering the decades of research through which scholars of color centered the knowledge, voices, needs, and priorities of communities of color (Museus, 2014). For instance, major national survey operations at multiple universities constructed their instruments around concepts, such as college student involvement and engagement, prioritizing the objective measurement of decontextualized observable individual behaviors and actions in understanding college students and their trajectories. These national survey operations became a form of capital and were housed at some of the most prestigious institutions and highly ranked academic programs in the nation. At the same time, like their governmental counterparts, these operations typically reduced the complexities and powerful role of culture and identity into a single variable or a few variables to be included in statistical equations. Of course, the quantitative structures emerging throughout the higher education sector did not and do not exist in isolation. The national survey operations, which were grounded in Western neoliberal logics and positivist epistemologies, collaborated with national policymaking organizations to embed these focal ideas and research systems into the culture of higher education across the nation (Johnson & Stage, 2018). The survey operations and enhanced national focus on the ideas they centered and data they produced prompted leaders and researchers across the nation to mobilize resources on their own campuses to enhance conversations and activities emphasizing these agendas (McCormick et al., 2013). In response, campus leaders

652

S. D. Museus

and researchers invested increasing amounts of energy in trying to bolster levels of student engagement and use this progress as a proxy for improving their students’ experiences. Institutions also increasingly utilized these measures to compare their effectiveness to that of their peer campuses, reinforcing neoliberalism’s hypercompetition and hyper-surveillance schemas, as well as positivist schemas around the superiority of the objective measurement of behavior (Chen et al., 2009; Pike, 2004, 2013). What might be most striking about these events is the sheer magnitude of resources mobilized to create the quantitative ecosystem. These included financial resources that government entities, philanthropic foundations, lobbying organizations, and colleges and universities across the nation invested in the endeavor. This investment also included human resources, as researchers across the nation sought to benefit from the funding and data available to advance this agenda and policymakers at all levels relied on these neoliberal schemas and big data systems to rationalize, explain, and evaluate their policy agendas and decisions. These historical developments generated a complex quantitative ecosystem of coordinated neoliberalized and racialized schemas, resources, structures, and individual actors. Viewing the evolution of the QRC through the lens of racial sociological theory excavates the connections between macro-level ideologies, meso-level social structures, and micro-level individual actions and experiences. Just as the racial superiority and inferiority schema merged with the mobilization of resources to create social structures that propelled the eugenics movement (Allen, 1997), neoliberalism’s hyper-competition and hyper-surveillance schemas converged with positivist objectivity to facilitate the mobilization of resources and create social structures that were necessary to advance a racialized neoliberal agenda.

Elements of the Quantitative Research Complex Adapting and building on Ray’s (2019) depiction of the relationship between schemas, resource, and organizations, Fig. 1 visually illustrates how the QRC emerged and sustains itself. The figure suggests that multiple underlying schemas mutually shape the mobilization of resources that led to the emergence of a wide range of powerful interconnected social structures, which included accountability and big data operations. These schemas shape government agencies, philanthropic foundations, and college and university investments of financial capital to create and perpetuate quantitative data operations at the federal, state, and local levels. The figure also implies that these structures play an important role in shaping the dominant ideologies that govern the current higher education system. These structures both redirect capital to their networks, including financial capital to their employees and other forms of capital deemed valuable in the neoliberal knowledge economy to their partners (legitimated knowledge, research tools, datasets, publications, etc.). In return, the researchers, policymakers, and practitioners across the higher education field become more invested in them and contribute to expanding the narratives associated with them, reinforcing racialized neoliberal logics.

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

653

Dominant Ideologies (Neoliberalism and white supremacy)

Accountability Structures (e.g., Accreditation & ranking systems)

Quantitative Research Structures (e.g., Quantitative survey operations & research networks)

Mobilization of Resources (Government, industry, philanthropy, universities, individuals)

Neoliberal and Racial Schemas (e.g., Individualism, surveillance, deficit perspectives)

Positivist Schemas (e.g., Objective measurement, superiority of numbers)

Fig. 1 The quantitative research complex

The relationships depicted in Fig. 1 are not unidirectional. The components of the system are mutually reinforcing, with racialized and neoliberal ideological forces at the macro-level fortifying cultural schemas, perpetuating the mobilization of resources, and buttressing existing meso-level social structures that comprise major components of the QRC. I propose that there are four defining characteristics of the QRC, and they might serve as a useful heuristic in understanding its complexity and durability. The following set of tenets use the defining elements of the QRC as a springboard for understanding what might constitute critical quantitative research embedded in this ecology. They provide a foundation to envision a QuantCrit agenda that is explicitly designed to challenge existing quantitative systems and foster new ones that might facilitate more equitable knowledge systems and meaningfully inform an equity agenda in education. 1. The QRC is a socially constructed system. The QRC did not emerge and does not exist randomly but is instead intentionally designed. The elite’s mass mobilization of financial and human resources fueled the creation of the QRC to bolster and continue to advance racialized neoliberal agendas throughout education and society. Organizations and people throughout the nation intentionally, actively, and continually invest resources to reproduce and enhance the QRC in the present day. 2. The QRC is rooted in power inequities. The racially coded neoliberal and positivist schemas undergirding the QRC privilege the agendas and serve the interests of settlers, the racial majority, and elites. These schemas obscure the ways that racial and other powerful systemic influences shape societal inequities and falsely suggest equity can be achieved through commodification,

654

S. D. Museus

competition, surveillance, and the alleged objective measurement of organizational and individual outcomes. 3. The QRC continuously legitimizes and centers Western neoliberal agendas. The QRC is not only historically grounded in inequitable schemas, but it also actively legitimizes Western neoliberal logics and the agendas, structures, and resources that align with them. Specifically, these inequitable systems sustain a focus on and prioritize quantitatively measuring and understanding decontextualized and deracialized individual efforts and market outcomes, which reifies Western neoliberal logics of commodification and hypercompetition. In turn, the QRC decenters and de-emphasizes perspectives of historically subjugated communities that highlight the role of power, culture, and identity in shaping individual trajectories and prioritize more collectivist and humanized outcomes. 4. The QRC promotes the inequitable distribution of resources. The QRC facilitates the inequitable distribution of resources. This ecosystem is comprised of structures, communities, and networks that continually attract financial and human capital. The system also converts and redistributes these resources to those who prioritize its dominant agenda, including those employed by dominant research structures and those who leverage resources (e.g., research networks, surveys, data) within the QRC to generate revenue (e.g., grant funding) and maximize output (e.g., grant proposals and publications) that increases their own market value. In doing so, it perpetually channels resources away from efforts to advance more equitable agendas and create more equitable structures. These defining elements of the QRC inform the framework presented in the following section. A couple of additional observations are useful in understanding how the QRC is sustained. Specifically, the concepts of whiteness as property and interest convergence might be especially useful in further understanding how individuals become invested in and protect the QRC. As mentioned, CRT scholars note that whiteness ultimately carries cash value, as histories of unfair housing, inequitable education systems, disparate access to social networks, and massive differences in intergenerational wealth fuel disproportionate access to resources in the present day (Lipsitz, 2006). This encourages white and non-white people to invest in whiteness, given the promise of material benefits that it carries (Harris, 1994; Lipsitz, 2006). As a reminder, interest convergence denotes how white elites selectively allow progress for communities of color if it enhances their own position (Bell Jr, 1980). It could be argued that similar dynamics transpire in the QRC. As government entities and philanthropic organizations invest substantial resources in creating and sustaining Western neoliberal structures designed to produce data for comparison, competition, and accountability, they create forms of capital that have concrete material consequences for organizations and individuals. For example, institutions with high standing in the rankings are imbued with prestige that translates into material resources (Zhang, 2012). A case in point is prestigious universities that

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

655

admit some of the most privileged students in society, who attend and graduate from these organizations because of the capital associated with them and subsequently assume powerful positions in government and industry (Miller et al., 2015). These positions of power allow them to increase their personal wealth and contribute to these universities’ large endowments, which in turn contributes to the latter’s competitiveness in future ranking processes (Andrzejewski, 2021). In other words, rankings arguably function as one mechanism through which economic privilege is exchanged and maintained among elites and therefore have cash value. Similarly, racialized neoliberal and positivist research structures are likely to have cash value for the large communities of policy, scholarly, and institutional researchers who are invested in them as well. Quantitative research structures that produce national datasets often make their instruments and data available to researchers, which is a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners who face pressures to produce excessive output to prove their performance and effectiveness (Parchomovsky, 2000). Accessing and utilizing these existing data is appealing because of its efficiency, but the concepts prioritized in data collected through these entities limit the questions that researchers, policymakers, and practitioners can ask, the ideas that they are able to center in their thinking and conversation, and the conclusions that they can draw from the analyses they conduct. That is, these structures and data constrain agency, ensuring that this work and output contribute to advancing conversations grounded in the racially coded neoliberal and positivist schemas that underlie the emergence of the QRC. Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners responsible for sustaining these systems and structures can become increasingly invested in the resources they provide, and therefore the racially coded neoliberal and positivist schemas embedded in them. If this is the case, it is likely that these communities will resist transformative change that might center historically marginalized priorities in dominant quantitative discourses and advance more equitable research systems and structures, if such transformation compromises the power and control that existing dominant agendas have over educational discourse, policy, and practice.

