Centering Faith at the Margins: A FaithCrit Analysis of Black Women Multicultural Center Administrators

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Black Christian Identity and Praxis: Past and Present

Abstract

This study explores how Christian identity informs the professional and personal experiences of Black women multicultural center administrators at Historically White Institutions (HWIs). Through a re-analysis of qualitative interviews with 11 participants, this research examines how faith and spirituality shape their identity negotiation, leadership, and resistance to institutional whiteness. Using FaithCrit as a guiding framework, the study highlights how participants draw on spiritual identity, divine discernment, and hope to navigate their outsider-within status. Findings aim to amplify these marginalized voices and offer insight into the role of faith as a sustaining force for scholar-practitioners working in the increasingly scrutinized and racialized landscape of DEI and multicultural affairs in higher education.

Authors

• Erica T. Campbell, Miami University (OH)

• Philip Michael Thomas, Miami University (OH)