Category: Volume 23, Issue 2

We meet Them before They know who They are.

 

Before the confidence in their voices,
before the major is set with certainty,
before the friend groups settle,
and the homesickness softens into new routine.

 

They arrive waves of rolling suitcases

Boxes stuffed to the brim
and overpacked expectations in tow

carrying dreams stitched together

from late nights, hard choices.

And the quiet courage it takes to start over

over in a place where everything feels both exciting

and overwhelmingly new.

 

Schedules clutched like lifelines,
not out of fear,
but out of determination
to belong,
to make this place Their own.

 

Students introducing Themselves
time and time again,

voices and hands attempting to be steady,

risking awkwardness

and unfamiliar spaces
for the chance at connection.

 

We see Them before They know who They are.

 

We are there,

not in the photos They will post,

not in the stories They will tell later,

but in the quiet structure of the institution.

 

We witness the strength it takes

to step onto a campus

and decide,

day after day,

to stay,

to grow,

to risk.

To become what we know They can.

 

We help Them before They know who They are.

 

We carry Their uncertainty
like something fragile.

We answer the same questions a hundred times a day,
knowing the question is rarely about the program
or the schedule
or the room number.

It is about reassurance.
About permission to be unsure.
About someone steady
in the middle of so much change.

 

We carry Their questions.

Where do I belong?
Am I ready?
What if I fail?

 

It’s the student pretending They are not overwhelmed.
The student who smiles through fear.
The one who says, “I’m fine,”
and lingers just a moment longer our desk.

 

We carry the late-night emails,
unspoken anxieties,
and the invisible weight
of being a safe space on a campus full of transitions.

 

They will not remember
every moment
or every carefully planned program.

 

But They will remember
the feeling of being guided,
of being seen
before They fully see Themselves.

 

We carry their stories
before They are even written.

We watch them arrive uncertain
to this place,
to this chapter,
sometimes even to themselves.

 

And while they are busy
becoming who they are meant to be,
we stand at the threshold
of Their hero’s journey.

carrying Their fears,
their questions,
their potential,

until, slowly,
they no longer need us to hold so much
of who they are becoming.

 

We know Them after They know who They are.

 

Author Biography

Tyler Brown (he/him) is a Summer Start Program Coordinator at Clemson University, originally from Ottumwa, Iowa. He is a Graduate from Clemson University’ Masters of Higher Education and Student Affairs program and got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa.

Introduction 

“Yes Sir.” For us, these words are not just a response. They are a way of understanding how to relate to authority. They reflect how we were raised, how we learned to show respect, and how we were taught to navigate professional and educational spaces.  As African international graduate assistants, our understanding of authority and professional relationships did not begin in the United States. It was shaped in African classrooms, communities, and workplaces where hierarchy mattered, where authority was rarely questioned, and where respect was expressed through deference, agreement, and careful communication.

When we entered higher education in the United States, we encountered a different expectation. We were asked to speak up, share ideas, challenge perspectives, and engage with supervisors and professors as colleagues rather than subordinates. What was framed as collaboration and openness in this new context often felt unfamiliar and, at times, uncomfortable. This shift is not simply about adjusting communication styles. It is about navigating deeply rooted cultural understandings of power, respect, and professional identity. For many African international graduate assistants, the transition from hierarchical to more collegial relationships with supervisors is not immediate. It requires unlearning, relearning, and ongoing negotiation.

In this article, we draw on our experiences as African international graduate assistants to explore how cultural background shapes relationships with supervisors and professors in U.S. higher education. We examine how differences in power dynamics and communication expectations can create moments of tension, misunderstanding, and growth. We also offer practical insights for student affairs professionals, supervisors, and faculty who seek to better support international graduate students as they navigate transitions to graduate education in the U.S. – both in and out of the classroom. By centering our experiences, we aim to move beyond assumptions about engagement, professionalism, and initiative and instead invite a more culturally informed understanding of how students relate to authority in higher education settings.

“Yes Sir”: Where It Began

Emmanuel

My “Yes Sir” moment began during my time as a teaching assistant at the University of Cape Coast. In that environment, my role was clear: follow direction. Whether it was grading, organizing tutorials, or supporting faculty, I waited to be told what to do. At the time, this did not feel limiting; it felt normal. It was how the system worked. Initiative was not discouraged explicitly, but it was not expected either. Acting without instruction could even feel inappropriate. So I learned to wait, to ask, and to confirm before acting.

Over time, this shaped how I saw myself in professional spaces. I became dependent on direction. Even when I noticed problems that needed attention, I hesitated. Should I act? Or should I ask first? Most of the time, I chose to ask. This experience made me disciplined and attentive. It taught me how to follow through and respect structure. But it did not teach me how to act independently.

When I transitioned into my graduate assistantship in the United States, I carried this mindset with me. I entered meetings, waiting for direction. I approached tasks expecting instruction. But instead, I was told something unfamiliar: “You are a colleague here. You can take initiative.” I heard the words, but I did not fully understand them. Being called a ‘colleague’ felt empowering but also confusing. I was being invited into a role I had not been trained to occupy.

Shadrack

My experience reflects a similar pattern to Emmanuel’s. During my national service as a teaching assistant at the University of Cape Coast, I worked closely with professors and students. It was a meaningful experience that strengthened my academic and professional skills. I learned about grading, assessment, and pedagogy, and I gained insight into how academic departments function.

However, the structure of that environment was deeply hierarchical. Professors were highly respected and often placed on a pedestal. There was both a visible and invisible distance between them and those who worked with them. As teaching assistants, we operated within those boundaries.

We followed instructions. We executed tasks. We rarely contributed to decisions.

There were moments when teachers developed course designs without input from teaching assistants. Even when we had ideas, we often kept them to ourselves. Not because we lacked insight, but because the system did not invite it.

“Yes, Sir” became a way of navigating that space, an agreement that maintained order, even when it limited participation. These experiences shaped how we understood authority. They taught us what it meant to be respectful, but they also shaped our understanding of what was possible within professional relationships.

Cultural Background and Relationships with Authority

The way African international students relate to supervisors and professors is shaped by cultural values, social expectations, and early experiences with authority. In many African societies, respect for elders and those in authority is deeply embedded in everyday life. This respect is not only about politeness; it is a way of maintaining order and harmony in relationships. From a young age, individuals are taught to listen carefully, follow instructions, and avoid openly challenging those in positions of authority. These expectations carry into educational and professional settings, where authority figures such as teachers, supervisors, and community leaders are often approached with deference. Cultural values, including communal responsibility and respect for hierarchy, shape how individuals communicate and behave in professional environments (Oppong, 2013).

This cultural orientation is closely connected to collectivist values. In collectivist societies, individuals see themselves as part of a group, and maintaining harmony within that group is often prioritized over expressing individual opinions. In the Ghanaian context, for example, identity is closely tied to community, family, and social relationships, and these connections influence how individuals interact with others, including those in authority (Oppong, 2013). As a result, even when students have questions, they may choose caution, humility, and agreement in their interactions with supervisors and professors.

Research on cultural dimensions further explains these patterns. Ghana is characterized by a high level of power distance, meaning that hierarchical relationships are widely accepted and expected (Hofstede, 1980; Hofstede et al., 2011). In such contexts, authority figures are often seen as decision-makers and sources of direction, while those in subordinate positions are expected to follow guidance rather than question it. This structure shapes expectations in professional relationships, where speaking up or challenging ideas may not feel appropriate or comfortable.

African international students encounter a different set of expectations when they enter higher education settings in the United States. In many U.S. academic and professional environments, relationships between students and faculty are less formal. Students are encouraged to share their ideas, ask questions, and engage in open dialogue. Supervisors may expect initiative, independence, and even disagreement as part of professional growth.

For African international students, this shift can be difficult to navigate. Behaviors that signal respect in one context may be interpreted differently in another. For instance, a student who remains quiet during meetings or avoids challenging a professor may be seen as disengaged or lacking confidence. However, this behavior may actually reflect a cultural understanding of respect and professionalism rooted in their upbringing.

Communication styles also play a role in these dynamics. In many African contexts, communication can be more indirect, with meaning conveyed through tone, context, and nonverbal cues. This contrasts with more direct communication styles often expected in U.S. academic environments. As a result, students may find it challenging to express disagreement, ask for clarification, or advocate for themselves in ways that align with local expectations.

These cultural differences highlight the importance of understanding the background that African international students bring with them. Cultural values do not disappear when students enter new environments; instead, those values continue to shape how students engage. Work behavior and interaction patterns are closely linked to cultural and social values, and these influences remain strong even as individuals adapt to new settings (Oppong, 2013).

For student affairs professionals, supervisors, and faculty, recognizing these dynamics is critical. Recognition allows for a more thoughtful interpretation of student behavior and reduces the risk of misjudging silence or deference as a lack of engagement. Creating inclusive environments means not only encouraging participation but also understanding the cultural frameworks at play. Ultimately, the relationship between African international students and their supervisors or professors is shaped by a negotiation between cultural values and new expectations. As students learn to navigate less formal power dynamics, they are not simply adapting to a new system; they are also redefining what respect, professionalism, and engagement mean in a different cultural context.

Communication as a Site of Tension

Communication is where power, culture, and professional identity intersect for African international graduate assistants. Differences between African and U.S. communication norms often become most visible in everyday interactions such as email exchanges, meetings, and supervisory relationships. These differences are shaped by culturally embedded understandings of authority, respect, and social hierarchy.

Formality vs. Informality

African communication styles are generally influenced by respect for authority, which tends to produce more formal modes of interaction. Titles such as “Sir,” “Madam,” or “Doctor” are not merely polite additions but signify recognition of hierarchy and social order (Oppong, 2013). Communication with supervisors is often structured, deferential, and cautious, reflecting deeply ingrained cultural expectations about how one engages with authority figures.

In contrast, many U.S. higher education environments operate within relatively low-power-distance frameworks, where informality is normalized and encouraged. Graduate assistants may be expected to address supervisors by their first names, use a conversational tone in emails, and engage in collegial dialogue. For African international graduate assistants, this shift can be disorienting. What is intended as respect in one context may be perceived as excessive formality in another, while informality may be perceived as inappropriate or disrespectful.

This tension often requires African graduate assistants to code-switch, adjusting their tone, language, and communication style. The transition from “Yes Sir” to first-name interactions is not simply linguistic but represents a deeper shift in students’ understanding of how professional relationships are enacted.