A Systems Theory of Racialized Quantitative Inquiry To expand potential possibilities in QuantCrit discourse, I offer the following tenets as a starting point for research that aims to critique the larger quantitative ecosystem and begin building a movement toward the cultivation of more equitable quantitative structures. This framework is informed by emerging QuantCrit scholarship critiquing elements of the QRC, the theoretical perspectives discussed in previous sections, and knowledge of the historical evolution and nature of the QRC. As readers should note, this perspective shifts the focus explicitly from utilization of quantitative data to existing quantitative systems and structures, their relationships to power inequities, the unequal distribution of resources and agency through them, and how they are maintained. In doing so, this intersectional multilevel structural lens extends

656

S. D. Museus

prior proposed QuantCrit perspectives that primarily center macro- and micro-level racial dynamics. 1. Critique of racism endemic to research systems and structures. QuantCrit should highlight how racial inequities permeate the quantitative ecosystem and its structures. It is vital to expose the racial bias in statistics and the policies they inform, but it is equally important to turn an analytical lens to the racially inequitable quantitative structures that function to concentrate power in research and discourses that perpetuate Western neoliberal colorblind agendas and narratives, as well as continuously mobilize communities to enhance them. Advancing racial equity requires exposing the inequity inherent in these structures, as well as the dominant agendas that they protect. 2. Challenge to epistemic exclusion of marginalized voices and agendas. A multilevel structural QuantCrit analysis challenges the ways that the quantitative ecosystem and its structures maintain a focus on dominant agendas through facilitating the epistemic exclusion of knowledge and voices from the margins. Such QuantCrit perspective should recognize that more equitable structures can only be created through the centering and infusion of anti-oppression perspectives and voices of indigenous communities, people of color, and other historically subjugated populations. 3. Equitable redistribution of resources. QuantCrit should recognize that racialized quantitative structures actively perpetuate the inequitable distribution of resources that inhibit change toward social justice. Racialized neoliberal quantitative structures consume and allocate resources toward people and activities that reinforce dominant priorities and away from people and projects that center knowledge, voices, and needs of communities at the margins. Those advocating equity through quantitative inquiry are likely only given access to such resources if their agendas and approaches conform to and reinforce Western neoliberal logics. Therefore, QuantCrit should challenge the inequitable distribution of capital and advocate the redistribution of resources to quantitative endeavors that align with racial justice values (e.g., collectivism, freedom from systems of surveillance, care and love, etc.) that deviate from neoliberal logics. 4. Quantitative structures grounded in social justice. QuantCrit should be concerned with the ways in which existing quantitative structures inequitably shape agency. When quantitative structures are grounded in Western neoliberal epistemologies and priorities, they empower and provide opportunities to those who adopt these perspectives while inhibiting the agency of those who seek to advance more racially equitable agendas. As such, a primary concern of QuantCrit should be to expand agency among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners advocating with indigenous communities and people of color. This goal might be pursued through many different means, such as the construction of new survey operations, testable theories and communities that apply and examine them, survey constructs and instruments, and quantitative analytic methods that enable and enhance research agendas and discourses grounded in the perspectives of historically subjugated, underrepresented, and undeserved communities.

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

657

Conclusion The QuantCrit movement might still be emerging, but many would argue that it is already shifting conversations about quantitative inquiry in the field in substantial ways. Building on the work of a long lineage of scholars who have challenged the QRC, scholars who have merged critical theory and the analysis of quantitative methods have further expanded the ways in which researchers understand, exchange knowledge about, and leverage quantitative tools to advance knowledge. Many would also note that QuantCrit holds significant potential to revolutionize quantitative inquiry, and its scholars might need to contend with questions regarding what the future might hold. This analysis is grounded in the hope that such futures include more complex structural analyses of the QRC in order to generate a more holistic understanding of the role that quantitative inquiry as a system plays in shaping our world. Moving forward, QuantCrit scholars will surely benefit from continuing to expand the ways in which they think about the complex interplay among ideology, power, schemas, structure, and inquiry. Such systems perspectives will offer new possibilities regarding the critical assessment of the existing quantitative enterprise and the dreaming of new quantitative agendas that unapologetically center social justice in the ideas, structures, and tools they create and sustain. Of course, adopting this systemic perspective can also be daunting. Given the massive amounts of capital that have been allocated to create the existing QRC, it will take a substantial investment of resources to change it and move the quantitative community in the direction of producing more racially equitable and socially just agendas.

References Adsit, J., Doe, S., Allison, M., Maggio, P., & Maisto, M. (2015). Affective activism: Answering institutional productions of precarity in the corporate university. Feminist Formations, 27(3), 21–48. Akee, R. (2021). Stolen lands and stolen opportunities. Native American and Indigenous Studies, 8(1), 123–128. Aliyeva, A., Cody, C. A., & Low, K. (2018). The history and origins of survey items for the integrated postsecondary education data system (2016–17 update). NPEC 2018-023. National Postsecondary Education Cooperative. Allen, G. E. (1997). The social and economic origins of genetic determinism: A case history of the American Eugenics Movement, 1900–1940 and its lessons for today. Genetica, 99(2), 77–88. Andrzejewski, A. (2021). Ballooning Ivy League endowment forecasted to top $1 Ttrillion by 2048. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/10/31/balloon ing-ivy-league-endowment-forecasted-to-top-1-trillion-by-2048/?sh¼31eecf9c3a37 Anyon, Y., Wiley, K., Samimi, C., & Trujillo, M. (2021). Sent out or sent home: Understanding racial disparities across suspension types from critical race theory and quantcrit perspectives. Race Ethnicity and Education, 1–20. Astin, A. W. (1984). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Personnel, 25(4), 297–308. Baker, G. J. (2014). Christianity and eugenics: The place of religion in the British Eugenics Education Society and the American Eugenics Society, 1907–1940. Social History of Medicine, 27(2), 281–302.

658

S. D. Museus

Baker, C. A. (2019). A QuantCrit approach: Using critical race theory as a means to evaluate if rate my professor assessments are racially biased. Journal of Underrepresented & Minority Progress, 3(1), 1–22. Bashford, A., & Levine, P. (Eds.). (2010). The Oxford handbook of the history of eugenics. Oxford University Press. Beer, D. (2015). Productive measures: Culture and measurement in the context of everyday neoliberalism. Big Data & Society, 2(1), 1–12. Bell, D. A., Jr. (1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 518–533. Bonilla-Silva, E. (1997). Rethinking racism: Toward a structural interpretation. American Sociological Review, 62, 465–480. Brayboy, B. M. J. (2005). Toward a tribal critical race theory in education. The urban review, 37(5), 425–446. Brittingham, B., O’Brien, P. M., & Alig, J. L. (2008). Accreditation and institutional research: The traditional role and new dimensions. In Institutional research: More than just data: New directions for higher education (No. 141, pp. 69–76). Jossey-Bass. Brooks, R., Byford, K., & Sela, K. (2016). Students’ unions, consumerism and the neo-liberal university. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(8), 1211–1228. Brown, W. (2006). American nightmare: Neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and de-democratization. Political Theory, 34(6), 690–714. Campbell, S. L. (2020). Ratings in black and white: A quantcrit examination of race and gender in teacher evaluation reform. Race Ethnicity and Education, 1–19. Case, A., & Ngo, B. (2017). “Do we have to call it that?” The response of neoliberal multiculturalism to college antiracism efforts. Multicultural Perspectives, 19(4), 215–222. Chen, P. S. D., Gonyea, R. M., Sarraf, S. A., BrckaLorenz, A., Korkmaz, A., Lambert, A. D., et al. (2009). Analyzing and interpreting NSSE data. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2009(141), 35–54. Cho, S. K. (2003). Converging stereotypes in racialized sexual harassment: Where the model minority meets Suzie Wong. In A. K. Wing (Ed.), Critical race feminism: A reader (pp. 349–356). New York University Press. Chomsky, N. (1998). Profit over people: Neoliberalism and global order. Seven Stories Press. Collins, D. R., & Cannella, G. S. (2021). Racisms in qualitative inquiry: Recognitions and challenges. Qualitative Inquiry, 27(10), 1139–1145. Crenshaw, K. (1993). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and the violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241–1299. Cruz, R. A., Kulkarni, S. S., & Firestone, A. R. (2021). A QuantCrit analysis of context, discipline, special education, and disproportionality. AERA Open, 7. Damanpor, F. (1996). Bureaucracy and innovation revisited: Effects of contingency factors, industrial sectors, and innovation characteristics. The Journal of High Technology Management Research, 7(2), 149–173. Darder, A. (2012). Neoliberalism in the academic borderlands: An on-going struggle for equality and human rights. Educational Studies, 48(5), 412–426. Davies, B. (2005). The (im)possibility of intellectual work in neoliberal regimes. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 26(1), 1–14. Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87(8), 2411–2441. Delgado, R. (1992). The imperial scholar revisited: How to marginalize outsider writing, ten years later. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 140, 1349–1372. Delgado, R. (2002). Explaining the rise and fall of African American fortunes: Interest convergence and civil rights gains. Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review, 37, 369. Delgado Bernal, D. D. (1998). Using a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research. Harvard Educational Review, 68(4), 555–583.

