Working While Black: The Untold Stories of Student Affairs Practitioners

Working While Black: The Untold Stories of Student Affairs Practitioners will explore the narratives of student affairs professionals and how they navigate their professional experiences, particularly as Black professionals. It will offer advice on how to successfully navigate the field and will include contributions from a variety of student affairs areas and institutions. The book will add to the current press and scholarly conversations around the Black student affairs professional experience and can inform recruitment and retention strategies.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 196 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2022
Publisher: Information Age Publishing

Working While Black: The Untold Stories of Student Affairs Practitioners is a book that explores the narratives of student affairs professionals and how they navigate their professional experiences. While student affairs can be a high-pressure and high-stress environment for all professionals, Black professionals are often overworked, underheard, and made to feel devalued. Therefore, it is important to consider how student affairs professionals are managing the profession, colleagues, and students while Black.

This book takes an asset-based approach, where chapter authors approach both the challenges and opportunities they have experienced due to being Black while working as student affairs practitioners. Chapter authors also provide poignant advice on how current and potential student affairs professionals can successfully navigate the field. One especially important contribution of this book is that our authors are from a variety of student affairs areas, including residence life, student engagement, career services, counseling, student conduct, athletics, student activities, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and academic advising. Additionally, chapter authors are student affairs professionals at predominantly White institutions, historically Black colleges and universities, and online universities. Given the breadth of experiences each chapter will provide poignant suggestions for student affairs practitioners across the nation as well as for institutions who are looking to better understand these experiences to better support their own employees.

Popular education press and scholarly conversations have focused on the experiences of student affairs professionals (Renn & Hodges, 2007). There has also been scholarship around the Black student affairs professional. However, there is still much to be learned about the experiences of Black student affairs professionals and how they navigate their professional lives.

This book aims to address this gap by providing a platform for Black student affairs professionals to share their stories and experiences. By doing so, we can gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities that they face and develop strategies to support them.

The book will be organized into several chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of the Black student affairs professional experience. The first chapter will provide an overview of the history of Black student affairs professionals and the current state of the field. The second chapter will explore the challenges that Black student affairs professionals face in their professional lives, including discrimination, racism, and microaggressions. The third chapter will focus on the strategies that Black student affairs professionals use to navigate these challenges, including self-care, networking, and advocacy. The fourth chapter will explore the role of Black student affairs professionals in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. The fifth chapter will provide a case study of a Black student affairs professional who has successfully navigated their professional journey.

In conclusion, Working While Black: The Untold Stories of Student Affairs Practitioners is a book that aims to address the gap in scholarship around the experiences of Black student affairs professionals. By providing a platform for Black student affairs professionals to share their stories and experiences, we can gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities that they face and develop strategies to support them. This book will be organized into several chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of the Black student affairs professional experience, and will provide a valuable resource for student affairs practitioners across the nation.

Weight: 333g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781648027338