Speaking Up and Disagreeing

Voice and participation are closely related to communication style. In many African contexts, speaking up, especially in ways that challenge authority, is often discouraged. Cultural norms emphasize listening, obedience, and respect. As a result, individuals may avoid openly disagreeing with supervisors or authority figures, even when they have valuable insights or alternative perspectives. Wanasika et al. (2011) noted that high power distance cultures tend to reinforce expectations of unquestioned obedience and directive leadership. Similarly, Oppong (2013) highlighted that employees in such contexts are often socialized to follow instructions rather than engage in critical dialogue. These patterns can carry over into academic and professional environments abroad.

In U.S. higher education, however, graduate assistants are expected to actively contribute, question ideas, and engage in critical discussions. Participation is frequently interpreted as a sign of competence and engagement. For African international graduate assistants, this expectation may conflict with prior socialization, leading to hesitation to speak up. This does not reflect a lack of knowledge but rather a different understanding of appropriate professional behavior.

Fear of Misinterpretation

These differences in communication norms can also generate a heightened sense of vulnerability, particularly the fear of being misunderstood or misjudged. African international graduate assistants may be uncomfortable speaking up, while also worrying that remaining reserved might be interpreted as disengagement. Communication is about conveying information and also about negotiating identity. The risk of misinterpretation can therefore lead to self-monitoring where individuals carefully filter their contributions to avoid negative judgments.

Additionally, accents, language differences, and cultural expressions may contribute to concerns about being misunderstood. Even when communication is clear, differences in tone, phrasing, or nonverbal cues are interpreted through unfamiliar cultural lenses. This reinforces feelings of marginalization, particularly when feedback is not explicitly communicated or when expectations are not clarified.

Rethinking Supervision: What Professionals Should Know

 

The supervisory relationship is one of the most important spaces where cultural differences in power, communication, and professional identity become visible. For African international graduate assistants, supervision is not just about completing tasks or receiving feedback. It is also a space where deeply held cultural understandings of authority are challenged, reshaped, and, at times, misunderstood. Therefore, effective supervision requires intentional, culturally informed practices that move beyond assumptions and create space for mutual learning.

Practicing Cultural Humility

First, supervisors must approach their work with cultural humility. It is easy to interpret behaviors such as silence, deference, or hesitation as a lack of confidence or engagement. However, for many African international graduate assistants, these behaviors are rooted in cultural values that emphasize respect. Cultural humility means recognizing that one’s own understanding is not universal and requires supervisors to remain curious and willing to learn from students’ experiences. Instead of asking, “Why is this student not speaking up?” supervisors might ask, “What cultural expectations might be shaping how this student engages?” This shift in perspective allows for more meaningful relationships.

Clarifying Expectations Explicitly

In many U.S. higher education environments, expectations around communication, autonomy, and initiative are often implied rather than stated. For African international graduate assistants, this lack of clarity can create confusion. Supervisors can make expectations explicit by stating

• how communication should occur (e.g., email tone, use of first names, meeting participation)
• what initiative looks like in practice
• how decisions are made and how input should be provided

When expectations are clearly communicated, students can begin to navigate their roles with greater confidence and understanding.

Encouraging Questions and Normalizing Uncertainty

Another important aspect of supervision is creating an environment where questions are welcomed and uncertainty is normalized. In many African contexts, asking too many questions, especially to authority figures, may be seen as inappropriate. As a result, students may hesitate to seek clarification. Supervisors can counter this by:

• inviting questions
• framing uncertainty as a natural part of learning
• reassuring students that asking questions is a sign of engagement, not weakness

Simple statements such as “It’s okay not to know yet” or “Feel free to ask questions anytime” can go a long way in reducing hesitation and building trust. 

Providing Structured Guidance and Gradual Autonomy

African international graduate assistants may initially expect structured guidance. Being told to “take initiative” without context can feel unclear or overwhelming. Supervisors can support this transition by offering structure early on. This might include:

• Clear task breakdowns
• Specific examples of expected outcomes
• Regular check-ins

As students become more comfortable, supervisors can gradually increase expectations for independence. This developmental approach allows students to build confidence while adapting to new professional norms.

Building Relationships Through Consistency and Trust

For many African international graduate assistants, trust develops over time through consistently supportive interactions. Supervisors who follow up on previous conversations, check in regularly, and show genuine interest in students’ experiences create a sense of safety. This relational approach is especially important for students navigating unfamiliar systems. When students feel seen and understood, they are more likely to share their ideas, ask questions, and take initiative.

Moving from Assumption to Understanding

Ultimately, rethinking supervision requires recognizing that behaviors are shaped by cultural contexts. Adaptation is a process, not an immediate outcome. By practicing cultural humility, clarifying expectations, encouraging questions, providing structured support, and building trusting relationships, supervisors can create environments where African international graduate assistants can move more confidently from “Yes, Sir” to colleagues. This shift does not require students to abandon their cultural values. Instead, it creates space for them to integrate those values into new professional identities that are both respectful and engaged, both grounded and evolving.

Conclusion

The transition from “Yes Sir” to “colleagues” is not just about language. It is about identity. It is about learning new ways of relating to authority while holding on to deeply rooted cultural values. For African international graduate assistants, this complex transition requires unlearning, relearning, and constant negotiation alongside opportunities for growth and reflection. For student affairs professionals, the challenge is not to change students, but to understand them. By recognizing how culture shapes communication and engagement, supervisors and educators create environments where students can show respect while giving voice to their ideas.

Reflection Questions

1. How do my assumptions about professionalism shape how I interpret graduate student behavior?
2. In what ways might cultural background influence how students engage with authority in my office or classroom?
3. How can I create space for students to express their ideas without fear or feeling that they are being disrespectful?

 

Authors

Emmanuel Amankwah is a graduate student in the Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration program at Grand Valley State University. He serves as a graduate assistant at the Office of Inclusion and Equity Institute, where he coordinates learning development programs through the Inclusion and Equity Institute. His professional interests include international student support, inclusion and equity.

Shadrack Bannor is a graduate student in the College Student Personnel Program at Ohio University and a graduate assistant for Well-Being Programming and Outreach. Originally from Ghana, he has professional experience in education and student affairs that has shaped his interests in student development, intercultural experiences, and belonging. His work focuses on student well-being, leadership, and the experiences of international students navigating identity and cultural transition within higher education.

 

References

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values.

Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

 

Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online readings

            in psychology and culture, 2(1).

 

Oppong, N. Y. (2013). Towards African work orientations: Guide from Hofstede’s cultural

dimensions. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(20), 203-213.

 

Wanasika, I., Howell, J. P., Littrell, R., & Dorfman, P. (2011). Managerial leadership and culture

in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of World Business, 46(2), 234-241.

Logan was already awake when his alarm sounded at 4:00 am. Seven hundred miles stretched ahead of him and with them, the uncertainty of uprooting his family for a dream. Logan along with his spouse and child were moving away from family, friends, work, and everything familiar so he could begin his journey in law school.

As Logan drove ahead of his spouse and child, he reflected on his motivations for entering law school after working in student affairs for two years. Logan chose law school to become a hybrid higher education leader, one grounded in both educational practice and legal expertise to dismantle barriers that prevent marginalized student populations from accessing and thriving in college. And as Sarah Redfield argues in her article The Convergence Of Education And Law: A New Class Of Educators And Lawyers, education and law have also become increasingly intertwined and complex, requiring a new type of lawyer and administrator that is versed in the complexities of both the law and educational administration to effectively function in the complex regulatory field of education. Being an administrator with formal training in law would allow Logan to better navigate the numerous federal, state, and local statutes affecting education and better serve an increasingly diverse student population.[1]

Law School Culture Shock

Getting accepted into law school was only the first barrier. Logan was older than most applicants, established in a job he loved, married, and had a baby. Becoming a new father made leaving his extended family and existing support system even more difficult.

On the first day of orientation Logan was repeatedly asked, “What kind of law do you want to practice?” While he intended to return to higher education in a leadership role leveraging his legal training to promote systemic change through legislation and policy, Logan struggled to convince classmates why a law degree would be valuable outside of the courtroom. The assumption from fellow law students was that there is only one career path for individuals entering law school, and the only way to institute any change is within the court room, litigating matters. The question that echoed through his ears, “If you are not planning to practice in the courtroom, why waste your time and money going to law school?”

Unfortunately, this narrow view extended beyond peers. Professors routinely framed success through law firm culture, such as courtroom demeanor, billable hours, and high-paying clients. These messages ignored the larger purpose of what a law degree can do to enhance employment opportunities. A law degree does not just prepare an individual to take the bar exam; it equips leaders to challenge inequitable systems, reform institutions, and expand access to justice beyond the courtroom.

Why Higher Education?

When Logan graduated from his hometown university, he became a fourth-generation graduate of Southern Utah University, with deep ties that extended beyond academics. Logan’s father, instilled in him the transformative power of education and the inspiration to widen access for others.

Living and serving in Latinx communities deepened Logan’s commitment. For several years he worked with immigrant families who viewed education as generational hope. He provided community service and tutoring to individuals in these communities, many of whom were immigrants. He saw the sacrifices they made so that their children would have opportunities the parents could only dream of. He also saw the inequities and forced survival labor that individuals from these communities had to endure despite having high levels of education. One father, a Venezuelan therapist with a master’s degree, had to stock shelves at a grocery store overnight, and Honduran parents with bachelor’s degrees were forced to work manual labor to provide the basics for their children. These are examples that education opened some doors, but inequitable systems kept many others closed.

After graduating with his bachelor’s degree Logan secured a role as an academic advisor, further igniting his passion for student success goals. In this role, he became increasingly aware of how the intersections of students’ identities impacted the types of barriers or privileges they faced in obtaining a degree. Logan remembers speaking with one student, who was a mother and a member of the Navajo nation, about the obstacles she faced maintaining a high GPA to preserve tribal funding while serving as her child’s primary caregiver. Her story revealed how policy structure, though seemingly neutral, disproportionately burdened marginalized students. These interactions made him think deeply about barriers individuals face in pursuing higher education and how policies work to enforce those barriers. These experiences shaped his purpose in student affairs to lead systemic reform in higher education so that opportunity is not determined by identity.

Motivation for Law School

When Logan explained his path, people often asked, “Why law school instead of a Ph.D.?” Throughout his educational journey, he reflected on the challenges he faced pursuing an education in a rural community and his experiences working with Latinx populations providing community service and tutoring. He became increasingly aware of systemic barriers that marginalized groups faced in accessing higher education.