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

659

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press. DiMaggio, P. (1997). Culture and cognition. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 263–287. Dowd, A. C., Sawatzky, M., & Korn, R. (2011). Theoretical foundations and a research agenda to validate measures of intercultural effort. The Review of Higher Education, 35(1), 17–44. Dressel, P. L. (1981). The shaping of institutional research and planning. Research in Higher Education, 14(3), 229–258. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1899). The Philadelphia negro: A social study. University of Pennsylvania Press. Ehrenberg, R. G. (2003). Reaching for the brass ring: The US News & World Report rankings and competition. The Review of Higher Education, 26(2), 145–162. Espiritu. (1993). Asian American panethnicity: Bridging institutions and identities. Temple University Press. Ewell, P. T. (2010). The US national survey of student engagement (NSSE). InPublic policy for academic quality (pp. 83–97). Springer. Feagin, J. R., & Ducey, K. (2018). Racist America: Roots, current realities, and future reparations. New York: Routledge. Feagin, J., & Elias, S. (2013). Rethinking racial formation theory: A systemic racism critique. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(6), 931–960. Fee, E., & Brown, T. M. (2002). John Harvey Kellogg, MD: Health reformer and antismoking crusader. American Journal of Public Health, 92(6), 935–935. Ferguson, R. A. (2017). We demand: The university and student protests (Vol. 1). University of California Press. Flores, A. (2015). Hooked on accreditation: A historical perspective. Center for American Progress. Fowler, L. (2015). Arapaho and Cheyenne perspectives: From the 1851 treaty to the Sand Creek massacre. American Indian Quarterly, 39(4), 364–390. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press. Fricker, M., Peels, R., & Blaauw, M. (2016). Epistemic injustice and the preservation of ignorance. InThe epistemic dimensions of ignorance (pp. 160–177). Cambridge University Press. Gane, N. (2012). The governmentalities of neoliberalism: Panopticism, post-panopticism and beyond. The Sociological Review, 60(4), 611–634. Garcia, N. M., & Mayorga, O. J. (2018). The threat of unexamined secondary data: A critical race transformative convergent mixed methods. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 231–252. Garcia, N. M., López, N., & Vélez, V. N. (2018). QuantCrit: Rectifying quantitative methods through critical race theory. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 149–157. Garcia, N. M., Ibarra, J. M., Mireles-Rios, R., Rios, V. M., & Maldonado, K. (2022a). Advancing QuantCrit to rethink the school-to-prison pipeline for Latinx and Black youth. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 1–20. Garcia, N. M., Vélez, V. N., & Huber, L. P. (2022b). Can numbers be gender and race conscious? Advocating for a critical race feminista quantitative praxis in education. Equity & Excellence in Education, 1–16. Garibay, J. C., & Mathis, C. (2021). Does a university’s enslavement history play a role in black student–white faculty interactions? A structural equation model. Education Sciences, 11(12), 809. Garibay, J. C., West, C., & Mathis, C. (2020). “It affects me in ways that I don’t even realize”: A preliminary study on black student responses to a university’s enslavement history. Journal of College Student Development, 61(6), 697–716. Garibay, J. C., Mathis, C. L., & West, C. P. (2022). Black student views on higher education reparations at a university with an enslavement history. Race Ethnicity and Education, 1–22. Gatimu, M. W. (2009). Undermining critical consciousness unconsciously: Restoring hope in the multicultural education idea. Journal of Educational Change, 10(1), 47–61. Gillborn, D., Warmington, P., & Demack, S. (2018). QuantCrit: Education, policy, ‘Big Data’ and principles for a critical race theory of statistics. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 158–179.

660

S. D. Museus

Giroux, H. (2008). Against the terror of neoliberalism: Politics beyond the age of greed. Paradigm Publishers. Giroux, H. (2011). The disappearing intellectual in the age of economic Darwinism. Policy Futures in Education, 9, 163–171. Giroux, H. A., & Giroux, S. S. (2004). Take back higher education: Race, youth, and the crisis of democracy in the post-civil rights era. Macmillan. Golash-Boza, T. (2016). A critical and comprehensive sociological theory of race and racism. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2(2), 129–141. Gotanda, N. (1995). Critical legal studies, critical race theory and Asian American Studies. Amerasia Journal, 21(1&2), 127–135. Griffin, K. A., & Museus, S. D. (2011). Application of mixed-methods approaches to higher education and intersectional analyses. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2011(151), 15–26. Grillo, T. (1995). Anti-essentialism and intersectionality: Tools to dismantle the master’s house. Black Women’s Law Journal, 10, 16–30. Guenther, J. (2021). Taken for a ride? The disconnect between high school completion, employment and income for remote Australian First Nations Peoples. Race Ethnicity and Education, 24(1), 132–147. Hamer, J. F., & Lang, C. (2015). Race, structural violence, and the neoliberal university: The challenges of inhabitation. Critical Sociology, 41(6), 897–912. Harris, A. P. (1994). The jurisprudence of reconstruction. California Law Review, 82(4), 741–785. Harris, A. P. (2003). Race and essentialism in feminist legal theory. In A. K. Wing (Ed.), Critical race feminism: A reader (2nd ed., pp. 34–41). New York University Press. Harvey, D. (2005). The neoliberal state. In A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press. Heath, M., & Burdon, P. D. (2013). Academic resistance to the neoliberal university. Legal Education Review, 23(1/2), 379–401. Hillman, N., & Corral, D. (2017). The equity implications of paying for performance in higher education. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(14), 1757–1772. Hope, E. C., Brugh, C. S., & Nance, A. (2019). In search of a critical stance: Applying qualitative research practices for critical quantitative research in psychology. Community Psychology in Global Perspective, 5(2), 63–69. Horkheimer, M. (1993). Between philosophy and social science. MIT Press. Hurtado, S. S. (2021). How neoliberalism shapes the role and responsibility of faculty members for eliminating sexual violence. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(4), 522–545. Hurtado, S., & Carter, D. (1997). Effects of college transition and perceptions of the campus racial climate on Latina/o college students’ sense of belonging. Sociology of Education, 70, 324–345. Iftikar, J. S., & Museus, S. D. (2018). On the utility of Asian critical (AsianCrit) theory in the field of education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(10), 935–949. Ingels, S. J. (1994). National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988: Second follow-up: Student component data file user’s manual. US Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics.. Johnson, C. W., & Parry, D. C. (Eds.). (2022). Fostering social justice through qualitative inquiry: A methodological guide. Taylor & Francis. Johnson, S. R., & Stage, F. K. (2018). Academic engagement and student success: Do high-impact practices mean higher graduation rates? The Journal of Higher Education, 89(5), 753–781. Kezar, A., & Posselt, J. (2019). Introduction: A call to just and equitable administrative practice. InHigher education administration for social justice and equity (pp. 1–18). Routledge. Kim, S., & Lee, J. H. (2006). Changing facets of Korean higher education: Market competition and the role of the state. Higher Education, 52(3), 557–587. Kimmelman, B. A. (1983). The American Breeders’ Association: Genetics and eugenics in an agricultural context, 1903–13. Social Studies of Science, 13(2), 163–204.

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

661

Ladson-Billings, G. (2019). Just what is critical race theory, and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? InRace is. . . race isn’t (pp. 7–30). Routledge. Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47–68. Lipsitz, G. (2006). The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profit from identity politics. Temple University Press. Loher, D., & Strasser, S. (2019). Politics of precarity: Neoliberal academia under austerity measures and authoritarian threat. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 27(S2), 5–14. López, N., Erwin, C., Binder, M., & Chavez, M. J. (2018). Making the invisible visible: Advancing quantitative methods in higher education using critical race theory and intersectionality. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 180–207. Lorde, A. (2003). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, 25, 27. Lorenz, C. (2012). If you’re so smart, why are you under surveillance? Universities, neoliberalism, and new public management. Critical Inquiry, 38(3), 599–629. Lowe, L. (1996). Immigrant acts: On Asian American cultural politics. Duke University Press. Lynn, M., & Dixson, A. D. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of critical race theory in education (pp. 181–194). Routledge. McChesney, R. W. (1998). Introduction. In N. Chomsky (Ed.), Profit over people: Neoliberalism and global order (pp. 7–16). Seven Stories Press. McCormick, A. C., Gonyea, R. M., & Kinzie, J. (2013). Refreshing engagement: NSSE at 13. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 45(3), 6–15. McCoy, D. L., & Rodricks, D. J. (2015). Critical race theory in higher education: 20 years of theoretical and research innovations: ASHE higher education report (Vol. 41, No. 3). Wiley. McDonough, P. M., Antonio, A. L., Walpole, M., & Perez, L. X. (1998). College rankings: Democratized college knowledge for whom? Research in Higher Education, 39(5), 513–537. Mertens, D. M. (2008). Transformative research and evaluation. Guilford Press. Meyer, J. W., & Bromley, P. (2013). The worldwide expansion of “organization”. Sociological Theory, 31(4), 366–389. Miller, D., Xu, X., & Mehrotra, V. (2015). When is human capital a valuable resource? The performance effects of Ivy League selection among celebrated CEOs. Strategic Management Journal, 36(6), 930–944. Milner, H. R., IV. (2007). Race, culture, and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. Educational Researcher, 36(7), 388–400. Mohanty, C. T. (2013). Transnational feminist crossings: On neoliberalism and radical critique. Signs, 38(4), 967–991. Morest, V. S. (2009). Accountability, accreditation, and continuous improvement: Building a culture of evidence. In C. Leimer (Ed.), Imagining the future of institutional research: New directions for institutional research (No. 143, pp. 17–27). Jossey-Bass. Morris, A. (2015). The scholar denied: WEB Du Bois and the birth of modern sociology. University of California Press. Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Vintage Books. Muehlebach, A. (2013). On precariousness and the ethical imagination: The year 2012 in sociocultural anthropology. American Anthropologist, 115(2), 297–311. Museus, S. D. (2008). The role of ethnic student organizations in fostering African American and Asian American students’ cultural adjustment and membership at predominantly White institutions. Journal of College Student Development, 49(6), 568–586. Museus, S. D. (2014). The culturally engaging campus environments (CECE) model: A new theory of success among racially diverse college student populations. InHigher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 189–227). Springer. Museus, S. D. (2020). Humanizing scholarly resistance: Toward greater solidarity in social justice advocacy within the neoliberal academy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 33(2), 140–150.

