Caring-for Versus Caring-About: A Study of Faculty and Staff's "Radical" Approaches to Supporting Student-Parents

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Making DEI Work in Higher Education (Table 3)

Abstract

Student-parents comprise a growing undergraduate student population yet few institutions offer well-resourced, specialized support to attend to their needs and position them for academic success - leaving faculty and staff to voluntarily take on the work of supporting and advocating for student-parents outside of their traditional job responsibilities. In this case study, we utilize Meyerson’s tempered radicals theory and Noddings’s work on care to examine how 36 faculty/staff across six institutions serve as “outsiders within” to care for student-parents within their respective institutional constraints. Participants drew upon a variety of institutional-sanctioned tactics, such as seeking grants and leveraging networks, to care-for students on campuses that did not seem to care-about student-parents and their needs.

Authors

• Margaret W. Sallee, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Alyssa Stefanese Yates, uAspire

• Alexandra LaTronica-Herb, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Cara Monaco, University at Buffalo - SUNY