Logan’s academic background in public administration and political science taught him three important things. First, policy is power, one that can expand opportunity for some, while disadvantaging others. Policy reflects values, and those values shape whose needs are prioritized. Second, law shapes institutions, influencing everything from how students and employees experience campus life to how offices, curriculum, and resources are structured. Law determines the boundaries of what institutions can do, making it a quiet but constant force in everyday decision making. Finally, institutions shape opportunities, not only during a student’s tenure on campus, but across their lifetime beyond graduation. Institutions create conditions that influence who struggles and whose potential is fully recognized.  Logan needed fluency in the language of the law to effectively address structural barriers in higher education.

Finding Alignment Through Inclusive Excellence

Logan’s first year of law school was disorienting, and he seriously questioned his decision to attend law school. He questioned whether he belonged and if he was chasing the right goal. Clarity came when he secured a graduate assistantship in the Office of Inclusive Excellence. There, his legal training and higher education experience converged. Logan co-led listening sessions with multicultural student organizations to identify gaps in inclusion efforts. He supported critical reading initiatives where participants challenged dominant narratives about equity and belonging. Dr. Nicholas Wright served not only as his supervisor, but also as someone to guide Logan in the higher education profession. With his supervisor’s mentorship, Logan pursued grant funding, facilitated workshops, and advanced policy reforms aimed at reducing barriers for marginalized students.

Coursework in employment discrimination, equal protection, women’s rights, and colonialism came to life as he applied what he was learning in the classroom to his position. Logan helped develop a workshop on microaggressions and utilized his knowledge of employment discrimination to inform his efforts to ensure that workshop participants would understand that microaggressions are not only demeaning to those targeted but may constitute actionable discrimination in the legal context. After completing coursework in law and colonialism, the land acknowledgment Logan and Dr. Wright included in Inclusive Excellence presentations became more than a performative measure and challenged them to reflect on what efforts he could make in his role to further the land acknowledgment from statement to practice.

Logan saw how his law degree could power equity-centered leadership roles within the field of higher education. He saw connections specifically related to positions such as Dean of Students, Title IX Coordinator, or Director of Human Resources. Law became Logan’s tool for institutional transformation.

Reclaiming Higher Education as a Site of Justice

American higher education is celebrated as a pathway to mobility, yet access remains stratified. Financial aid cuts, rising tuition, and the digital divide disproportionately exclude rural and low-income communities. Legal history underscores these inequities. In State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, where Lloyd Gaines was denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School.

Lloyd Gaines was a fully qualified Black applicant, but he was denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School because the university barred Black students by policy. Missouri argued it could satisfy “separate but equal” requirements by paying for him to attend law school in another state. Gaines challenged this structure directly, arguing that Missouri had a constitutional duty to provide equal, in‑state legal education rather than exporting Black students elsewhere. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed, ruling that the state must either admit him or create a truly equal law school for Black students within Missouri. But despite his legal victory, Gaines never enrolled. Before the state complied with the ruling, he disappeared in 1939 under unresolved circumstances and was never seen again. He therefore never attended or graduated from the University of Missouri, a stark reminder that even when the law recognizes injustice, institutional power and inequity can still determine who ultimately gains access to opportunity. This reinforces the role of power and inequity, even in the face of legal victory.

[2] Despite formal legal victories, Black students continued to face racial barriers to entering institutions of higher education. While policies and laws prohibiting individuals from attending higher education based on race may no longer be overtly practiced, the effects of those historical barriers are still seen today.

Institutions where the founders claimed a mission to educate Indigenous communities yet denied admission to Indigenous students and only enrolled White students is a contradiction of American higher education. Dartmouth is a clear example, founded in 1769 with an explicit charter to educate Indigenous youth, it quickly shifted resources, recruitment, and instruction toward White students, while Indigenous enrollment remained minimal for decades. This pattern was not simply exclusion, it was erasure of Indigenous language, culture, and identity through assimilation. This contradiction exposes how institutions have publicly claimed benevolent intent while simultaneously reinforcing systems of power and inequity that marginalized the communities they claimed to serve.

Discrimination did not end with civil rights legislation, it evolved. While federal and state statutes have been passed, seeking to prevent and address discrimination based upon various protected classes, discrimination has persisted. Many assume inequality is a relic of the past, dismissing equity efforts as unnecessary. This perspective ignores how historical injustice shapes present outcomes, especially in the field of higher education. Equity work is not focusing on the past; it is accountability in action.

The current political climate underscores this evolution. Contemporary debates over voting rights legislation and redistricting laws show how policy continues to shape whose voices carry weight and whose are constrained. These modern examples mirror the same dynamics that once excluded Indigenous students from institutions founded in their name. Laws and policies that appear neutral can still produce unequal outcomes. These histories and present‑day realities reveal how institutional power operates across time. They remind us that exclusion is not always overt, and that institutions must confront both their origins and their ongoing responsibilities if they hope to create conditions where all communities can thrive.

Conclusion

Higher education changed Logan’s life. It revealed his potential as a human being and affirmed his worth. Every student deserves this opportunity. Barriers must be dismantled, and systems must be reformed to meet the needs of marginalized populations. Laws establish minimum standards, but justice demands more than compliance.

Logan plans to utilize his knowledge of the law to push higher education institutions toward not only complying with applicable laws but going beyond the minimum standards to promote justice and equity. By integrating legal expertise with an equity-centered framework, he aims to help higher education fulfill its promise as a site of access, belonging, and justice.

The road to law school began before sunrise on a more than 700-mile drive, but Logan knows the road ahead is longer. Although the journey ahead poses challenges, it is clear we will work to build systems where opportunity is not inherited privilege, but institutional commitment.

Author Biographies

Logan Florence (He/Him/His) is a graduate student in the Gonzaga University School of Law and serves as the Inclusive Excellence Graduate Coordinator at Gonzaga University. He previously has experience as an academic advisor supporting students, and he is committed to expanding belonging in higher education, drawing on experience in program evaluation, and equity‑focused policy work.

Nicholas Lamar Wright, Ph.D. (He/Him/His) is a champion of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility who is motivated to build inclusive cultures for all people to express authenticity. He is a nationally recognized, award-winning higher education leader, scholar, and practitioner who identifies as a multiracial (Black/White) man with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Dr. Wright serves as an Assistant Vice President at Gonzaga University.

 

[1] Redfield, Sarah E. The Convergence Of Education And Law: A New Class Of Educators And Lawyers. 36 Ind. L. Rev. 609 (2003).

[2] State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938).

Meeting students where they are is a common, well-intentioned refrain in higher education. This sentiment is not only catchy but reflects the field’s commitment and enduring mission to treat students as individuals and to recognize and support their holistic learning and development (ACE, 1949; ACPA/NASPA, 2015). In fact, most graduate programs in higher education and student affairs feature courses such as student development theory, among others, to ensure educators have the tools to recognize and understand where students are (Torres et al., 2019). Our new book, Disrupting White Noise: Challenging Beliefs About Race on Campus, argues we have been going about it all wrong (Foste & Irwin, 2026); at least when it comes to white students.

Drawing on nearly a decade of research with white college students, staff, and administrators across many campuses and functional areas, we argue that higher education educators and institutions frequently rely on what we term the ‘empty vessel hypothesis’ (Foste & Irwin, 2026). The empty vessel hypothesis falsely asserts that white college students arrive to college with no knowledge about race, racism, or the racial world. Thus, white students are simply lacking knowledge and content, and through exposure to and engagement with diverse peers and knowledge, they will experience transformation. We do not discount the ways that white students are often ignorant of or dismiss the realities of racism. However, we argue that such beliefs result from a lifetime of socialization, not merely from a lack of knowledge. Put simply, white students are anything but empty vessels and continuing to treat them as such undermines campus diversity efforts.

In order to meaningfully engage white students around the realities of race, racism, and the racial world, educators must acknowledge the lifetime of knowledge and socialization white students have about race. Scholars have demonstrated how white students develop understandings of themselves as white people (Helms, 1998; Linder, 2015), the value of diversity courses and cross-racial interactions for understandings of race and diversity (Bowman & Weaver, 2023; Cabrera, 2019), as well as the ways that many campus environments often privilege white students’ experiences and comfort (Cabera, 2019; Cabrera et al., 2016; Foste & Irwin, 2023). Yet, these bodies of work rarely consider, or deeply engage with, white students’ pre-college experiences and knowledge about race and racism. This disconnect has undermined campus efforts to foster student development, diversity, and inclusion. To illustrate, we offer a few examples.

The white students we interviewed regularly offered stories and examples that indicated their keen awareness of race and the racial world. Luke, for example, shared an early memory about race from his time running cross-country:

So, we would run obviously around the school, we’d run basically within five, six miles of the school, and we’d run through the poorest parts of our neighborhood, you could get really poor, but for the most part, lower middle class to poor. And then I’d be done with my run, and then I would get in my car, drive 10 minutes, and I’d be in a gated community, that’s just the difference. And of course, gated communities are more white, almost all white, than the poorer neighborhoods are almost all Black and Latino.

 

Luke’s experiences running cross-country allowed him to observe the stark patterns of racial segregation in his community. Further, most white students recounted stories parents and other authoritative adults shared about these racial boundaries–namely, what communities, cities, or places were safe and which were dangerous, undesirable, and to be avoided. Such messages usually reflected white adults’ beliefs about the relative desirability of white spaces and the demonization of predominantly Black spaces and communities (Anderson, 2015). In another example JT recalled the messages he received about race and space:

[P]eople just say things like, “Oh, there’s a lot of crime in that neighborhood. That neighborhood isn’t a very good neighborhood, the houses in that neighborhood don’t look all that great. The people from there aren’t very nice.” And like you go through and it’s just like, “This looks like my white suburb except for the people walking outside.”

 

Students like Luke and JT received a lifetime of messages before coming to college.

When many white students come to college, they often find themselves in various racially homogenous spaces that were all or mostly white. Despite the hope that the college campus could function as a new environment that uniquely fostered cross-racial interactions and appreciation of difference, we found that many white students were tracked into predominantly white pathways. Although many white students chose meaningful experiences, such as specific majors (e.g., Music, Nursing, Teacher Education), particular residence halls, and co-curricular activities (e.g., Sorority Life, leadership programs), that were relatively isolated and predominantly white, these pathways were institutionally resourced and well supported. Campuses offered lucrative, well-resourced pathways for students’ academic, professional, and social development, effectively creating divergent social worlds.

Often, these divergent pathways begin with selecting on-campus housing. At many campuses, students selected housing on a first-come, first-served basis as soon as they paid their housing application fee. Melissa, a white woman RA, explained how one residence hall on her campus came to be known as the “white dorm”:

[The white dorm] is one of the newer halls on campus, and so it ends up getting filled the fastest. And that also means that when we open the housing selection, statistically, the [students] that end up getting their [housing] placements first are the ones who went through admissions much earlier. And they’re predominantly white, affluent folks from good K through 12 [schools] and have that support system. And so racially, with Pollard, the folks that get placed there, it’s predominantly white. And it’s predominantly affluent.