662

S. D. Museus

Museus, S. D., & LePeau, L. (2019). Navigating neoliberal organizational cultures: Implications for higher education leaders advancing social justice agendas. In A. Kezar & J. Posselt (Eds.), Administration for social justice and equity in higher education: Critical perspectives for leadership and decision making (pp. 209–224). Routledge. Museus, S. D., & Maramba, D. C. (2011). The impact of culture on Filipino American students’ sense of belonging. The Review of Higher Education, 34(2), 231–258. Museus, S. D., & Neville, K. M. (2012). Delineating the ways that key institutional agents provide racial minority students with access to social capital in college. Journal of College Student Development, 53(3), 436–452. Museus, S. D., & Sifuentez, B. J. (2020). Toward a critical social movements studies: Implications for research on student activism in higher education. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, 36, 1–47. Museus, S. D., & Smith, E. J. (2016). The culturally engaging campus environments model and survey. A report on new tools for assessing campus environments and diverse college student outcomes. NASPA—Student Affairs Professionals in Higher Education. Museus, S. D., & Yi, V. (2015). Rethinking student involvement and engagement: Cultivating culturally relevant and responsive contexts for campus participation. In D. Mitchell Jr., K. M. Soria, E. A. Daniele, & J. A. Gibson (Eds.), Student involvement and academic outcomes: Implications of diverse college student populations (pp. 11–24). Peter Lang. Museus, S. D., Ravello, J. N., & Vega, B. E. (2012). The campus racial culture: A critical race counterstory. In S. D. Museus & U. M. Jayakumar (Eds.), Creating campus cultures: Fostering success among racially diverse student populations (pp. 28–45). Routledge. Museus, S. D., Ledesma, M. C., & Parker, T. L. (2015). Racism and racial equity in higher education. Jossey-Bass. Museus, S. D., Shiroma, K., & Dizon, J. P. (2016a). Cultural community connections and college success: An examination of Southeast Asian American college students. Journal of College Student Development, 57(5), 485–502. Museus, S. D., Zhang, D., & Kim, M. J. (2016b). Developing and evaluating the culturally engaging campus environments (CECE) scale: An examination of content and construct validity. Research in Higher Education, 57(6), 768–793. Naidoo, R., & Williams, J. (2015). The neoliberal regime in English higher education: Charters, consumers and the erosion of the public good. Critical Studies in Education, 56(2), 208–223. O’Keefe, T., & Courtois, A. (2019). ‘Not one of the family’: Gender and precarious work in the neoliberal university. Gender, Work and Organization, 26(4), 463–479. Olssen, M., & Peters, M. A. (2005). Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: From the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy, 20(3), 313–345. Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (2nd ed.). Routledge. Ozga, J., & Lingard, B. (2007). Globalisation, education policy and politics. In B. Lingard & J. Ozga (Eds.), The RoutledgeFalmer reader in education policy and politics (pp. 1–8). Routledge. Patton Davis, L., & Museus, S. D. (2019). What is deficit thinking? An analysis of conceptualizations of deficit thinking and implications for scholarly research. NCID Currents, 1(1). Retrieved from https://bit.ly/39c0XD4 Parchomovsky, G. (2000). Publish or perish. Michigan Law Review, 98(4), 926–952. Pérez Huber, L., Vélez, V. N., & Solórzano, D. (2018). More than ‘papelitos’: A QuantCrit counterstory to critique Latina/o degree value and occupational prestige. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), 208–230. Perrow, C. (1991). A society of organizations. Theory and Society, 20(6), 725–62. Peters, M. A., Liu, T. C., & Ondercin, D. J. (2013). The pedagogy of the open society: Knowledge and the governance of higher education (Vol. 1). Springer Science & Business Media. Pezalla, A. E., Pettigrew, J., & Miller-Day, M. (2012). Researching the researcher-as-instrument: An exercise in interviewer self-reflexivity. Qualitative Research, 12(2), 165–185.

12

An Evolving QuantCrit: The Quantitative Research Complex and a Theory. . .

663

Pike, G. R. (2004). Measuring quality: A comparison of US News rankings and NSSE benchmarks. Research in Higher Education, 45(2), 193–208. Pike, G. R. (2013). NSSE benchmarks and institutional outcomes: A note on the importance of considering the intended uses of a measure in validity studies. Research in Higher Education, 54(2), 149–170. Pike, G. R., & Kuh, G. D. (2005). A typology of student engagement for American colleges and universities. Research in Higher Education, 46(2), 185–209. Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. Ray, V., & Seamster, L. (2016). Rethinking racial progress: A response to Wimmer. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(8), 1361–1369. Reynolds, A. L., & Tabron, L. A. (2022). Cultivating racial diversity or reproducing whiteness?: A QuantCrit analysis of school districts’ early principal hiring practices. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 21(1), 95–111. Rhoads, R. (1998). Freedom’s web: Student activism in an age of cultural diversity. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Rhoads, R. A. (2016). Student activism, diversity, and the struggle for a just society. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3), 189–202. Rios-Aguilar, C. (2014). The changing context of critical quantitative inquiry: New directions for institutional research (No. 158, pp. 95–107). Jossey-Bass. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. Routledge. Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge University Press. Ryan, L., & Golden, A. (2006). ‘Tick the box please’: A reflexive approach to doing quantitative social research. Sociology, 40(6), 1191–1200. Sablan, J. R. (2019). Can you really measure that? Combining critical race theory and quantitative methods. American Educational Research Journal, 56(1), 178–203. Sabzalian, L., Shear, S. B., & Snyder, J. (2021). Standardizing Indigenous erasure: A TribalCrit and QuantCrit analysis of K–12 US civics and government standards. Theory & Research in Social Education, 49(3), 321–359. Sewell, W. H., Jr. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1–29. Shore, C. (2010). Beyond the multiversity: Neoliberalism and the rise of the schizophrenic university. Social Anthropology, 18(1), 15–29. Slaughter, S. (1998). Notional higher education policies in a global economy. In Universities and globalization: Critical perspectives (pp. 45–70). Sage Publications. Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Johns Hopkins University Press. Smedley, A., & Smedley, B. D. (2005). Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real: Anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race. American Psychologist, 60(1), 16–26. Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). A critical race counterstory of race, racism, and affirmative action. Equity & Excellence in Education, 35, 155–168. Sólorzano, D. G., Villalpando, O., & Oseguera, L. (2005). Educational inequities and Latina/o undergraduate students in the United States: A critical race analysis of their educational progress. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 4(3), 272–294. Stage, F. K. (Ed.). (2007). Using quantitative data to answer critical questions: New directions for institutional research (No. 133). Jossey-Bass. Street, C., Guenther, J., Smith, J., Robertson, K., Ludwig, W., Motlap, S., et al. (2022). Do numbers speak for themselves? Exploring the use of quantitative data to measure policy ‘success’ in historical indigenous higher education in the Northern Territory, Australia. Race Ethnicity and Education, 25(3), 309–330. Stuart, D. L. (1995). Reputational rankings: Background and development. In New directions for institutional research (No. 88, pp. 13–20). Jossey-Bass.

664

S. D. Museus

Suárez, M. I., Dabney, A. R., Waxman, H. C., Scott, T. P., & Bentz, A. O. (2021). Exploring factors that predict STEM persistence at a large, public research university. International Journal of Higher Education, 10(4), 161–174. Taylor, J., Hanlon, M., & Yorke, M. (2013). The evolution and practice of institutional research. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2013(157), 59–75. Tilak, J. B. (2008). Transition from higher education as a public good to higher education as a private good: The saga of Indian experience. Journal of Asian Public Policy, 1(2), 220–234. Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89–125. Volkwein, J. F. (2008). The foundations and evolution of institutional research. In D. Terkla (Ed.), Institutional research: More than just data: New directions for higher education (No. 141, pp. 5–20). Jossey-Bass. Wilder, C. S. (2013). Ebony and ivy: Race, slavery, and the troubled history of America’s universities. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. Wine, J. S., Heuer, R. E., Wheeless, S. C., Francis, T. L., Franklin, J. W., & Dudley, K. M. (2002). Beginning postsecondary students longitudinal study: 1996–2001 (BPS: 1996/2001) methodology report. Education Statistics Quarterly, 4(3), 147–149. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409. Wooten, M. E. (2006). Soapbox: Editorial essays: Race and strategic organization. Strategic Organization, 4(2), 191–199. Wright-Mair, R., & Ieva, K. (2022). Are we in this alone? Examining the cost of health & wellness by surviving the neoliberal academy for multiple minoritized faculty. Journal of Trauma Studies in Education, 1(1), 1–29. Wright-Mair, R., & Museus, S. D. (2021). Playing the game just enough: How racially minoritized faculty who advance equity conceptualize success in the neoliberal academy. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Yi, V., Mac, J., Na, V. S., Venturanza, R. J., Museus, S. D., Buenavista, T. L., & Pendakur, S. L. (2020). Toward an anti-imperialistic critical race analysis of the model minority myth. Review of Educational Research, 90(4), 542–579. Zhang, L. (2012). Does quality pay?: Benefits of attending a high-cost, prestigious college. Routledge. Zuberi, T. (2001). Thicker than blood: How racial statistics lie. University of Minnesota Press. Zuberi, T., & Bonilla-Silva, E. (Eds.). (2008). White logic, white methods: Racism and methodology. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Dr. Samuel D. Museus is Professor of Education Studies at the University of California San Diego. He is also Founding Director of the National Institute for Transformation and Equity (NITE). Prior to joining UC San Diego, he taught Asian American Studies and Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston and was a faculty member in Higher Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Denver, and Indiana University.

Contents of Previous Five Volumes

Volume XXXVII An Unpredicted Academic Career Estela Mara Bensimon A Contentious History of Admissions Policies at American Colleges and Universities: Issues and Prospects Marcia Synnott A Review of Scholarship on College Student Activism from 2000 to 2020 Stephen John Quaye, Chris Linder, Terah J. Stewart, and Erin M. Satterwhite Mental Health in College Populations: A Multidisciplinary Review of What Works, Evidence Gaps, and Paths Forward Sara Abelson, Sarah Ketchen Lipson, and Daniel Eisenberg Emotions in Postsecondary Teaching and Learning Rebecca D. Cox Leveraging Nudges to Improve the Academic Workplace: Challenges and Possibilities KerryAnn O’Meara, Dawn Culpepper, Courtney Lennartz, and John Braxton Applying Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) Perspectives Toward Equity in Higher Education Organizations and Systems Anne-Marie Núñez Beyond the Competencies: Adaptive Community College Leadership Marilyn J. Amey A Model of Misconduct, Accusations, and Institution Response at US Colleges and Universities Rodney Hughes, Amanda Rose, J. Sarah Lozano, Steve Garguilo, and David Knight Towards a Framework of Racialized Policymaking in Higher Education Awilda Rodriguez, K. C. Deane, and Charles H. F. Davis III State Higher Education Policy Innovativeness David A. Tandberg, Jason C. Lee, T. Austin Lacy, Shouping Hu, and Toby Park-Gaghan The Art of Sophisticated Quantitative Description in Higher Education Research Daniel Klasik and William Zahran Author and Subject Indexes 2022: 784 pages ISBN 978-3-030-76659-7

