No Struggle, No Progress: Examining Black Faculty/Staff Experiences With Campus Activism and Belonging

• In Event: 41.054 - Critical Examinations of Race, Class, and Gender in Higher Education

Abstract

The combination of Black Lives Matter activism, college student protests across the country, and the recent Supreme Court ruling on the historic Fisher v. University of Texas-Austin case have placed race at the center of many national and collegiate conversations. Such an amalgamation of race-centered politics is likely to affect Black faculty and staff and the predominantly White institutions that work to recruit and retain them. Through a case study examination of faculty and staff experiences and perceptions of belonging post an event of race-centered student activism at a large PWI in the south, we present findings related to how Black faculty and staff negotiate their identities and find support during periods of race-centered upheaval.

Authors

• Robin Phelps-Ward, Clemson University

• Jeffrey Michael Kenney, Clemson University