Abstract
The case study highlights the experience of a new white student affairs professional as she navigates a conversation with a Black female student who wishes to change her major from STEM to humanities but is struggling with having this conversation with her parent, who is passionate about her STEM studies.
Keywords: Students of color; major change; career services; parental support
Primary Characters
Charlene (she/her): Charlene is a new student affairs professional who is in her first year at State University, working in their Career Center as a Career Counselor. She is a White, straight, cisgendered woman. Charlene reports to Dr. Turftin.
Kammy (she/her): Kammy is a second-semester first-year student at State University studying a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. She is a Black, straight, cisgendered woman.
Mark (he/him) Mark is a student affairs professional in his third year at State University and fifth year working in the field of student affairs. He is an academic advisor within the School of Engineering, who specifically works with Civil Engineering students. Mark is a White, gay, cisgendered male.
Bree (she/her): Bree is Kammy’s mother and works as a radiological technician at a teaching hospital three hours north of State University. Bree is a Black, straight, cisgendered woman. She is a single mother of two children. While Bree earned an Associate’s Degree and has certifications for her career, she is extremely proud of Kammy for being the first person in their family to attend a four-year institution and as a woman in STEM.
Dr. Turftin (he/him): Dr. Turftin is the Director of Career Development at State University and Charlene’s direct supervisor. He is a White, straight, cisgendered man. He has been known to be very open about his religious and political beliefs, and how he believes they should play a larger role in university practices and policy decisions.
Context and Case
State University is a medium-sized, public, state institution. The school is located in the northeast United States and is a predominantly white institution (PWI). The university is known for its International Business program and its Civil Engineering program, though the entire School of Engineering is well-funded and highly ranked. Though the school is a PWI, the institution has made strides in diversifying the student body through recruitment efforts, improving the racial diversity of the campus by 3% in the past two years. That said, there is still plenty of work to be done. State U has made especially strong efforts to promote enrollment for BIPOC women in STEM, supported by competitive scholarship offers.
As a direct result of these efforts, Kammy, an 18-year-old Black woman, decided to attend State University for their Civil Engineering program. She made her decision in part because of the scholarship she received which covered a large portion of her tuition. Kammy is the first in her family to attend a four-year institution and knows that her family is very proud of her. Kammy likes civil engineering, but after taking English 101 and beginning English 102 for her general education credits in her second semester, she began to fall in love with reading, writing, and all things literature. Now, as she is planning her course schedule for the first semester of her second year, she is not excited about any of her engineering courses and wishes she could replace them with English courses instead.
On Monday she had her semesterly visit with her Academic Advisor, Mark. During the conversation, she confessed her feelings to him, saying, “I am worried that I have chosen the wrong path. I don’t enjoy engineering as much as I love other subjects and I don’t see a lot of peers in my classes who look like me. It’s been hard to feel like I belong here.” Though he said he would be sad to see her leave the Civil Engineering program, Mark recommended to Kammy that she could explore changing her major. He encouraged her to speak with staff at the university’s Career Center about her options. Kammy then sent an email to the Career Center requesting an appointment to discuss her options. As a first step, the staff member she spoke with recommended that Kammy take the Strong Interest Inventory, a career assessment that assists students with major and career change decisions. Kammy agreed and scheduled an interpretation session with Charlene.
At the Career Center appointment on Tuesday, Kammy met with Charlene, one of the Career Counselors in the office. Charlene and Kammy went through the inventory, which gave Kammy a “theme code” that could describe her professional personality and tendencies, and also a list of the top 10 careers that aligned with Kammy’s interests. Charlene said, “This inventory is not a ‘magic pill’ that can tell you exactly what you should do with your life.” She went on to explain that the results can be used as a tool to provide a starting point to see how Kammy’s interests aligned with other women certain fields. Some of Kammy’s top 10 careers included technical writer, editor, and multiple medical fields. Kammy’s test even said that she could be a bartender, which she was confused by until Charlene explained that her inventory had that too and most likely was because of her social and artistic nature, as presented in her “theme code.”
Kammy felt validated by the test, seeing that careers involving literature seemed to align with her, but she had fears about disappointing her mother. She confessed to Charlene that she was scared her mother would not approve of her decision to switch majors from something is STEM to something in the humanities, especially given Kammy’s STEM scholarship to State University.
Charlene and Kammy talked at length about how the decision is ultimately Kammy’s and depends on many variables, such as her financial situation, her relationships, her life and career goals, and her own values. Charlene proposed that if Kammy truly wanted to switch majors but did not wish to make that decision behind her mother’s back, Kammy could do research on the financial aspects of the decision, possible career future, and other elements before proposing the idea to her mother. Kammy agreed and decided to gather information and then speak with her mother later that week.
On Friday of that same week, the Career Center received a call from someone asking to speak with Charlene. When Charlene answered, she discovered that it was Bree, Kammy’s mother. On the phone, Bree says, “I am very disappointed in the way the Career Center interfered with Kammy’s education. I was so upset to hear how your advising convinced Kammy to abandon a very important career future in STEM for something that could disappoint her in the future and won’t give her the same financial security as her current academic program.”
Further into the discussion, Bree also mentioned that her daughter had shown her the Strong Interest Inventory results. “Your test told my daughter to be a bartender!” Bree asserted. “That isn’t something that should be used in major or career change decisions if it gives students these kinds of results. What kind of Career Center is this?”
In response, Charlene explains the inventory to Bree, saying, “The Strong Interest Inventory is a test that measures a student’s interests but does not have a means to measure values or current skills. It also sometimes pulls results such as bartender because of tendencies leaning towards enjoying social interactions or creativity.” Charlene also apologizes that Bree was disappointed in the test.
Bree also called the Director of the Career Center, Dr. Turftin, to inform him of her disapproval of the Career Center’s services and the results and subsequent advising the Strong Interest Inventory had given her daughter.
Dr. Turftin then called Charlene into his office. Without asking Charlene to explain her meeting with Kammy, he says, “I have just gotten off the phone with the mother of a student you advised on a Strong. You handled this situation poorly and should have understood the lengths that State University has made to bring in more women of color to our STEM programs. Once you found out about Kammy’s mother’s wishes for her career, you should have respected this and not interfered with her decision further. From here on, remember that we only provide the results of the inventory, not suggestions for how to use them.”
Charlene leaves the director’s office questioning her advising as well as the “office standard” she has just been informed of. Charlene wonders, “How can we empower students without providing them our complete advice or cutting ourselves short to only respect a parent’s wishes or concerns and not the student’s?”
Discussion Questions
- How would you have advocated for Kammy in this situation, as a Black woman working to get into a field commonly populated by White men, wanting to change majors?
- How would you have reacted to Bree, Kammy’s mother, during her phone call to the office?
- If you were Charlene, how would you have navigated the conversation with your director telling you that you handled the situation poorly?
Taya Andrews (she/her) serves as an Academic Advisor within the College of Business and Technology at Winthrop University. She earned her M.Ed. in student affairs at Clemson University and graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts in English, emphasis in Creative Writing.