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2

665

666

Contents of Previous Five Volumes

Volume XXXVI Forward March: Living an Academic Life William G. Tierney Reforming Transitions from High School to Higher Education Christine G. Mokher The Limits of Choice: A Black Feminist Critique of College “Choice” Theories and Research Channel C. McLewis Queer and Trans College Student Success Jason C. Garvey and C. V. Dolan Strengthening Outcomes of Adult Students in Community Colleges Peter Riley Bahr, Claire A. Boeck, and Phyllis A. Cummins Toward a Critical Social Movements Studies Samuel D. Museus and Brenda Jimenez Sifuentez Patterns in the Study of Academic Learning in US Higher Education Journals, 2005–2020 Lisa R. Lattuca The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same James Soto Antony and Tamara Lynn Schaps A Mid-Career Faculty Agenda Vicki L. Baker and Caroline E. N. Manning Four Decades of Performance Funding and Counting Amy Y. Li US Higher Education Internationalization Through an Equity-Driven Lens Chrystal A. George Mwangi and Christina W. Yao Understanding the Complexities of Experimental Analysis in the Context of Higher Education Brent Joseph Evans Author and Subject Indexes 2021: 696 pages ISBN 978-3-030-44006-0 Volume XXXV A First-Generation Scholar’s Camino de Conocimiento Laura Ignacia Rendón The History of Religion in American Higher Education Andrea L. Turpin An Interdisciplinary Return to Queer and Trans* Studies in Higher Education Antonio Duran, Reginald A. Blockett, and Z Nicolazzo Toward a More Critical Understanding of the Experiences of Division I College Athletes Eddie Comeaux Reimagining the Study of Campus Sexual Assault Jessica C. Harris, Krystle P. Cobian, and Nadeeka Karunaratne Institutional Barriers, Strategies, and Benefits to Increasing the Representation of Women and Men of Color in the Professoriate Kimberly A. Griffin The Ambivalence About Distance Learning in Higher Education Di Xu and Ying Xu Learning to Change and Changing to Learn Aimee La Pointe Terosky and Katie Conway Evaluation and Decision Making in Higher Education Julie Posselt, Theresa E. Hernandez, Cynthia D. Villarreal, Aireale J. Rodgers, and Lauren N. Irwin Trends and Perspectives on Finance Equity and the Promise of Community Colleges Alicia C. Dowd, Kelly Ochs Rosinger, and Marlon Fernandez Castro Privatization as the New Normal in Higher Education Kevin R. McClure, Sondra N. Barringer, and Joshua Travis Brown

Contents of Previous Five Volumes

667

A Primer for Interpreting and Designing Difference-in-Differences Studies in Higher Education Research Fernando Furquim, Daniel Corral, and Nicholas Hillman Author and Subject Indexes 2020: 738 pages ISBN: 978-3-030-31364-7 Volume XXXIV Assessing the Impact of College on Students: A Four-Decade Quest to Get It Approximately Right Ernest T. Pascarella Critical Examination of the Role of STEM in Propagating and Maintaining Race and Gender Disparities Deborah Faye Carter, Juanita E. Razo Dueñas, and Rocío Mendoza A Review of Empirical Studies on Dual Enrollment: Assessing Educational Outcomes Brian P. An and Jason L. Taylor Visual Research Methods for the Study of Higher Education Organizations Amy Scott Metcalfe and Gerardo Luu Blanco From Access to Equity: Community Colleges and the Social Justice Imperative Lorenzo DuBois Baber, Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher, Tamara N. Stevenson, and Jeff Porter The Promise and Peril of the Public Intellectual Todd C. Ream, Christopher J. Devers, Jerry Pattengale, and Erin Drummy Places of Belonging: Person- and Place-Focused Interventions to Support Belonging in College Lisel Alice Murdock-Perriera, Kathryn L. Boucher, Evelyn R. Carter, and Mary C. Murphy Assessing a Moving Target: Research on For-Profit Higher Education in the United States Kevin Kinser and Sarah T. Zipf The Labor Market Value of Higher Education: Now and in the Future Clive R. Belfield and Thomas R. Bailey The Dual Commodification of College-Going: Individual and Institutional Influences on Access and Choice Rodney P. Hughes, Ezekiel W. Kimball, and Andrew Koricich The History of Philanthropy in Higher Education: A Distinctively Discontinuous Literature Andrea Walton Geographical, Statistical, and Qualitative Network Analysis: A Multifaceted Method-Bridging Tool to Reveal and Model Meaningful Structures in Education Research Manuel S. González Canché Author and Subject Indexes 2019: 663 pages ISBN: 978-3-030-03456-6 Volume XXXIII Intellectual Autobiography Sheila Slaughter Reclaiming Diversity: Advancing the Next Generation of Diversity Research Toward Racial Equity Uma M. Jayakumar, Liliana M. Garces, and Julie J. Park Inventorying the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Literature John M. Braxton, Clay H. Francis, Jenna W. Kramer, and Christopher R. Marsicano

668

Contents of Previous Five Volumes

The History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Issues in Higher Education Karen Graves Reassessing the Two-Year Sector’s Role in the Amelioration of a Persistent Socioeconomic Gap: A Proposed Analytical Framework for the Study of Community College Effects in the Big and Geocoded Data and Quasi-Experimental Era Manuel S. González Canché The Professoriate in International Perspective Joseph C. Hermanowicz Categorical and Limited Dependent Variable Modeling in Higher Education Awilda Rodriguez, Fernando Furquim, and Stephen L. DesJardins Revisiting Economies of Scale and Scope in Higher Education Robert K. Toutkoushian and Jason C. Lee A Critical Exploration of Diversity Discourses in Higher Education: A Focus on Diversity in Student Affairs and Admissions Leah Hakkola and Rebecca Ropers-Huilman Developmental Education: The Evolution of Research and Reform Shanna Smith Jaggars and Susan Bickerstaff Reimagining Organizational Theory for the Critical Study of Higher Education Leslie D. Gonzales, Dana Kanhai, and Kayon Hall Author and Subject Indexes 2018: 595 pages ISBN: 978-3-319-72489-8

Index

A Academic capitalism, 327, 372–376, 381, 383, 385, 387, 388, 390 graduate student labor implications, 374 graduate student reactions to labor exploitation, 375 STEM disciplines, 373 Academic career pathways, 333, 341, 345–351, 359, 372 Academic due process, 161 Academic fashions, 290 Academic freedom, 150 AAUP role in, 157–159 benefits of, 153 as constitutional concern, 169–170 1915 Declaration, 159 First Amendment role for, 171–175 as human right in international declaration, 181–184 map in 2020, 189 opportunities for future research, 186–187 pre-academic freedom period, 153–157 race-conscious admissions cases and implications for institutional, 178–180 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, 162–163 and STEM research, 187, 188 and tenure, 164–169 threats to, 184–186 Academic institutions, 607 Academic labor, 374 exploitation, 375 Academic revolution, 155, 164, 166 Academic Snake Monolith, 290 Carnegie classification, 293 research contributions, 293, 294 snake metaphor, 295 Academic workforce, 327

Academic work-life balance, 327, 347–349, 378 Accidental egalitarianism, 84 Accountability demands and levers, 285–286 Active learning, 429, 458–460 Activities bottleneck, 218 Actor bottleneck, 218 Adjunct faculty, 418 Adler v. Board of Education, 1952, 171 Adultification, 594 African American women in academe, 80 Aggressive models of manhood, 49 Alexander v. Yale (1977), 83 American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Faculty Fellowship Program, 439 American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 151, 152 formation of, 157–159 work in formative years, 161–164 American Bar Association (ABA) language, 166 American engineering, 46 American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 168 American Indian populations, 154 American manhood, 50 American postwar academic research, 164 A New Moral Vision, 65 Anti-Black racism, 96, 284 Anti-CRT legislation, 180 Archetypes of masculinity, 50 Architecture bottleneck, 218 Assessment learning, 429, 462–463 Asset-based approaches, 521, 522, 524 Associated Women Students (AWS), 77 Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) conference, 346

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. W. Perna (ed.), Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06696-2

669

670 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Minority Faculty Seminar, 423 Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), 11 Athletics, 51–52, 279 Austin v. University of Florida Board of Trustees, 2022, 177 Autonomy, 182

B Bard College Prison Initiative (BPI), 608 Bashaw, C., 75 Beadie, N., 29 Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS), 650 Biases and assumptions, 434 Bishop v. Aronov (1991), 174 Bix, A., 46 Black, 96 Black Lives Matter movement, 416 Black Marxism, 641 Blackness, 99 Black people, 96, 99, 128, 132, 139 Black women, 57–59 Board Equity Assessment Monitoring (BEAM), 238 Bowen, H.J., 11 Boydston, J., 31 Branham v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2012, 165 Brave spaces, 439 Break It to Make It (BITMI), 617 Budget maintenance, 230

C California Community Colleges (CCC), 615 California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, 610 California higher education program, 591 California State University (CSU), 608 California State University-Fullerton (CSUF) massacre, 549 Campus carry campus safety, 556, 561 case law, 544, 573, 576, 578 colleges, 544, 546, 564 concealed carry, 541 concealed carry of handguns, 540 court, 544, 565 empirical approaches, 559 English common law, 545 essays, 564

Index faculty survey, 557 firearms, 572 foundational law, 566 Heller, 544 justices, 542 laws, 542 legal scholars, 566, 567 legislation, 542 literature review, 553 longstanding laws, 574 mass murders, college campuses, 547 mass shooting, 540 McDonald, 544 originalist interpretation, 545 parts and violence, 541 perpetual cycle, 569–571 police, 557, 559 post-Bruen realities, 575–578 presidents, 546, 558 qualitative methods, 560–562 reports, 563 right to bear arms, 543 single-site case studies, 560 staff survey, 558 stakeholders, 559 statistical analyses, 559 student survey, 554–557 systematic review, 562 tragedies, 578 U.K., 545 University of Texas, Austin, 567, 568 weapons, 546, 547 weapons ban, 543 Campus-specific student cultures, 37 Carceral practices, 592 Career(s), 417 stages, 432 support, 422 Career Training Education (CTE), 616 Carnegie classification system, 275, 300, 310 Case, S., 42 Catholic Colleges in America (2002), 64 Catholic women, 64–65 Challenged by Coeducation: Women’s Colleges Since the 1960s (2006), 72 Cheit, E., 8 Chinese model of science, 185 CIRTL communities, 355 Civil Rights Movement, 109 Clark, D., 52–53 Classroom experiences, 117 Clawson, J., 54 Clifford, G.J., 27 Co-curricular experiences, 116