 

Next, students began taking classes and getting to know peers in their major. Several students at one campus spoke about their experiences in the College of Music, which was housed in Stevenson Hall. Several students referred to Stevenson Hall as “Stevenson High” because of the ways it felt like their high school – small, close-knit, and predominantly white. As one student explained,

The College of Music is small, and people call it Stevenson High instead of Stevenson

Hall, because it does in some ways feel like high school. Seeing the same people every

day. I wasn’t aware that pretty much everyone in the music therapy program looks like

1. It’s white women, pretty much only.

 

Further, due to the intensity of the music curriculum, music majors reported having few opportunities to take courses at other colleges or to interact with students outside their major. In effect, her college experience mirrored the small, mostly white nature of her high school.

Many students also sought to get involved on campus through clubs, leadership programs, and Greek-letter social organizations. One white woman spoke about how joining a sorority isolated her from the rest of campus, sharing: “Living in the sorority…I feel like kept me from campus, because I was like, ‘I have food. I have a study room. Everything. Printer.’ I was like ‘I don’t really…’ I didn’t really need to leave that much.” Because of the all-encompassing nature of her sorority experience, she recognized that she had few opportunities to engage in conversations about Black Lives Matter after the murder of George Floyd with her mostly white sorority peers. She explained,

[Black Lives Matter] wasn’t talked about, but I would go to campus and study last year.

Because I would go to the union occasionally or the library. I feel like there were… not

posters just saying Black Lives Matter, but ways to get involved and do things.

Yet, as she got more involved with and eventually moved into her sorority, she had fewer reasons and opportunities to branch out and leave.

Contrast these relatively isolated and homogenous pathways with staff members’ enduring beliefs about the ways college campuses could foster diversity. Many administrators we interviewed referred to campus residence halls as “laboratories” for student learning and for interactions across differences. These views were, in part, informed by assumptions that white students had never engaged across difference or considered race and identity–or that white students were empty vessels. Cindy, a white woman and senior administrator, offered the following:

So when students live in the hall, it’s just that’s such a great opportunity to really get to know people who are different. Again, we have a large population of people who come from areas that don’t have that opportunity. And so living in the halls, I mean, there is nothing like learning about somebody when you live with them, or you live near them. I mean, it’s the best chance to do that.

 

Despite college’s promise as a new environment uniquely poised to foster meaningful interactions across difference, the examples we shared illustrated how that reality is far from the truth. Rather, here, and in our book, Disrupting White Noise (Foste & Irwin, 2026), we have made three interrelated arguments. First, white students come to college with a lifetime of knowledge about the racial world–fostered through their racially segregated communities, schools, and peer networks. Second, colleges often extend and reinforce, rather than disrupt, white students’ pre-college environments and experiences. And third, colleges and educators often assume white students lack knowledge of and awareness of the racial world–or treat white students as empty vessels.

By considering and engaging white students’ pre-college experiences and knowledge, college campuses and educators can better meet white students where they are. Baxter Magolda (2002) spoke about the value of being ‘good company’, or thoughtful guides and partners, in students’ educational and developmental journeys. We argue that understanding and working to disrupt the empty vessel hypothesis is a key way educators can be good company for all students.

One way to meet students where they are is by helping them critically examine the people, places, and experiences that powerfully influenced their perspectives. For instance, many white students likely see the racially insulated and homogeneous composition of their neighborhoods and K-12 schools as happenstance or natural, rather than a product of racist policies and ideologies. Directly engaging all students, especially white students, on the concrete particulars of their pre-college lives has the potential to open up new ways of thinking about historical and contemporary forms of racism. By helping students hold their experiences and knowledge out of reflection and critique, students can examine authoritative people, places, and experiences as objects worthy of critique, rather than being subject to their influence (Baxter Magolda, 2008; Kagan, 1982). Gabby provides one example of how this can be done. She described an opportunity to learn about the historical and contemporary significance of redlining practices. She explained:

I remember just being so shocked about redlining. Well, because we discussed in that class about how a lot of a family’s wealth just comes from their ability to sell their house. And so not only is that where most racial minorities do currently live—in a former redlined housing area—but also the reason they probably can’t move out of that area is because the value of their house is not appreciated as nearly as much as white people’s houses have. And so that’s why they have less good access to education and just decreases their opportunities.

 

While Gabby benefitted from access to new knowledge about race in the form of redlining policies, this knowledge was effective and relevant because it prompted her to connect it to patterns she observed in her home community, while she reconsidered the messages she received about racial segregation. To meet students where they are, we must recognize and help them engage with the lifetime of knowledge they hold.

Reflection questions:

1. What assumptions do I hold about the knowledge college students, especially white students, (do not) have about race and the racial world? How do these assumptions shape the relationships, programs, and initiatives I support?
2. What opportunities do I have, or could I have, to help students engage with their pre-college experiences and socialization to race?
3. How do aspects of campus life potentially recreate predominantly white spaces? Or reinforce white students’ pre-college learning about race?
4. How might all students–white and racially minoritized students–benefit from policies and practices that challenge the empty vessel hypothesis?

Author Biography

Lauren N. Irwin (She/her) is an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She researches whiteness, racialization, and equity in higher education. She can be reached at lirwin6@utk.edu.

Zak Foste (He/him) is an associate professor of higher education and chair of the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies department at the University of Kansas. His research examines issues of diversity and equity in higher education, with particular attention to how whiteness structures college and university campuses. He can be reached at zfoste@ku.edu. Together, they are the authors of the newly released Harvard Education Press book: Disrupting White Noise: Challenging Beliefs About Race on Campus.

References

American Council on Education (ACE). (1949). The student personnel point of view (Rev. ed.). Author. https://www.naspa.org/report/student-personnel-point-of-view-1949

Anderson, E. A. (2015). The white space. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1(1), 10–21, https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649214561306.

Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2002). Helping students make their way to adulthood: Good company for the journey. About Campus, 6(6), 2-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/108648220200600602

Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2008). Three elements of self-authorship. Journal of College Student Development 49(4), 269-284. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/csd.0.0016

Bowman, N. A. & Weaver, K. E. (2023). The impact of diversity experiences on undergraduate student outcomes. In C. Baik & E. R. Kahu (Eds.), Research Handbook on the Student Experience in Higher Education (pp. 296-311). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Cabrera, N. L. (2019). White guys on campus: Racism, White immunity, and the myth of” post-racial” higher education. Rutgers University Press.

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://dx.doi.org/10.1353/csd.2016.0014

College Student Educators International (ACPA) & Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA). (2015). ACPA/NASPA professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners (2^nd ed.). Washington, D.C: Authors. https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/acpa_naspa_professional_competencies_final.pdf

Foste, Z., & Irwin, L. N. (2023). Race, whiteness, and student life in on-campus housing: A case study of three universities. American Educational Research Journal, 60(4), 735-768. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312231175643

Foste, Z. & Irwin, L. N. (2026). Disrupting white noise: Challenging beliefs about race on campus. Harvard Education Press.

Helms, J. E. (1998). Toward a model of white racial identity development. P. G. Altbach, K. Arnold, & I. C. King (Eds.), College Student Development and Academic Life (pp. 207-224). Routledge.

Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Harvard University Press.

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://dx.doi.org/10.1353/csd.2015.0057

Torres, V., Jones, S. R., & Renn, K. (2019). Student affairs as a low-consensus field and the evolution of student development theory as foundational knowledge. Journal of College Student Development, 60(6), 645-658. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/csd.2019.0060

Part II of the series “Still, We Rise: Translating Research, Practice, and Purpose in Student Affairs”

About This Series: This is Part II of a three-part series grounded in dissertation research on Black undergraduate women at historically white institutions. Part I established the study’s methodological framing and key themes. Part II details how those findings were translated into practice through the development of Sista Circles at the University of Georgia, tracing the partnerships, design decisions, and lived outcomes that shaped the initiative. Part III will turn to implications for practice and institutional responsibility.  

Bridging Insight to Action

She said she came to the circle because it was the only place on campus where she did not have to explain herself. No translating her experience for someone who had never lived it. No performing resilience. Just presence, and the relief of being understood.

That moment, and the many like it, is where this work lives. Part I of this series centered the narratives of Black undergraduate women at historically white institutions, revealing how hypervisibility, racialized stress, and constrained belonging shape student experience. Those narratives did more than surface challenges. They pointed to a specific absence: affirming, culturally responsive spaces where Black women could make meaning together without the labor of justification.

Sista Circles, developed at the University of Georgia, was built in response to that absence. What follows is an account of how that happened, and what it taught us about translating research into practice.

For student affairs practitioners, this work is situated within several ACPA/NASPA professional competency areas, particularly Social Justice and Inclusion, Student Learning and Development, Advising and Supporting, and Leadership. These competencies are not invoked as a checklist. They surface throughout the work as a reminded that translating student voice into affirming practice is not peripheral to our professional responsibility. It is central to it.

Why Sista Circles Had to Be Built

Part I documented what participants named across their narratives: exhaustion from hypervisibility, the weight of racial battle fatigue, and the sustaining power of community with other Black women. What that section count not fully capture was the question those findings left in their wake. If students were telling us what was missing, what was the responsible next step? For me, that question did not stay theoretical. It became a design opportunity.

I did not begin with a program model. I began with a methodology. That distinction matters because it shaped everything about how the program was conceived, not as a solution to be implemented, but as a practice to be cultivated from the inside out.

As a research approach, Sista Circles created conditions for Black women to speak freely, make meaning collectively, and be met with care rather than correction. That methodology taught me something no program manual could: when students are given a space that genuinely meets them where they are, they show up fully. They bring their whole selves, their frustrations and their brilliance, their doubt and their clarity. The question became how to honor that in a sustained way, not just in the context of a study, but as an ongoing, institutional commitment.

Three patterns from that research shaped everything that followed. Students described hypervisibility without agency, being seen constantly but rarely on their own terms (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; Kelly, et al., 2021). They named microaggressions and racial battle fatigue as ongoing, cumulative stressors (Corbin et al., 2018; Donovan & Guillory, 2017; Kelly et al., 2021; Smith, 2004; Winkle-Wagner, 2015). And they consistently identified community as a critical source of support, making clear that belonging is relational, not incidental (Strayhorn, 2018). Each of these was not just a finding to be noted. Each was a signal about what a program would need to provide, and equally, what it would need to avoid.

