The scholarship concerning undocumented immigrant students continues to overlook the lives of Black undocumented immigrant (undocuBlack) students. This interpretative phenomenological study aims to increase awareness of how undocuBlack students experience college. Our findings suggest that undocuBlack students experience double invisibility…

Black women have engaged through social media platforms, as a mechanism to uplift their embodiment, despite being relegated to the margins. The hashtag #BlackGirlMagic (BGM) is linked to narratives of Black women in higher education that are empowering and problematic. The development of the popular social media movement during a time when Black…

The purpose of this qualitative meta-narrative was to explore the experiences of Black college women with natural hair on a predominantly white (PWI) college campus using intersectionality theory. Six self-identified Black college women with natural hair participated in this study. Three major findings emerged from this study: (a) interpersonal…

For nearly 60 years, doctoral student attrition has been a cause for concern (Berelson, 1960; Council of Graduate Schools, 2010; 2015). Studies have shown that approximately 40-70% of doctoral students do not finish their degree, and 20% of those who advance to candidacy do not complete the dissertation phase (Lovelace, 2016). Additionally,…

In the 2022-2023 academic year, nearly one million international students from over 200 countries enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions, marking a 12% increase from the previous year (Martel & Baer, 2022). Despite representing 5.6% of the total U.S. higher education population, asylum-seeking students remained an overlooked…

This dissertation is comprised of two separate manuscripts, which coalesce on the topic of interventions for Black students in educational settings. In the first chapter, I provide an overview of existing interventions that have been applied in different academic environments, particularly as they pertain to Black students in PK-12 and college…

Self-advocacy is emphasized as a critical practice for improving the retention and increasing the success of disabled students. In higher education, disability service offices and academic researchers jointly shape the conversation around what comprises effective self-advocacy. Students who are not engaging in these prescribed strategies are then…