College graduation rates for racially minoritized students are adversely affected by structural barriers and hostile campus racial climates, which lead to notable equity gaps within and across institutions. Theory and prior literature suggest that the representation of racially minoritized students and instructors may play a role in shaping these…

In this paper, we employ Punctuated Equilibrium Theory to consider institutions' shifting goals, priorities, and constraints, and to explore the nature of change at colleges and universities in the United States. By exploiting annual changes in institutional budget decisions over a 29-year period, we seek to understand the extent to which…

Institutional practices and conditions at community colleges can improve rates of transfer, as can access to transfer student capital. However, we know little about how institutions attempt to build students' transfer capital, or about students' experiences within community colleges as they accumulate transfer capital. In this paper, we examine…

This study explores the extent to which college context (two- vs. four-year), gender, and race/ethnicity correlated with worsening course outcomes during emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, by comparing outcomes within students between the fall 2019 pre-pandemic and spring 2020 pandemic terms. In particular, it explores the…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have a unique history, mission, and role in educating underrepresented and underserved students in the United States. In light of the recent uptick in institutional closures across sectors, understanding the factors associated with college survival for HBCUs is critical. Using linear probability…

In this article we examine the ways in which institutional stratification and academic labor segmentation contribute to shaping faculty collaborative activities. We draw on interviews from science and engineering faculty at two institutions in the United States to highlight how collaboration, as an essential form of academic labor, is shaped by…

This study examines social closure processes in the organizational field of higher education and their implications with respect to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Using institutional comparison-group data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), we analyze how organizational identity claims and…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-term students' appreciative attitudes toward Jews. Using a longitudinal design, we administered a theoretically derived and empirically validated measure of interfaith experiences to 7,194 first-term students…

Despite an increase in enrollments across public and private higher education sectors, Black/African American and Hispanic students in graduate and professional programs are disproportionately affected by educational debt. Using nationally-representative data from NPSAS:2000 and NPSAS:2016, findings show that, in general, Black/African American…

This study focuses on how admissions at selective colleges and universities represent key racialized organizations. We analyzed data from 50 individual interviews of admissions professionals, through a theory of racialized organizations to recognize admissions as practices that consistently reproduces systemic inequities. We reveal how…

Various concerns regarding the vitality and racial/ethnic composition of the academic profession have prompted new study of faculty search committees and hiring paradigms, most notably examining the term "fit" in candidate appraisals. Yet no study utilizes a candidate evaluation framework to investigate whether or not faculty members…

Globalizing forces have both transformed the higher education sector and made it increasingly homogenous. Growing similarities among universities have been attributed to isomorphic pressures to ensure and/or enhance legitimacy by imitating higher education institutions that are perceived as successful internationally, particularly universities…

Universities' endowment management practices have come under scrutiny by politicians and commentators who note that universities are tax-exempt, and do not want taxpayers subsidizing institutions only to have them accumulate wealth without advancing the public good. Defenders of university endowment policies argue that, to the contrary, managers…

This paper examines the growing number of affiliations between research universities and the "affiliated nonprofit organizations" (ANPOs) that exist to support them. We posit that universities' increasing ties to ANPOs represent strategic responses to unfavorable environmental conditions. In other words, it is likely that the practice of…

This multiple-case study examined the factors promoting or impeding ideal-centered change efforts focused on reclaiming the founding civic commitments of three Regional Comprehensive Universities. Findings showed that successful change agents engaged detractors in defining the ideal and shaping the change while assessing change efforts and…