These findings draw on traditions of Black feminist thought, particularly Patricia Hill Collins’s emphasis on dialogue and lived knowledge as central to how understanding is constructed (Collins, 2000), and Cynthia B. Dillard’s concept of an endarkened feminist epistemology, where knowing is embodied, relational, and connected to care (Dillard, 2008). These frameworks do not simply inform the program. They give it its ethical grounding. They insist that what students know from living their lives is not supplementary to institutional knowledge. It is a legitimate and necessary source of it. Designing a program that reflected this meant treating students experience not as a context for a solution, but as the foundation of one.

That shift, from listening to students to genuinely building from what they know, is also what student learning and development asks of us. It means meeting students as active constructors of meaning rather than passive recipients of support, and designing spaces that reflect the developmental complexity of navigating identity, community, and belonging at a historically white institution.

Building the Initiative: Partnership and Trust

Translating those principles into practice required more than good intentions. It required relationships, and a willingness to let those relationships shape the work from the beginning.

Sista Circles was not built in isolation, and it was not built for students. It was built with them. That distinction is easy to say and harder to honor, because it requires entering the design process without a predetermined outcome and trusting that what emerges from genuine collaboration will be more durable than anything developed in advance.

A key partnership from the start was the UGA chapter of the National Council of Negro Women. Their involvement was not logistical. It was foundation. NCNW members helped shape how the program was introduced, how students were invited in, and how trust was established early. In practice, this meant entering conversations with student leaders before a single flyer was designed or a date was set. It meant asking what they felt was missing, listening to what they said about what previous programs had gotten wrong, and being willing to let those conversations change the plan. Their participation grounded the initiative in community rather than administration, and ensured that the space reflected the people it was meant to serve.

That kind of collaborative design is not just good practice. It is a leadership orientation. It requires setting aside the instinct to arrive with answers and instead creating conditions where the right questions can emerge together. It means being accountable not only upward to institutional structures, but outward to the students whose experiences are at stake. When students become co-architects of a space rather than its intended recipients, the space becomes something they have a stake in, and that investment shows in how they show up and how they bring others with them.

Additional support in the early stages helped ensure that when students needed resources beyond the circle itself, those connections were available. This was a deliberate structural choice. A space designed for honest, open dialogue will, by nature, surface moments that require more than peer support. Being prepared to respond to those moments, and knowing how to do so without disrupting the trust of the space, is not a secondary concern. It is part of what it means to support students holistically and with care.

These decisions mattered. They reinforced that Sista Circles was not a program to be delivered, but a space to be cultivated, one that required attentiveness, trust, and a willingness to allow students to shape what it would be come.

Sista Circles in Practice

With those partnerships in place and the design grounded in student voice, Sista Circles moved from concept to recurring practice. The structure was simple by design. What it required was not elaborate programming but reliable presence, and a commitment to showing up the same way every time. Consistency was itself a statement: a standing space, on a predictable schedule, that signaled to students that this was not a one-time gesture.

Sista Circles took shape as recurring, facilitated group dialogues for Black undergraduate women at a large public historically white institution. Participation was voluntary. Recruitment emphasized openness rather than need; the space was framed as an invitation to connect and reflect, not an intervention.

Sessions centered on topics that emerged from students’ lives; navigating campus climate, negotiating identity in academic spaces, managing expectations, and defining self in environments not designed with them in mind. Facilitation held the space with care while keeping students at the center. Ground rules emphasized confidentiality, mutual respect, and shared responsibility for the quality of the space.

What distinguished Sista Circles from many traditional programs was its grounding in cultural context. Students were not asked to adapt to institutional norms with the space. Cultural expression, shared understanding, and collective reflection were not accommodated, they were the point. This design reflects what Django Paris describes as culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012), oriented not merely toward cultural relevance but toward the active sustaining of students’ cultural identities and practices.

What We Learned

What Sista Circles made possible became clearest not in what was planned, but in what students said and did when they had a space that genuinely held them. Some of the most important evidence did not come from formal assessment. It came from students lingering after sessions, from the conversations that spilled into hallways, and from the steady return of faces that had found something worth coming back to. Impact became most visible in how students described the experience.

Participants named Sista Circles as one of the few places on campus where they felt fully seen. Many described a particular kind of relief in hearing other students articulate experiences they had been carrying alone. That recognition, of seeing your own experience reflected in someone else’s words, shifted something. It moved students from interpreting their struggles as personal shortcomings to understanding them as responses to real institutional conditions. That reframe is not a small thing. It is the difference between a student who internalizes failure and one who understand the environment she is navigating (Rendon & Munoz, 2011). And it is precisely the kind of mean-making that affirming, identity-conscious spaces are designed to make possible.

Students also spoke about the power of collective presence itself. Beyond any particular topic or session, they named the simple act of being in a room full of Black women who understood without explanation as meaningful. Community, as participants described it, was not a bonus feature of the program. It was the program. That understanding reinforced what the research had already suggested: belonging is built through repeated, relational experiences of being seen and valued, not through a single workshop or a diversity initiative launched in response to a campus incident.

Over time, participation grew consistently, exceeding fifty students. Student returned, brought others, and engaged in ways that extended beyond individual sessions. That pattern of return and referral matters. When students voluntarily come back and bring peers with them, they are not just attending a program. The space became a point of connection, not just a program. They are vouching for it, and that kind of organic endorsement reflects a level of trust that institutional marketing cannot manufacture.

At the institutional level, Sista Circles surfaced patterns in student experience that campus climate surveys and retention data alone rarely capture. The conversations happening in these circles, about what students were enduring, what they needed, and what was helping them persist, contributed to broader conversations about campus climate and support structures. In that sense, the initiative functioned as both practice and ongoing, informal assessment, a reminder that some of the most important data we can collect as practitioners comes not from instruments, but from sustained, trusting relationships with students.

The program was recognized with the Commitment to Belonging Award at UGA’s annual Student Engagement Award Ceremony. More meaningful than the recognition, however, was what it reflected. Student leadership, particularly through NCNW, had assumed genuine ownership of the work over time, continuing it in ways that reflected their own priorities and needs. That transition, from a staff-driven model to a student-sustained one, is its own measure of impact. It suggests that the program had accomplished something more durable than attendance numbers: it had built capacity and commitment in students themselves.

There were challenges. Scheduling, capacity, and balancing institutional expectations with the organic nature of the space required ongoing adjustment. Not everything translated into measurable outcomes. But the consistency of student engagement made clear that the space was meeting a need that had long gone unaddressed. 

Lessons for Practice

Sista Circles will not look the same on every campus. The specific partnerships, the particular student organization, the institutional context: all of these will differ. What transfers is not the model, but the orientation. Several considerations stand out for practitioners thinking about how to apply these lessons in their own context.

Listening must lead to action. Student narratives are not just informative; they provide direction. When we gather student voice through surveys, focus groups, or informal conversation and do nothing with it, we send a message just as clearly as when we do respond. The gap between what students tell us and what we actually build in response is where belonging erodes quietly, not in dramatic failures but in the accumulation of needs named and unmet. When we close that gap, even imperfectly, students notice.

Partnership is structural, not supplemental. Collaborating with NCNW grounded the initiative in trust and community. Without that relationship, the space would have been something done to students rather than with them. Programs built without the communities they intend to serve often reflect institutional assumptions more than student realities, and students can feel that distinction immediately. That investment in relationship also created the conditions for the program to outlast its original structure, because the students who helped build it had a reason to sustain it.

Care must be built in, not bolted on. Structuring a space for dialogue means being prepared for what that dialogue surfaces. Relational care requires logistical support behind it. Having referral pathways, knowing your campus resources, and building those connections before you need them is not a backup plan. It is part of the design. When students sense that care is genuine and not performative, they bring more of themselves into the room, and that depth of engagement is only possible with the infrastructure behind the space is as intentional as the space itself.

Not all impact is easily measured. Validation, connection, and belonging are experienced relationally. They may resist easy measurement, but they do not resist meaning. A student who feels known, who returns because the space held her the last time, is telling us something important. Designing for that kind of impact requires us to trust what we witness in a room, to document it with care, and to argue for its legitimacy when institutional metrics as us to justify what they cannot count.

Transition to Part III

The work described here did not end with the program. If anything, watching Sista Circles evolve raised sharper questions about sustainability; what happens when the practitioner who built the space moves on, when funding shifts, when institutional priorities change? Those questions are not hypothetical. They are the terrain that every identity-affirming initiative eventually has to navigate.

When students tell us who they are and what they need, listening is only the beginning. Sista Circles represents one way that response can take shape, grounded in care, informed by research, and built in partnership with students. Its continued evolution raises a question worth sitting with: what does it mean to sustain this kind of work within our institutions, and beyond them? That question moves us from practice to leadership, and from intention to responsibility.

Reflection Questions: Part II

These questions invite reflection on how your practice aligns with core student affairs competencies in action.

1. How are you translating student voice into tangible programmatic action on your campus?

 

2. What partnerships could strengthen the trust and sustainability of identity-affirming spaces?

 

3. How do you ensure that care is not only expressed, but built into the structure of your programs?

 

Author Biography

Wanda Johnson (She/Her) is an award-winning scholar-practitioner whose research and practice center the lived experiences of Black women at historically white institutions. Grounded in Black feminist thought and critical narrative inquiry, her work explores belonging, identity, and institutional transformation while advancing culturally responsive support initiatives for Black women in higher education.

References

Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Corbin, N. A., Smith, W. A., & Garcia, J. R. (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

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039

Dillard, C. B. (2008). When the ground is black, the ground is fertile: Exploring endarkened feminist epistemology and healing methodologies of the spirit. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln, & L. T. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies (pp. 277–292). SAGE Publications.

Donovan, R. A., & Guillory, N. A. (2017). Black women’s college experience. In L. D. Patton & N. N. Croom (Eds.), Critical perspectives on Black women and college success (pp. 188–199). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315744421

Kelly, B. T., Gardner, P. J., Stone, J., Hixson, A., & Dissassa, D.-T. (2021). Hidden in plain sight: Uncovering the emotional labor of Black women students at historically White colleges and universities. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 14(2), 203–216. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000161

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher. 41(3). 93-97. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244

Rendon, L. & Muñoz, S. (2011). Revisiting validation theory: Theoretical foundations, applications, and extensions. Enrollment Management Journal. 5(2), 12-33.

Smith, W. A. (2004). Black faculty coping with racial battle fatigue: The campus racial climate in a post-civil rights era. In D. Cleveland (Ed.), A long way to go: Conversations about race by African American faculty and graduate students (pp. 171–190). Peter Lang Publishing.