Index Coeducation, 67 campus setting, 68 corrective work on access and agency, 68–71 Gordon model, 68 post 1960s push for, 71–74 regenerated interest in normal school, 68 wartime campuses, 70 Cognitive apprenticeship, 341, 342 Cold-blooded murder, 541 Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), 190 Collective bargaining, 165, 167, 182, 191 College and Community Fellowship (CCF), 618 College Girls (2006), 36 College students, 110, 111, 113, 118–124, 127–130 Collegiate institutions, 28 Colorblindness, 110 Colorblind racism, 110 Commodification, 646 Communities of Color, 97, 100, 107–109, 112, 114, 116, 126, 128, 130, 139 Community college transfer students, 490, 499, 501, 508, 510, 511, 514, 516, 518, 520, 522 Community learning, 429, 460–461 Conditions of learning, 428, 465, 466 faculty advancement, 443–445 in instructional development, 458–463 Connecticut College, 73 Content of learning, 428, 465 faculty advancement, 442–443 in instructional development, 456–458 Contexts of learning, 430, 465, 468 faculty advancement, 445–447 in instructional development, 463–464 Contingent faculty, 167, 169 Continuation/alternative schools, 598–601 Contracts, 164–166 Cosmopolitan orientations, 282 COVID-19 pandemic, 269, 288, 424, 610 endemic period, 286 Criminal justice scholarship, higher education barriers to accessing postsecondary education, 611–614 barriers to accessing prison education programs, 609–611 continuation/alternative schools, 598–601 financial aid process, 612–614 K-12 schooling disciplining practices and influences, 592–598

671 postsecondary education, incarcerated individuals, 602–607 reentry program types, 614–618 required self-disclosure of criminal convictions, 611–612 types of prison education programs, 607–609 Criminal legal system, 599 Criminal records, 591 Critical analyses of whiteness, 98, 109, 112, 118, 125, 126, 128–130, 137, 139, 140 Critical approach, 97, 101, 102 Critical deliberateness, 31 Critical dimensions of whiteness model (CDWM), 97 Critical quantitative research, 274 Critical race theory (CRT), 101, 133, 151, 177, 220, 267, 637 Board research, 223 definition, 272 HBCU, 223, 224 higher education boards, 222, 223 inequity, higher education, 273 methodological approaches, 274 neoliberal framework, 273, 274 organizational structures, 273 overview, 220, 221 quantitative analyses, 274 raceless and unaware of power dynamics, 225–229 racialized organization, 273 racist ideology, 272 resource dependence, 224 Critical reflection, 429 Critical theoretical lenses, 269 Critical theory, 633 Critical whiteness studies (CWS), 98, 99, 101–103, 113, 120, 126, 127, 134, 137, 139, 140 Cultural capital, 63 Cultural literacy, 37 Culturally-relevant mentoring, 435, 436 Cultural racism, 110 Cultural taxation, 436 Culture and climate, 432 Curricular and co-curricular learning, 127

D DACAmented, 495 Dallas County Community College District, 494 Dar Es Salaam declaration, 181–182 Deans, 75–78

672 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure, 159–161 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, 495 DEI faculty advancement, 432–433, 440–441 conditions of learning, 443–445 content of learning, 442–443 contexts of learning, 445–447 faculty search, recruitment and hiring attentive to DEI, 433–434 mentoring, 435 Minoritized Faculty Leadership, 437–438 onboarding and socialization, 434–435 prior experiences and beliefs, 441–442 promotion and tenure, 436 research support, 436–437 tailored faculty advancement for racially minoritized faculty, 438–440 DEI instructional development, 447 aims of, 451–452 conditions of learning, 458–463 content of learning, 456–458 contexts of learning, 463–464 forms of, 452–454 inclusive teaching, 448–451 learning from students, 461 prior knowledge and beliefs, 454–456 DEI strategic plans, 440 Demers v. Austin, 2014, 176 Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions (DHSI), 287 Dewey, J., 158 Dilley, P., 53–54 Dimensions, 97 Disciplinary contexts, 369 Discrimination, 438, 440 Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), 416 definition, 419 faculty development, 417, 431–464, 469–471 training, 418 Diversity regimes and discourse, 114 Diversity statements, 434 Doctoral education, 155, 327, 329, 333, 334, 337, 341, 342, 345, 347, 349, 350, 352–355, 362, 364, 366, 367, 382–384, 386, 387, 389 Doctoral students, 327, 329, 333, 339, 342, 344, 346, 347, 349–351, 353–355, 361, 363, 367, 376, 380, 383, 384, 386, 387, 390 Dominant–arguably default approach, 294

Index Domination, 99 Dorn, C., 70 Duffy, J., 62 Dzuback, M.A., 28

E Educating the Sons of Sugar:Jefferson College and the Creole Planter Class in South Louisiana, 61 Educational development, 421 Educational history, 30 Educational institutions, 29 Effects of whiteness, 97, 99, 105, 131, 134 Effeminization, 27 Effort-outcome gap, 503 Eisenmann, L., 37–38 Elias, M., 45 Ellis, S., 47 Emerging Preeminent University program, 287 Engagement, 484, 495, 499–508, 510, 511, 517, 521–523, 525 Enhanced Mentoring Program with Opportunities for Ways to Excel in Research (EMPOWER), 437 Enormity of whiteness, 99 Enrollment cliff, 268, 287 Entire ecosystem bottleneck, 218 Epistemic injustice, 644 Epistemologies of ignorance, 112 Equity CRT, 272 definition, 272 demands, 266 in prestige systems, 311 institutional responsibility, 272 social justice, 272 Equity X Governance paradigm BEAM, 238 challenging, 208 co-branding collaborations, 209 core governance practices, 230–232, 235 CRT, 220–229 decolonization, 210 definition, 208 ecosystem stakeholders, 211–217 equity-related information, 210 fundamental changes, 238 future research, 246–248 Governance Ecosystem, 235, 236 healthy partnership, 210 joint-value, 241 Justice University, 242, 243

Index naming ecosystem bottlenecks, 217–219 opportunities, 233, 234 PAR, 248–250 platform logic, 236, 238 postsecondary education, 219 processes, 208 recommendations, 244 reflective inquiry, 244–246 roles, 209 standpoint theory, 221, 222 Theory of Change, 237 transformation model, 238–241 “Unchartered” Territory, 232, 233 Espionage Act of 1917, 161 Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education, 15 Ethnic demographics, 606 Evans, S., 58 Evidence-based practices, 592 Expected Family Contribution (EFC), 614

F Faculty, 79–81 developers, 438 positions, 350 types, 329 Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments (FACE) survey, 190 Faculty advancement, 422–423 DEI faculty advancement, 432–447 Faculty as learners, 425–428, 465–466 conditions of faculty learning, 428–430 content of faculty learning, 428 contexts of faculty learning, 430 DEI faculty advancement, 441–447 DEI instructional development, 454–464 intersectionality in learning, 430–431 Faculty development, 378, 385, 417, 421, 422 faculty advancement, 422–423 holistic model, 466–469 instructional development, 423–425 as a mediator of institutional cultural change, 469–471 Faculty Learning Community (FLC) program, 453 Faculty Women of Color in the Academy, 423 Faehmel, B., 37–38 FAFSA Simplification Act, 613 Federal financial aid, 603 Federal funds, 603 Feinberg Law, 171

673 Femininities campus life, 40–41 career aspiration, college women, 39 on coeducational land-grant public university campuses, 36 college women’s sense of body image, 24 engineering, 46 expectations and roles, 39–41 heterosocialization, 39 home economics, 45 international travel, behavioral expectations, 40 music, 45–46 Peril’s College Girls (2006), 36 physical education, 43–45 post-World War II expectations for college women, 37–38 Southern higher education, 41–43 wide-angle studies, 36–39 women’s centers, 47 Financial aid process, 612–614 Financial stress and double digit inflation, 166 Firearms, 541 First Amendment, 150, 151, 170–171, 564–566, 568 Florida International University (FIU), 314 Florida legislature, 185 Flutie effect, 279 Fraternal masculinity, 51 Freeman, M., 39 Free speech, 161, 173, 174, 177, 180, 192 Funds of knowledge, 427 G Gainesville campus, 54 Games Colleges Play, 12 Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), 175 Gatekeeping in graduate admissions, 361, 362 Gay identity and campus purges, 53–56 Geiger, R.L., 155 Gelber, S., 32 Gender and higher education coeducation, 67–75 femininities (see Femininities) intersectional identities, 57–67 masculinities (see Masculinities) politics and policy, 82–85 professionals, 75–82 recommendations for future research, 85–88 Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era (1990), 68 Generational wealth, 363 Girls Coming to Tech! (2013), 46

674 Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 1979, 173 Going Coed:Women’s Experiences in Formerly Men’s Colleges and Universities, 1950–2000 (2004), 71 Gordon, L., 68 Government Accountability Office, 605 Graduate admissions, 360–362, 369 Graduate education research, 332, 334, 368 Graduate socialization, 339–341, 344, 345 Graduate student mental health and well-being, 347, 348, 387 Graphics revolution, 5 Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), 178 Gun licenses, 545, 575 Gun lobby, 543 Gun rights, 541 Gun violence, 540, 541, 545–547, 559

H Harvard College view book, 6 Harvard/Radcliffe story, 69 Harvard’s Secret Court, 55 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 1988, 174 Hegemonic ideas, 98 Heterosocialization, 39 Hevel, M., 32 Hidden curriculum, 491 Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), 602 Higher Education and Its Useful Past (1982), 11 Higher Education General Information Systems (HEGIS), 16 Hilbert, R., 61 Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) Title V funding, 304 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), 223, 224 Historically white colleges and universities, 108 Histories of U.S. higher education, 108 History of American Football:Institutional Policy, Culture, and Reform, 52 Holden, C., 49 Holistic faculty development, 425 Homeboy Industries, 617 Home economics, 45 Horizontal transfer, 485–489, 496, 498, 499, 501, 505, 508, 511–513, 516, 517, 521 Hrapkiewicz v. Board of Governors of Wayne State University, 2012, 175 Hyper-surveillance, 642

