Centering the Margins: Institutional Discourse and the Campus Climate Experiences of Women Staff

• In Event: Centering Both the Who and the Where: Place, Space, and Belonging

Abstract

This paper employs a critically-informed grounded theory methodology to examine how institutional discourse relates to women staff's perceptions of campus climate at one public university. An analysis of university documents alongside interviews with women staff reveals how policies, practices, and messaging maintain gendered and racialized hierarchies, contributing to the systemic construction of inequitable experiences of campus climate. Findings suggest that institutional discourses perpetuate epistemic marginalization of women staff, especially women of color, suppressing their voices and overlooking their knowledge. The study reveals strategies of resistance within constraining discourses and imagines possibilities for more socially just campus climates. By centering intersectional standpoints, this paper develops a systemic conceptualization of campus climate to inform structural changes toward more socially just institutional environments.

Author

• Lorianne Crowder, College of Staten Island - CUNY