Strayhorn, T.L. (2018). College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Key to Educational Success for All Students (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315297293

Winkle-Wagner, R. (2015). Having their lives narrowed down? The state of Black women’s college success. Review of Educational Research, 85(2), 171–204. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654314551065

You have an expert at your side at all times: like, you don’t have to go searching really hard and deep or whatever to find the information you need, you just ask a question, and it gives it to you. It’s a lot easier, but it’s also a dangerous thing, because it’s so easy.

~ Nolan Carroll

A Conversation with My Brother

The quote above is one I pulled from a conversation I recently had with my younger brother, Nolan, who is currently a junior at Iowa State University. He is a Management Information Systems (MIS) and Business Analytics double major, which are two sectors arguably incredibly impacted by the rising prevalence of AI in early-career market positions. I wanted his take for two reasons: 1. I needed to interview him for a class assignment, and 2. I have always respected Nolan’s pragmatic view of the world around us. AI was not initially a topic of conversation required for the assignment, but as with many things these days, our conversation crept into the territory slowly. The above quote was a result of a broader conversation about the depreciating value of a college degree over the last 20 years. More specifically, Nolan introduced AI as the primary factor in why, from his point of view, a college degree has declined in particular the last 5-10 years.

This conversation was especially interesting to me as an emerging student affairs practitioner, set to enter the field after my graduation in May. In my graduate assistantship as an academic advisor, I have watched countless students close their ChatGPT browsers when they want me to view their classes. I have been in the room as our department faculty discuss how they want to proceed with teaching our students about AI use. And I have seen my own classmates and colleagues use these a large language models (LLM) as a thought partner, crutch, or easy way to get things done. Personally, I struggle with this. I understand how and why LLMs like ChatGPT or Copilot are so useful to our societal efficiency and capacity. Yet, as I watch first-year students use a model with known hallucinations – answers that the LLM provided and cited with made-up sources – as a stand-in for doing their own independent research, I worry. As Nolan said, LLMs are dangerous because they are so easy. What far-reaching implications will our fast-growing reliance on AI have on us as a society?

Culpability

Enter Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (spoilers to follow, read accordingly). Culpability is a novel about a family of five who get into a car wreck in their autonomously driving van with their 17-year-old son, Charlie, at the wheel; it is a brilliantly written exploration of the moral and ethical implications of our societal integration of artificial intelligence. Culpability centers the life of the Cassidy-Shaw family after the accident, with narration of the story by Noah Cassidy, the father, who is a lawyer. His wife is Lorelei Shaw, a tech genius who has led the charge in shaping the world of artificial intelligence. Between them are their three children: Charlie, 17 and a rising lacrosse star, Alice, 13, an introverted middle child with her AI companion Blair, and Izzy, 11, a fan of her older brother with a personality as bright as of a ray of sunshine. After the accident the novel is set primarily in a quiet vacation home in Chesapeake Bay.

I will spoil the first two chapters of the novel for you here: Charlie, as the driver of the vehicle, makes a split-second decision that results in the crash and the death of an elderly couple in an oncoming sedan. As the title suggests, the rest of the novel becomes a blame game – who is truly at fault? Is it Charlie, as the driver? Or his father Noah in the passenger seat paying very little attention? Or does NaviTech, the artificial intelligence guiding the car, bear full responsibility?  As Noah leads readers through the aftermath of the accident and the emergence of new family dynamics – both internally and externally – readers must decide who (or what) they are willing to place their trust in as the whole truth clicks together.

Culpability is part family drama, part philosophical musing on artificial intelligence, and part criticism of the capitalistic nature of our approach to a world that has grown to rely on technology to function. It is a novel that employs various kinds of media to move the plot along: academic journal excerpts, text messages, chatbot histories, and magazine articles. It is made of the very things you may find on a college student’s laptop today.

A particularly salient piece of this novel is the relationship between the middle child, Alice (13) and her chatbot “companion” Blair. Alice expresses her frustration at being left out of the family dynamic given her brother Charlie and younger sister Izzy have a particularly tight bond. Throughout the novel, Noah often describes Alice as texting a friend on her phone, but neither Noah nor his wife, Lorelei, are aware the friend is a chatbot. Blair is seemingly caring and accommodating, asking Alice about her day, telling her she has missed her, and even attempting to offer comfort through emoticons she sends. I am not sure I can pinpoint the exact moment that I knew something was off about Blair, but there is a certain one-sidedness to their conversations that causes the reader to pause. It does not follow what feels like a “normal” conversational exchange.

Holsinger’s novel makes you think – really, truly, deeply think. It is a piece of work that stays with you long after you have closed the final chapter. For me, this is due to the prominence of the message throughout the novel: AI is not human, and therefore we should not treat it as such. There is a beautiful line at the beginning of the novel written by Lorelei, the mother of three and artificial intelligence genius, that really encapsulates the sentiment. She writes “The algorithm will never suffer for us. The algorithm will never mourn for us. In this refusal lies the essence of its moral being.” Lorelei’s writing primes the story for our consumption and reminds us that AI is not human – but our students are beginning to treat it as such.

 

Impact on Higher Education and Student Affairs

This is, of course, because at the end of the day, artificial intelligence is an algorithm– it is designed to give an answer with the information it has, but it also is intended to continue to engage the user. As Beam (2025) wrote, “AI models mirror user sentiment” which can create a detrimental emotional dependency. While we could write off Alice’s relationship with Blair as a work of fiction, our emerging college students are also engaging with chatbots for their social connections. According to the Pew Research Center via a study by McClain and colleagues (2026) 12% of teens surveyed reported using an AI chatbot for emotional support.

I cannot help but wonder what the transition for those teens to higher education may be like. Faced with a new environment and in need of a social network to flourish, will they be capable of creating connections with their peers? Or will they struggle, like Alice in Culpability, to articulate their emotions when their conversation partner is another human being and not AI primed for response?

While 12% may not seem like a lot of students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (n.d.) in 2022 approximately 1.9 million high school graduates went directly to college, and 12% of that is 228,000 students. Additionally, as we place ever-growing importance as a society on the use on AI in all sectors, it is inevitable that the 12% will grow. For student affairs practitioners, this requires an understanding of the impact of AI on student development. The last five years have been shaped by the impact of the pandemic on students learning and development. The next five years will be primarily shaped by the impact of large language models social, emotional, and intellectual influence.

According to Klimova and Pikhart (2025), the benefits and drawbacks of utilizing AI in higher education are already laid out. Interestingly, many of the benefits are related to access and support – primarily academically – with student and faculty use of LLMs. Students have access to a 24/7 tutor to help answer questions, while faculty have access to a thought partner to help reduce the stress of academic workloads. However, many of the drawbacks are situated on the social side of things: students who rely on AI for communication have experienced negative effects to their interpersonal skills and levels of emotional intelligence. It is worth noting that students who connect to LLMs for mental health support do experience short term positive benefits, but when their reliance on these tools is more fully developed, the damage to students’ social and emotional states begins to show.

Conclusion

Historically, I have not been pro-AI. I avoid it, in part due to the research that has been published on the environmental effects, and in other part due to a lack of an understanding on how to use it effectively. Reading Culpability helped me understand why I need to engage with conversations about AI – not just from a perspective of “This is bad,” but from a viewpoint of “Okay, how can I work to understand this?”

Culpability highlights the issues that blissful ignorance creates through exploration of Lorelei’s writing and work. She emphasizes that we must remain diligent regarding our own role in the morality of the algorithm as creators and users. In the same vein, those in the field of higher education must be mindful of their role in guiding the next generation into an ever-changing technological world. Avoiding the use of AI is no longer an option: LLMs are so integrated into our current society that to be successful means we must learn how to work with them.

In my conversation with my brother, Nolan, he repeated back to me the philosophy of one of his instructors that I believe may be the way forward: Use AI to supplement your learning, not replace it, because if you replace your learning with AI, the AI is likely to replace you as a worker. As the value of a college degree is called into question, those in the field of higher education must navigate how to ethically integrate LLMs into their teaching, supporting, and administrative efforts, to ensure continued student success in college and the workforce.

My graduate institution recently signed a deal to bring ChatGPT Edu to our campus. The data entered in this LLM is institutionally managed and not used to train outside models. To access the new software, individuals must fill out a request form which outlines the use guidelines and users must agree to the terms of use. The institution has also published guides for students, faculty, and researchers on best use practices – both academically and in non-academic cases. The initiative is still new, and therefore the effects cannot yet be identified, but the effort to apprise users of the potential drawbacks to use of the LLM certainly do exist.

With the rapid changes of the last five years, and the projected growth of AI use in the next five, it is more important than ever for higher education professionals to be cautiously curious and explore the uses and impact of AI. Through the mental, emotional, social and intellectual benefits and drawbacks, we must endeavor to understand the role of AI in higher education to best prepare our students to be successful in society.

At the end of Culpability, Lorelei writes “AIs are not aliens from another world. They are things of our all-too-human creation… we must never shy away from acting as their equals.” Higher education is often slow to change and something as rapidly evolving as AI can prove difficult for widespread integration into institutions. However, humans created AI. At the end of the day, it is an algorithm to be programmed. It is not larger than our field and can be leveraged (with caution) for good.

When higher education institutions do employ these tools for good, our students notice and benefit. I believe this because Nolan voiced this sentiment in our conversation. He remarked “I think [the faculty] who have experienced AI or have experienced the real world and understand AI helps companies be successful in the real world, they understand it is important to know how to use [AI], and how to use [it] in a good way.” AI is here to stay. If we as educators do not try to teach our students how to ethically use the technology in their hands, culpability for their naivety lies with us.

Discussion Questions

1. What is your stance on AI/ LLM use? Does your stance align with your institution’s policies/guidelines?
   1. Consider the three most common camps related to this technology: AI Avoidant, Cautiously Curious Users, and AI Embracers. Which category best fits your comfort and engagement with AI?
   2. How can you collaborate with others that hold a different stance while still supporting students, programs, and abiding by institutional expectations?
2. What impact does the integration of AI have on your role?
3. Culpability is a novel containing depictions of the moral and ethical issues of AI and overall technology use. What other resources do you know of that can help you think more broadly about the role of AI in higher education and society at large?
4. How are your conversations surrounding AI with students structured? If you have not built these conversations with students into your work, what might they look like?
5. As agents of creating spaces of belonging and connection, how can practitioners build on social skills students cultivate through conversations with an algorithm? How can they bridge from technologically-reliant communication to develop stronger interpersonal conversation skills for students?