Index I Ideological dimension of whiteness, 108, 109 Imbalanced power in faculty pathways, 364, 365 Implicit bias, 434 Incentive-based funding, 288 Inclusive excellence (IE), 432, 440 Inclusive teaching, 424, 427, 432, 448–452, 454–457, 462–464, 467 Indiana University, 12 Indigenous people, 113 Individual agency, 328, 339, 390 Inequity, 266, 267 of faculty opportunities, 360 Input-Environment-Outcome (I-E-O) framework, 502 Input-output approaches, 512 Inquiry-based knowledge, 428 In-school suspension, 593 Institutional, 97 agents, 435 barriers to transfer, 493 navigators, 435 policies, 591 policies and benchmark, 366 prestige and productivity, 368, 369 responses to racist acts and speech, 114 structures, 342, 360, 386 theory, 271, 308 variation in faculty, 331 Institutionalism, 327–329, 390 institutions, 271, 329, 418, 422, 433, 470, 606 Instructional development, 421, 423–425 definition, 423 DEI instructional development, 447–464 Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS), 282 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 190 Integration, 499–501, 503, 507, 508, 510, 517, 519 Intellectual democracy, 58 Intellectual manhood, 49 Intercollegiate athletics, 17–18 Interdisciplinary approach, 273 Interest convergence, 644, 645, 654 Interlocking Systems of Oppression, 218 Internalized, 97 Interpersonal, 97 dimension, 117 Intersectional identities, 57 Black women, 57–59 Catholic women, 64–65

Index class considerations, 61–63 Jewish women, 63–64 Native Americans, Mexican American and Chinese students, 59–61 protestantism, 65–66 racial considerations, 57–61 religion, 63–67 Intersectionality, 425, 430–431, 520

J Jewish women, 63–64 Johns Committee, 56 Johns Hopkins University, 155 Johnson, J.M., 42 Juba Declaration on Academic Freedom and University Autonomy, 183

K K-12 educators, 594–595 K-12 schooling disciplining practices, criminal justice system, 592–593 Black and Latinx students of color, 596–598 K-12 educators, 594–595 negative consequences of suspensions and expulsion for college access, 595–596 suspensions and expulsions, 593–594 Katharine Gibbs Schools, 61 Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 1967, 170, 172 Klapper, M., 63 Klink, A., 78

L Land Grant Acts, 108 Leadership advancement, 433 Leadership development, 437 Leadership Institute (LI), 543 Learning pathway, 425, 426 Lenton, S., 78 Levin, M., 79 LGBTQIA+ students, 521 Liberal justices, 573 Ling, 60 Longitudinal causal inference approaches, 310 Los Angeles Mission, 617 Lovejoy, A.O., 158 Lowe, M., 37 Lucy Cobb Institute, 42

675 M Macaulay, A., 50 Macro-level ideologies, 633, 646 Mahoney, K., 64 Malkiel, N., 74 Manekin, S., 70 Marthers, P., 73 Masculinities, 48 aggressive models of manhood, 49 athletics, 51–52 expectations and roles, 48–50 form gentlemen, 48 fraternities, 50–51 gay identity and campus purges, 53–56 intellectual manhood, 49 mass media, 52–53 Mass murders California, 551 Jackson State College, 548 Kent State University’s, 548 lowa university, 549 Northern Illinois campus, 550 research methodology, 552 UCC campus, 552 University of Texas, 547, 548 Virginia Tech, 550 Material consequences, 97 of whiteness, 97, 98, 105, 126, 128, 131 McCandless, A., 41 Mecklin, J., 158 Mentoring, 333, 335, 336, 338, 343, 344, 350, 354–357, 365, 369, 375, 378, 381, 386, 388, 422, 435, 436 Mentorship, 444 Meriwether v. Hartop (2021), 170, 176 Merriam Report, 59 Meso-level structures, 633 Metacognitive learning, 429, 461–462 Microaggression, 438, 440 Miller-Bernal, L., 71 Miller v. University of South Alabama, 2010, 175 Mimetic and normative isomorphism, 293 Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), 171 Minimization of racism, 110 Minoritized Faculty Leadership, 437–438 Minoritized students, 521 Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), 295 Mitchell, H., 47 Moderate enlightenment, 154 Momentum, 505 Morrill Act, 155

676 Moser Transfer Student Capital Construct, 514 Mullaney, M.M., 61 Multidimensionality of whiteness, 97 Multi-paradigmatic inquiry, 309 Multiple marginality, 418 Multipurpose college, 155 Music Vale Seminary, 46

N National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), 650 National Institute for Transformation and Equity (NITE), 635 National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN), 436 National Rifle Association, 543 National Sciences Foundation, 419 National security, 84 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), 636 National Survey of Transfer Student Initiatives, 497 Native Americans, Mexican American and Chinese students, 59–61 NCAA v. Alston, 17 Negro Ivy League, 295 Neo-institutionalism, 184 Neoliberalism, 267, 273, 641, 645 New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prison (NJ-STEP), 608 Nidiffer, J., 76 Non-tenure-track faculty, 166, 167, 169, 191, 330, 331, 418 North Carolina’s flagship university, 50 Northwestern University faculty, 186

O Oates, M., 65 Ogren, C., 68 Olympic sports, 3 Onboarding, 422, 433, 434, 445 Ontological expansiveness, 112 Oppression, 97 Organizational culture, 434 Originalist theory, 541 Out-of-school suspension, 593

P Participatory action research (PAR), 248–250 Part-time faculty, 420

Index People of Color, 97–101, 105, 107, 111–113, 117, 119–121, 123, 126–128, 131, 132, 134–136, 139, 140 Performance-based funding metrics, 288 Performance-based funding models, 286 Performance-based policy environment, 304 Perkins, A., 73, 83 Perkins, L., 44, 57, 80 Permit-less carry, 542 Ph.D. career pathways career choices, 347 faculty positions, 350, 351 faculty preparation in doctoral education, 352 mental health and wellbeing, 347 non-academic careers growth of, 348 research processes, 352, 354 service and service-oriented engagement, 356, 358 teaching and mentoring, 354, 356 work-life balance, 347 Ph.D. student labor postdoctoral labor precarity, 377 postdoctoral trends on faculty pathways, 380 Philanthropy, 81–82, 286 Physical democracy, 58 Physical separation of spaces, 69 Pickering balancing process, 176 Pickering v. Board of Education (1968), 173 Platt, E., 61 Policy reform, 286–288 Pomona College, 5 Postdoctoral labor precarity, 377, 378, 380 Postdoctoral research positions, 350, 384 Postdoctoral trends on faculty pathways, 380, 381 Postsecondary education, incarcerated individuals, 602 benefits of prison education programs, 604–605 law and policies, 602–604 variability in access to prison education programs, 605–607 Postsecondary institutions, 333, 336 Post-transfer student’s experience engagement, 499, 501–505 integration, 499–501 sense of belonging, 507–509 students’ adjustment, 499 students’ momentum, 505, 506 transfer shock, 497, 499 transfer student identity, 510, 511 vertical and horizontal transfers, 496

Index Poulson, S., 71 Power, 30 Pre-academic freedom period, 153–157 Precarity/scarcity mindset, 642 Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program, 334–337 Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP), 378 Presidential selection, 231 Prestige Mosaic, 290 institution, 296 leadership tension, 298 lenses use, 297, 298 scholarship, 299 Prestige seeking academic database searches, 290 academic offerings, 279 allocate resources, 280 athletics, 279 Carnegie classification, 300 centering equity, 311, 313 centers equity, 270 costly spending activities, 268 critical frameworks, 305 deepening problematization, 301, 302 definition, 275 demonstrate institutions, 276 dominant theoretical lenses, 289 enrollment, 268 equity, 312 globalization, 275 higher education, 268 higher education institutions, 275 HSI grant funding, 304 institutional logics, 307 institutional theory, 299 intangible aspects, 282, 283 interplay, 303, 305 lenses and traditions, 308, 309 marketing/branding, 279 policymakers, 269 policy mechanism, 269 problematic implications, 268 problematization, 300, 301 public services, 267 qualitative exploration, 305 vs. reputation building, 283, 284 research, 269 research facilities, 276, 278 scholarship, 270 state-level policy changes, 267 striving behavior, 306 striving institutions, 276

677 student levers, 280, 281 tangible aspects, 276, 277, 281, 282 trickiness, 285 Preston, J.A., 39 Previous research about transfer students’ experiences transfer receptive culture, 516, 518, 519 transfer student capital, 513, 515 validation theory, 515, 516 Prior knowledge, 427, 441 Prison education programs barriers, 609–611 benefits of, 604–605 funding for, 607 incarcerated individuals’ work and schooling schedules, conflicts between, 610 limited access to student services, program completion, 610–611 meta-analysis, 604 racial/ethnic groups, 605 student enrollment in, 603, 605 types of, 607–609 unanticipated/anticipated changes in position/status, within and between prisons, 609 variability, 605–607 Prison Graduation Initiative, 608 Professional development, 420–422, 429, 437, 440, 445, 449, 453, 461, 464, 467 Professionals and gender, 75 deans, 75–78 faculty, 79–81 philanthropy, 81–82 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), 188 Progressive movement, 157 Project Rebound, 615, 616 Promotion and tenure, 436 Protestantism, 65–66 Proto-academic freedom, 154 Puaca, L., 84 Purposeful womanhood for Black women, 58

Q Qualitative or mixed-methods, 634 Qualitative/quantitative methodologies, 635 QuantCrit approach, 282 author positionality, 634–636 complex racialized quantitative systems, 632

