From Disciplinarian to Change Agent: How the Civil Rights Era Changed the Roles of Student Affairs Professionals

Abstract

Little has been written about the roles and functions of student affairs administrators during the civil rights era. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how the civil rights era influenced the student affairs profession, paying particular attention to the roles played by student affairs administrators in relation to students, other administrators, and the community. A secondary analysis was conducted based on interviews with 18 student affairs professionals who served on a variety of college campuses during the civil rights era, primarily from the 1950s through the 1970s. Our findings suggest that these administrators took on roles such as educator, advocate, mediator, initiator, and change agent in order to effectively and efficiently resolve issues that arose on their campuses as a result of the civil rights era and the student protest movement.

Collective Action on Campus Toward Student Development and Democratic Engagement

“…Astin's () case‐study research suggests that students learn to vary their strategies by working with faculty; they become better able to make decisions about whether to persuade or take more coercive forms of demonstration to achieve their ends. Gaston‐Gayles et al () noted that student affairs professionals periodically took an educational role to help students refine their requests to the administration, identify appropriate decision makers to consult, and help determine and craft appropriate solutions to their concerns. By being a resource for students on questions about leadership and organizational change, student affairs professionals help expose students to new opportunities to learn and develop.…”

“…In addition to identifying some of the different ways faculty and staff foster students’ development by assisting them with their activism, we also learned about how faculty and staff preferred to work with students. A study by Gaston‐Gayles et al () noted that we need to better understand how faculty and staff effectively negotiate the tenuous position of being activists working alongside students given their roles as employees of their institutions. In each of the examples described previously, how directly or indirectly faculty and staff participated in the students’ activism varied along a continuum with three key points, shown in Figure .…”

“…However, only recently have scholars and practitioners examined the ways activism can lead to student learning and development. The activism of the 1960s demonstrated the potential of activism to foster a sense of democratic participation and to help students explore ways to shape local, regional, and national politics, as well as social norms (Astin, ; Gaston‐Gayles, Wolf‐Wendel, Tuttle, Twombley, & Ward, ).…”

Exploring the effect of addressing social injustices as a student affairs professional

“…Segments of society began to question who should and should not be allowed to attend college (Thelin, 2004). These arguments usually revolved around the concepts of access, equity, and excellence (Gaston-Gayles, Wolf-Wendel, Nemeth Tuttle, Twombly, & Ward, 2004;Geiger, 2005). College campuses became a symbolic focus and battleground for civil rights in American life due to racial segregation and other forms of discrimination (Gaston-Gayles et al, 2004;Geiger, 2005).…”

“…These arguments usually revolved around the concepts of access, equity, and excellence (Gaston-Gayles, Wolf-Wendel, Nemeth Tuttle, Twombly, & Ward, 2004;Geiger, 2005). College campuses became a symbolic focus and battleground for civil rights in American life due to racial segregation and other forms of discrimination (Gaston-Gayles et al, 2004;Geiger, 2005). College students across the country joined these conversations for equality and rights in higher education (Geiger, 2005).…”