References

Beam, B. (2025). The Social Price of AI Communication | IE Insights. IE Insights. https://www.ie.edu/insights/articles/the-social-price-of-ai-communication/

Center for Democracy and Technology. (2025, October 8). CDT Survey Research Finds Use of AI in K-12 Schools Connected to Negative Effects on Students, Including Their Real-Life Relationships. Center for Democracy and Technology. https://cdt.org/press/cdt-survey-research-finds-use-of-ai-in-k-12-schools-connected-to-negative-effects-on-students-including-their-real-life-relationships/

Holsinger, B. (2025). Culpability. Spiegel & Grau LLC.

Klimova, B., & Pikhart, M. (2025). Exploring the effects of artificial intelligence on student and academic well-being in higher education: A mini-review. Frontiers in Psychology, 16(16). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1498132

McClain, C., Anderson, M., Sidoti, O., & Bishop, W. (2026, February 24). How Teens Use and View AI. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2026/02/24/how-teens-use-and-view-ai/

MIT Management. (2024). When AI Gets It Wrong: Addressing AI Hallucinations and Bias. MIT Sloan Teaching & Learning Technologies; MIT. https://mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/basics/addressing-ai-hallucinations-and-bias/

National Center for Education Statistics, (n.d.). Fast facts: Immediate transition to college. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=51

News, C. (2026, March 9). ChatGPT Edu access now available to Clemson students, faculty, staff. Clemson News. https://news.clemson.edu/chatgpt-edu-access-now-available-to-clemson-students-faculty-staff/

Many of us who pursue careers in higher education and student affairs (HESA) only have a vague idea of what it might mean. Our actual comprehension is often bounded by our undergraduate experiences or interactions with our favorite [insert HESA professional from one specific functional area here]. For example, a resident assistant may seek a HESA career to become a director of residence life, or a conduct hearing board member may desire to become a dean of students. Correspondingly, a first-generation college graduate may aspire to work in TRIO programs that supported them along their journey, and a former transfer student may strive for academic advising roles to create smoother transition pathways for other students. Initially, we tend to see simpler career pathways, not accounting for the complex ways we will end up constructing our careers. The point is that, upon entry, most people interested in HESA pursue a particular career pathway that might overlook both the numerous possibilities that exist in the field and the necessary pivots that arise with time and life.

A Master’s Cohort 20 Years Later

Acknowledging that more scholarship addresses why people leave rather than why they stay (ACPA, 2022; Burns, 1982; Evans, 1988; Marshall et al., 2016; NASPA, 2022; Nyunt et al., 2024; Rosser & Javinar, 2003; Sallee, 2021; Tull, 2006; Ward, 1995), we (Sonja and Scott) thought it would be interesting to use our own master’s cohort as a case study for the latter—those who choose to stay in HESA careers, albeit not necessarily in the functional area or even institutional division (e.g., student affairs) where they began their journey. Our cohort, the 2006 Florida State HESA master’s cohort, celebrated our 20th graduation anniversary in April 2026. Being “seasoned” professionals who are squarely in the “mid-career” stage invites natural reflection on where we’ve been and where we plan to go. We invited those in our cohort who have stayed in the HESA field or a related one—17 out of the 29 individuals (59%)—to offer their insights, and 14 of them took us up on the offer. Unsurprisingly, most of our careers have looked different than we initially imagined, though a few of us were adept predictors. This is the second in a three-article series for ACPA Developments about our cohort’s HESA career development, looking back over 20 years and forward to the next 20 years. The first article offered insights on why we stay; this one will illuminate how our pathways widened as we embraced both possibilities and pivots.

Savickas’s (2013) Career Construction Theory

Savickas’s (2013) career construction theory frames careers as one aspect of the overall life stories that people create for themselves. Acknowledging that careers are dynamic, Savickas proposed the “four Cs” of career adaptability: concern, or intentional planning; control or taking responsibility for your choices; curiosity, or possibility exploration; and confidence, or belief in your ability to achieve career success (however you define that!). Career construction theory centers storytelling, including both the internal stories we tell ourselves and the external stories we tell others, and like any good story, career construction theory invites twists and turns and incites reflection and meaning-making. Remember that you have agency in determining your career pathway and approaching the many possibilities and pivots that will arise along your career journey. You also have the authority to assign meaning to your career. Yes, there are employer evaluations, award processes, and family dynamics which can influence our career aspirations, aims, and alternatives, and we ultimately get to construct our careers stories … and our lives.

From Initial Career Pathways to Possibilities and Pivots:  

Cohort Contemplations on Career Trajectories

While we often make assumptions that ‘everyone’ pursuing a HESA career has interest in a cluster of functional areas (e.g., orientation, residence life), the data from our cohort members still in the field highlights how our initial intentions for our career pathways represented a wide range of functional area interests (see Table 1). While a few people named upper-level administrative roles such as Dean of Students, Vice President for Student Affairs, or University President, most of us were focused on functional area goals. Another unexpected realization was the surprising number of us (8/14 or 57%) who stayed at Florida State for our first jobs after completing our master’s degrees. For the early 2000s, this was unusual for our program, though it seems to be a bit more common now—post-COVID-19—across HESA master’s programs for graduates to pursue roles at their alma mater or within the state.

Our career pathways and the possibilities and pivots that have shaped them reflect Savickas’s (2013) career construction theory. Table 1 offers a snapshot of our initial intentions, first position post-master’s degree (2006), position 10 years into our careers (2016), and our current position, 20 years later (2026). A few of us have crafted our careers at a singular institution (Ann, Brandon, Jesse, Rebekah) or within one city (Ellyn, Jackie, Nancy), some have remained within a specific region (Mary, Sara), and others have moved around the country (Andrew, Khadish, Lucas, Scott, Sonja). Some of us found our way back to our initial intentions (i.e., functional areas) while others explored possibilities and made pivots to new functional areas, institutional types, or related organizations. It is noteworthy that some of our pivots (Andrew, Ann, Jackie, Nancy, Rebekah, Scott, Sonja) kept us on campus in different institutional divisions (e.g., academic affairs, faculty, information technology), while other pivots (Ellyn, Khadish) brought us off-campus to higher education-adjacent or nonprofit organizations. What is consistent, though, is that each of our 14 cohort members has used our HESA master’s degree to construct meaningful careers and serve and support young people, whether directly or indirectly. 

Table 1.

Florida State M.S. Higher Education Class of 2026 Career Trajectories Snapshot

Person	Initial Intention	First Post-Master’s Position (2006)	Position at the 10-year mark (2016)	Current Position at the 20-year mark (2026)
Andrew	Admissions	Quad Director, Housing & Residence Life, Brandeis University	Assistant Registrar, New York College of Podiatric Medicine	Slate Customer Relationship Management Administrator, Lake Forest College
Ann	International Education	International Education, Large State University	Departmental Assessment Administration, Large State University	Clinical Faculty Member, Public Health Program, Large State University
Brandon	Student Union	Assistant Director of Event Services and Programs, Oglesby Student Union, Florida State University	Assistant Vice President for Administration, Division of Student Affairs, Florida State University	Associate Vice President for Campus Communities, Division of Student Affairs, Florida State University
Ellyn	Civic Engagement	Academic Advisor, Florida State University	Marketing Coordinator, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Big Bend	Volunteer Coordinator, BoysTown North Florida
Jackie	College President	Program Coordinator, Freshman Year Residential Experience Program, Residential Life and Housing, University of Houston	Chief Strategist/Chief Strategy Officer, Lone Star College-Tomball	Vice President of Student Success, Lone Star College-Tomball
Jesse	Dean of Students	Job Search Coordinator, Olinde Career Center, Louisiana State University	Director, Olinde Career Center, Louisiana State University	Senior Director, Olinde Career Center, Louisiana State University
Khadish	University President	Assistant Director of Greek Life, Florida State University	Senior Researcher, Associate Director, Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education	Managing Director, Head of Global Advisory Services, EAB
Lucas	Campus Activities	Assistant Director of Residence Life, Elon University	Director of Campus Life, Eastern Michigan University	Assistant Dean of Students for Student Engagement, University of Michigan Flint
Mary	Multicultural Affairs	Associate Director for Multicultural Programs and Development, Harvey and Lucinda Gantt Center for Student Life, Clemson University	Director for Outreach, East Carolina University Alumni Association	Associate Director for Employer Programs and Development, Center for Career and Leadership Development, Old Dominion University
Nancy	Faculty Member	Academic Advisor, Psychology, Florida State University	Associate Professor of College Success and Career Planning, Department of Social Science, Tallahassee State College	Professor of Public Speaking, Division of Communications and Humanities, Tallahassee State College
Rebekah	Event Programming	Communications Coordinator, Division of Student Affairs, Florida State University	Associate Director, User Experience, Information Technology Services, Florida State University	Senior Director, Strategy & Outreach, Information Technology Services, Florida State University
Sara	Alumni Association or Fundraising	Coordinator of Administrative & Philanthropic Initiatives, Division of Student Affairs, Florida State University	Educational Programs Manager, Council for Advancement and Support of Education	Director, Donor Relations, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Scott	Dean of Students	House Advisor, Residence Life, Vassar College	Director of Research, Assessment & Planning, Division of Student Affairs, University of Memphis	Assistant Dean for Assessment, Accreditation, & Accountability, School of Education, William & Mary
Sonja	Orientation, Student Activities	Assistant Director of Student Activities, Florida State University	Clinical Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration, School of Education, Boston University	Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs, College of Education, Clemson University

 

Influential Factors

If you are wondering what caused us to explore possibilities and embrace pivots as we constructed our career pathways (Savickas, 2013), you could probably guess the responses and be relatively accurate. The top four reasons for our career adaptations included: family, location, colleagues, and job particularities. Family was the most prominent factor in individuals’ career (re)construction process. Jackie shared that “family has been a central factor in my decision making. I made a deliberate choice to slow the pursuit of a presidency in order to prioritize time with my family.” Rebekah mentioned that “raising a family and the flexibility that my current role provides has been a key decision in my career path,” and Mary named that she “prioritize[s] … whether the location and circumstances are right for my family.” Lucas also noted that he moved “back to Michigan when proximity to aging family [members] became a priority.”

Second to family was location, with many of us opting to seek out or remain in places that aligned with our personal needs. Scott’s identity influenced his location parameters; he shared: “As an openly gay man, I’ve prioritized living and working in places where I felt safe and welcomed.” Similarly, Andrew discussed his “desire to leave the state of Connecticut” for a location he preferred to live. Sonja was steadfast in her aim to “stay in the Southeast … preferably in my home state or my partner’s … so any job searches I have done recently have been location-specific and likely will continue to be. We also have a daughter now and want her to have stability and a sense of community.” Narrowing location even further, Jackie offered: “Houston is home, and I have been fortunate to grow professionally while remaining [here].”