678 QuantCrit (cont.) critiqued quantitative, 637, 638 eugenics rise, 647, 648 few caveats, 634 highlighting racial context role, 639 indigenous communities, 634 inequitable education policy, 639 lens, 302 macro-level ideologies, 633 multi-level structural analysis, 633 neoliberalism, 641–643, 648–650 outer edges/expanding critique, 640 power dynamics, 641 power inequities, 635 QRC, 657 quantitative research systems, 633, 647 quantitative systems, 633 racial bias, numbers, 638, 639 racialized quantitative inquiry, 655, 656 social justice, 656 sociological researchers, 645–647 theoretical integration, 633 Quantitative data systems, 632 Quantitative methodologies, 632 Quantitative Research Complex (QRC), 633 characteristics, 653 elements, 654 higher education organizations, 651 hyper-surveillance schemas, 652 inequalities, 653 inequitable distribution of resources, 654 interconnected social structures, 652 largescale datasets, 651 legitimizes Western neoliberal, 654 NELS/BPS surveys, 650 neoliberal rationalities, 650 positivist research structures, 655 quantitative data systems, 651 socially constructed system, 653 Quasiexperimental methods, 310 Queer Man on Campus:A History of Non-Heterosexual College Men, 1945–2000, 53

R Race, 99 Race-conscious admissions cases, 178–180 Racial arrested development, 112 Racial attitudes, 99 Racial capitalism, 641

Index Racial equity, 420 Racial/ethnic marginalized students, 492 Racial identity, 99, 120, 122, 123 Racialization of institutional spaces, 115 Racialized quantitative systems, 633 Racialized space, 115, 116 Racially minoritized people, 416 Racially minoritized women, 418 Racial performances, 119 Racial sociological theory, 652 Racism, 100–102, 104–106, 110–115, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 129, 130, 134, 136, 139, 438, 440, 638 Racist ideology, 272 Radcliffe College, 39, 62 Radke-Moss, A., 36, 68 Recidivism rates, 605 Red flag laws, 577 Red flags, 577 Redmond, J., 40 Reentry programs, 614 at community college level, 615 community organizations and nonprofits’ role, 616–618 Reflexivity statements, 103–108 Reimagine organizational theory, 305 Relational spirituality, 66 Religion in higher education Catholics, 64–65 Jewish women, 63–64 protestantism, 65–66 Reputation seeking, 283 Research at Women’s Colleges, 1890–1940” (2018), 80 Research processes, 352 Research support, 421, 423, 436–437 Research training, 334, 353, 371, 382 Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), 548 Restrained manhood, 49 Retention, 433 Reverse racism, 109 Reverse transfer, 486, 487, 492 Rising Scholars Network, 615 Rockefeller Library, 6 Rose, D., 83 Ross, E.A., 156

S Safe spaces, 439 Sartorius, K., 76 Scholarly writing and publication, 342

Index Scholarship, 67 Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), 424 School-to-prison nexus, 592, 593, 598, 599, 620 Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014), 179 Schwartz, 78 Science education of American girls, 29 Scott, J., 30 Scrutiny, 285 Search and recruitment, 433 Search committees, 434 Second Amendment, 540 Second Chance Pell pilot program, 591, 603 Second independence movement, 181 See science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research, 187, 188 Self-directed women, 61 Senate Bill 1391, 603 Sense of belonging, 507–509, 515, 521, 522, 525 Sensitive places, 575, 578 Service and service-oriented engagement, 356 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill), 108 Sexual harassment, 83 Sheffield Scientific School, 155 Sisterhood orders, 65 Smith, J., 46 Snake-like procession, 290 Snake metaphor, 294 Social capital, 435 Socialization, 337–339, 341, 422, 433, 435, 445, 467 cognitive apprenticeship, 341, 342 current conceptualizations of, 339–341 definition, 337 empirical challenges, 344 iterations of Weidman and colleagues’ socialization framework, 340 mentoring networks, 343, 344 scholarly writing and publication, 342, 343 stages, 338 Social justice, 635, 638, 643, 649, 656 Social mobility function of higher education, 63 Social movement theory, 83 Social network theory, 83 Social science, 591 Social systems, 364 Society for Human Resources Management, 433 Sociocultural learning, 429 theories, 425 Sociological theory, 83

679 Sociologists, 646 Solomon, B.M., 26 Spectorsky, A.C., 7 Spelman Seminary, 42 Staff development, 421 Standpoint theory, 221, 222 Stanford University, 156 Starbucks X Spotify collaboration, 209 State financial aid, 591 State-level data systems, 282 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, 162–163 STEM disciplines, 373 STEM-related academic programs, 505 Stereotypes, 108 Structural forces impacting transfer, 491 Student affairs, 78 Student agency, 339, 340, 344, 350, 362, 367, 371, 388, 390 Student Aid Index (SAI), 614 Student debt, 362–364, 373, 384 Students’ adjustment, 484, 497–499, 504, 512 Students’ cultures, 449 Students’ race/ethnicity, 489 Student success, 499, 502, 503, 508, 511, 512, 516, 517, 520, 522, 524 Subject-matter experts, 424 Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decisions, 541 Surveillance systems, 650 Sustained learning, 429, 443, 445, 458, 463 Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 172 Synnott, 59 Syrett, N.L., 50–51 Systemic racism capitalism and racism, 643 CRT, 643 intellectual property, 644 interest convergence, 644, 645 meso-level research structures, 644 whites property, 643

T Tailored faculty advancement, for racially minoritized faculty, 438–440 Talerico-Brown, J., 59 Teaching and learning, 419, 424, 428, 455, 458, 463 centers, 417, 420, 421, 423–425, 447 Teaching personnel, 183 Technocratic feminism, 84

680 Tenisha Tevis, 103 Tenure as a specific contractual arrangement, 164–166 status and future challenges of, 166–169 track faculty, 330, 357, 381, 383 Tenure track (TT) positions, 331 Testimonial injustice, 644 Test of Adult Education (TABE), 612 Texas’ gun laws, 577 The American Revolution, 293 The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 11 The Company He Keeps, 50 The Cultivation of Ivy (1976), 11 The Image:A Guide to Pseudo Events in America, 5 Thelin, J.R. A History of American Higher Education, 14–16 at Brown University, 6–8 cliometrics, 16 college admissions and images, 4–6 gaining experience in adminstration and public poliy, 10–11 higher education and public forum, 18 high school and college prep, 4 from Indiana University to University of Kentucky, 12–14 intercollegiate athletics, 17–18 in Los Angeles, 3 professor at University of Kentucky, 10 teaching, research and service, 19–20 The College of William & Mary, 11 Time magazine issue for research project, 4 at University of California, Berkeley, 8–10 Theoretical lenses, 307 The Student Personnel Point of View, 78 The Waning of the Middle Ages, 7 “Tier One” research, 296 Tolley, K., 29, 65 Transfer as an undergraduate student demographic factors, 489, 491 horizontal transfer, 486, 487 institutional barriers to transfer, 493 structural forces, 491, 493 transfer choice and search process, 488 vertical transfer, 486 Transfer-intending community college students, 494 Transfer receptive culture, 516–519 “Transfer shock” phenomenon, 497, 499 Transfer student capital, 513–515

Index Transfer student identity, 510, 511 Transformative learning, 428, 429 theories, 425 Trustees, 211, 219, 225, 232, 234, 239, 240 Turpin, A., 65

U Ulrich, L.T., 69 Umpqua Community College’s (UCC) campus, 552 Undergraduate students, 485, 522 Underground Scholars Initiative (USI), 616 Underrepresented minorities (URM), 450 Unionization, 167–168, 191 United States Constitution, 544 University of California, Berkeley, 8–10 University of Texas, 547 Unsatisfactory socialization, 435 Urofsky v. Gilmore (2000), 173 U.S. Department of Education, 598, 612 U.S. Government Accountability Office, 603 U.S. higher education, 155

V Validation theory, 515, 516 V-Dem academic freedom indices, 190 Veblen, T., 156 Verbrugge, M., 43 Vermont Carry, 542 Versace X H&M collaboration, 209 Vertical transfer, 485–489, 495, 498, 501, 503, 505, 511–513, 516, 520, 522, 523 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 603 Virginia Tech mass shooting, 550

W Walton, A., 81 Wartime campuses, 70 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), 171 White institutional presence, 111 Whiteness and white college students, 120 Whiteness as an ideology, 98, 99, 108, 131, 132, 135, 138 Whiteness as property, 113, 644, 654 Whiteness as racial comfort, 113 Whiteness-at-work, 118

Index Whiteness in U.S. higher education approaches to the work, 126 classroom experiences, 117 co-curricular experiences, 116 color-evasiveness, 110 critical dimensions of whiteness model, 131 curricular and co-curricular learning, 127 CWDM, 133 diversity regimes and discourse, 114, 115 epistemologies of ignorance, 112 implications for practice and policy, 135 institutional responses to racist acts and speech, 114 internalized dimension of whiteness, 120 interpersonal dimension of, 117 methods, methodologies, and orientation, 126 ontological expansiveness, 112 policy implications, 128 qualitative research, 137, 138 quantitative research, 139, 140 racial comfort, 113 racialization of institutional spaces, 115 racial performances, 119 reflexivities and positionalities, 126 theory and research, 128 white educators and administrators implications, 129 white faculty and administrators, 125 white institutional presence, 111 whiteness as property, 113 whiteness-at-work, 118 white racial frame, 111 white students’ engagements with whiteness, 122 white students’ not working through whiteness, 123 white students’ racial attitudes and ideologies, 123

681 white students’ racial meaning making, 121 white students’ working through whiteness, 122 Whiteness studies, 97, 98, 100, 101, 135, 140 White people, 98 White racial frame, 111 White students, 100, 105, 107, 109, 111–113, 115–124, 127, 129, 137, 138 White supremacy, 99, 100, 105, 107–109, 114–116, 119, 120, 122, 124–127, 129, 130, 132, 133, 136, 140 Wide-angle studies femininities, 36–39 masculinities, 48–50 Wieman v. Updegraff, 1952, 172 Wilkie, L., 51 Williams, T., 49 Women-as-victim model, 25 Women deans, 77 Women’s Higher Education in the United States:New Historical Perspectives (2018), 29 Women’s history development, 31 Working-class women students, 62 Wright, C.E., 48 Wright, W., 55

Y Yale University, 73 Youth participatory action research (YPAR), 249

Z Zero-tolerance policies, 593 Zeta Psi fraternity life, 51 Zueblin, C., 158