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

Designing first-year experiences for first-time in college students (FTICs) is challenging and the COVID-19 pandemic created additional issues for university professionals striving to support them. This article describes a unique interdisciplinary response that one Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) engaged in for creating an intervention plan to…

This essay is a discussion of the lived experiences of first-generation college students each August when they arrive on a college campus for the first time. The author's approach offers a reflective component for institutions of higher education to consider when creating support or programs for first-generation students as they navigate an…

Educational leaders face immense challenges each day. Currently, such challenges include, but are not limited to, reckoning with the United States' ongoing legacy of persistent and pervasive racism, supporting students' health and wellness in the aftermath of a global pandemic, and facilitating difficult intercultural dialogs during a time of deep…

Peer mentoring programs have repeatedly shown that peer-to-peer support is a vital part of the transition process for new college students. Sometimes, what a student needs most in those imperative years is someone who can identify with them and provide the advice needed to get them to the finish line. In August 2019, the University of Nevada, Las…

In this article, the author discusses how relationships are central in enacting an Ethnic Studies pedagogy in the role of a student affairs administrator charged with the development and implementation of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AA&PI) Student Services-Asian American and Pacific Islander Retention and Education (ASPIRE), the first…

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in pivotal changes in higher education as universities across the country closed campuses to slow the spread of disease. The global shift to online forums resulted in the need to rapidly rethink and reimagine the delivery of traditional in-person events. At Old Dominion University, the authors transitioned their…

Planning programs with learning outcomes that address diversity issues on campus can become fairly routine--a "plug and play" task--for a director of multicultural student affairs at a private, religious, predominantly white liberal arts university. However, connecting with African American and other minority students when they arrived on campus…

Students making the transition into college typically come face to face with increased independence and decreased external structure. This may be especially problematic for students with learning disabilities who may be less capable of managing in times of change than others. The outcome is often chronic procrastination, absenteeism, and…

Academe has traditionally tended to polarize college employees into two camps: (1) the faculty, who educate; and (2) the staff, who provide services and entertainment. At Colby-Sawyer College, a small private liberal arts institution of 950 students in rural New Hampshire, the us-versus-them mentality was rejected in order to re-envision its…

This article documents one university's struggle to create a first year program that can be taken seriously by both students and faculty. (GCP)

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, faculty members and student affairs educators often believe that the answers they seek about assessment are secrets kept by an all-knowing, powerful person. If they can just find the Wizard of Assessment and be granted the secret assessment formula, all will be well. The student affairs educators at California…

Even though the majority of college students are commuters, most colleges and universities are set up primarily to serve residential students. In an effort to address this inequity, Drexel University created an award-winning commuter program. The author describes how it got started and what it looks like. (Author)

When intolerance of gays and lesbians at the University of San Diego became a problem, a group of students, staff, and faculty decided to do something about it. The result was a project called Rainbow Visibility that works on many forms to educate the campus community. (Author)

Argues that, before colleges and universities can develop leaders, they must develop a coherent vision of what leadership is. Uses a historian's concept of transformational leadership to explore the various dimensions of leadership, such as its moral dimension. Outlines reasons for instituting and transforming leadership development programs. (RJM)