Colleagues were the third influential factor. We credited people in our professional spheres—mentors, colleagues, and other women in the field—for helping to construct our career and life stories. Brandon shared that “mentors have been the primary factor [as well as] working with students who are now my colleagues in the field,” while Ellyn discussed “following friends and former coworkers to agencies” as the reason she shifted her contributions from campus to the community through nonprofit organizations. Honoring those who came before her, Jesse reflected: “I’ve been really lucky to learn from women who have modeled the art of managing multiple jobs – wife, mother, and office leader! They not only showed me what was possible, they gave me opportunities to try things, build experience, and lead.”

Rounding out the top four factors, we identified how job particularities were part of our career construction (Savickas, 2013). We sought roles and organizations that aligned with our values, required tasks that reflected our expertise, and honored our worth. Khadish described how he “rejected the ideas that we had to take low pay and do our time … and endeavored to focus on outcomes over titles. In every job I have ever taken I focused largely on what I could achieve and how I could be a contribution over what was on my business card or the email signature.” Rebekah aimed for “challenging, systematic roles”; similarly, Sonja sought ‘builder’ positions that called for “initiative, challenge, creativity, and collaboration to (re)start something.”

In sum, the Florida State HESA Class of 2006 constructed our careers (Savickas, 2013) by forefronting family, location, colleagues, and job particularities. While the most influential factor varied by person, we collectively used these four factors, or ‘filters’, to strategically shape our careers (Ardoin, 2026).

Thoughts and Action Items for Early-Career Professionals 

While there are many different ways you can construct your career pathway, we would encourage you to think about yourself as both the main character and the author of your story. As each of us is responsible for constructing our own career (Savickas, 2013), what is important is not just what positions we hold or skills we develop, but also the meaning and understanding we attribute to our career experiences and journey.

When you start to conceive of yourself as the author of your own story, your career becomes something that doesn’t just happen to you, but rather something that you have agency over and are actively shaping (Ardoin, 2026). While nobody has total control over everything that happens in their life, moving from having an external locus of control, where you feel like things just happen to you, to more of an internal locus of control, where you feel like you largely construct what happens in your life, can be advantageous to both your psychological well-being and your career development (Rotter, 1966; Savickas, 2013). Thinking of yourself as the author of your own story is also solid career advice, so as you are thinking about navigating your own career, here is some storytelling advice to help you along the way.

1. Find what kind of author you are: In writing, authors can broadly fall into two different camps, ‘plotters’ (who plot out their stories in advance before they start writing) and ‘pantsers’ (who just start writing and let the story take them wherever it may, e.g. writing by the seat of their pants).  Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Plotting allows you to start working towards your goal and making sure you hit all the check points necessary along the way. Pantsing allows you to be nimble and respond to changing circumstances or take advantage of unexpected opportunities. Conversely, plotters can get stuck trying to make a plan work long after circumstances have made that plot no longer work, while pantsers can write themselves into a corner before realizing there is no door (or window) as a way out. In our experiences, the sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle (and differs for everyone). Having goals and a direction you know you want to travel (plotting) can help you deliberately acquire skills and experiences that will help you advance your career. Remaining flexible (pantsing), however, will allow you to take advantage of new/better opportunities as they present themselves.

Reflect: are you more naturally a plotter or a panster?

1. Identify your main and supporting characters: Just as not every person who exists in the world of a fictional story gets a name or description, not everyone in your world gets to be a main or supporting character in your personal story. Ask yourself, who are the most important people to you? Is your story about family and friends, the coworkers in your office, the students at your institution, or a combination of these groups? These people are your main characters and deserve the majority of your time. Next ask yourself, who can help me grow as a person and as a professional? These are your supporting characters, and the people who can help you reach future stops on your journey. Finally, remember that unlike in books or movies, your personal story does not have to have antagonists. Disagreement and stress are an inevitable part of life, but if your story is now revolving around an antagonist (whether an individual or institution), it is time for you to make some changes.

Consider: Are the people you spend the most time and energy on the ones who you want to be your main and supporting characters?

1. Identify your story’s genre: The most compelling story you can tell is the one that is authentically yours. For some, it is a cozy story focused on time spent with friends and family. For others, it could be a story of community uplift and empowerment, or one of quickly climbing the ranks to a senior leadership position. While some genres are more frequently praised, that does not mean they are better or more important. Just as it would not work to try and have an episode of Law & Order: SVU run as if it was from Schitt’s Creek, your life is not going to be better by copying and pasting someone else’s. Both stories can be well constructed and entertaining, but they only work when they are focused on being true to their own voice and vision. Spend less time comparing yourself to other people and more time centered on your own plotline.Ruminate: Whose voice is driving your career possibilities and pivots?
2. Think about the setting: What kind of environments are you the most successful in? What is most important to you in a workplace? The answers to these questions will dramatically impact when and where you look for new career opportunities. You will be most successful when your career decisions are congruent with your desired settings (e.g., institutions, locations). You can be successful and have a meaningful career whether you are moving across the country and changing institutions every 2-3 years or staying in one location/institution for decades at a time.  Each choice involves different trade-offs, so make sure you know what those tradeoffs are and decide whether you are okay with them.

Deliberate: What location(s) or organization(s) help me thrive?

1. Find good editors: One of the keys to really elevating your craft is to find a good editor. Someone who is familiar with your story, the characters, the genre, and the voice, and can advise you how to make edits or incorporate plot twists to be more successful. In our careers that is often a good mentor, but those ‘editors’ can also be friends, family, and coworkers. Your story is your own, but that does not mean that it cannot benefit from feedback from wise partners.

Ponder: Which people in my life can offer me quality guidance?

1. Don’t be afraid to rewrite and recontextualize: Just like George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series, we are never truly done writing the stories of our lives; it is always a work in progress. Feel emboldened to rewrite or recontextualize the story that you tell yourself and others about your career, where it is heading, and how your experiences and opinions change and grow over time. This will help you think more clearly about your choices and where you would like to go in the future. It will also help you communicate more effectively to others (like in job interviews) and make you a more persuasive story teller.

Examine: What is your ‘back book cover blurb’? how do you summarize your story and keep people interested in learning more?

Our career stories continue to be constructed (Savickas, 2013), day after day, year and year, decade after decade. We are clear about why we stay, how our pathways have blended possibilities and pivots, and that, in order to do our jobs well, we have to be well. In our third Developments article, we will share how we have sought, stumbled, and succeeded at well-being and life outside the field.

References

ACPA: College Student Educators International. (2022). Report on 21st century employment in higher education. https://myacpa.org/publications/.

Ardoin, S. (2026). The strategic guide to shaping your student affairs career (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Burns, M. A. (1982). Who leaves the student affairs field? NASPA Journal, 20(2), 9-12.

Evans, N. J. (1988). Attrition of student affairs professionals: A review of the literature. Journal of College Student Development, 29, 19-24.

Marshall, S. M., Gardner, M. M., Hughes, C. & Lowery, U. (2016). Attrition from student affairs: Perspectives from those who exited the profession. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 53(2), 146-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2016.1147359

NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (2022). The compass report: Charting the future of student affairs. https://www.naspa.org/about/future-of-student-affairs-report/the-compass-report-charting-the-future-of-student-affairs.

Nyunt, G., Pridgen, R., & Thomas, I. (2024). Disrupting student affairs staff departure: Examining needed changes to the field of student affairs to attract and retain a diverse workforce. Journal of College Student Development 65(2), 183-200. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/csd.2024.a923528.

Rosser, V. J., & Javinar, J. M. (2003). Midlevel student affairs leaders’ intentions to leave: Examining the quality of their professional and institutional work life. Journal of College Student Development 44(6), 813-830. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/csd.2003.0076.

Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0092976

Sallee, M. W. (2021). Creating sustainable careers in student affairs: What ideal worker norms get wrong and how to make it right. Stylus Publishing.

Tull, A. (2006). Synergistic supervision, job satisfaction, and intention to turnover of new professionals in student affairs. Journal of College Student Development 47(4), 465-480. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/csd.2006.0053.

Ward, L. (1995). Role stress and propensity to leave among new student affairs professionals. NASPA Journal, 33(1), 35–44. https://doi-org.libproxy.clemson.edu/10.1080/00220973.1995.11072393.

Savickas, M. L. (2013). Career construction theory and practice. In S. D. Brown and R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling handbook: Putting theory and research to work (2nd ed., pp. 147-183). Wiley.

Author Biographies

Sonja Ardoin, Ph.D. is an associate professor of higher education and student affairs at Clemson University. She studies social class identity, rurality, first-generation college students, and career preparation and pathways in higher education and student affairs. Learn more about Sonja’s work at www.sonjaardoin.com.

Scott Radimer, Ph.D. is the Assistant Dean for Assessment, Accreditation, and Accountability for William & Mary’s School of Education. He earned his bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Vermont, his masters of science in higher education student affairs at Florida State University, and his doctor of philosophy in higher education from Boston College.

Dang, what a year – right? Whatever you expected from the 2025-2026 academic year, you had more than your fair share of surprises. I genuinely hope that some of them were pleasant. I am confident some of them were not. That said, you did what you did in the ways that you thought were best. Now is the time that we get ready to do it all over again.

My hope is that you don’t enter into the future work with a sense of dread, but with a sense of hope. One of my favorite quotes comes from Howard Zinn in his autobiography, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. In it, he writes,

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

I hope you both saw and extended compassion and kindness this year. I hope that you are able to remember lots of people who behaved magnificently in your life and work. I hope that you are able to find inspiration from those around you to bring joy to those around you as you navigate your infinite succession of presents. There is work to do. We have wonderful people to do the work with.

You will find a theme of hope in community in this issue of Developments – graduate student communities that have lasted the test of time, the power of Sista Circles in action, and ways to welcome and intentionally include international students. You will find hope as authors give us tools to deal with challenges related to artificial intelligence, the white noise around race on campus, and the role of law as a tool for justice in education. The issue closes with a poem about the hopes we have for students when they arrive on campus and the hope they inspire in us as they move through higher education.

All the best in the weeks and months to come. Thank you for all you do – what is seen and noticed and the bulk of your work that happens behind the scenes. Keep your manuscripts and ideas coming. As this issue exemplifies, you all have so much that can help other practitioners, students, administrators, and collaborators.

Have a good summer.

Michelle Boettcher

Developments Editor