Recent research has shown a nexus between active out-of-class engagement and the accrual of unique race/gender-specific educational outcomes among Black male undergraduates. Yet, rarely explored are the racialized experiences of those who become actively engaged and assume leadership positions on campuses where racial diversity is low, hence the purpose of this study. Focus group interviews were conducted with 52 Black male Resident Assistants (RAs) at six large, predominantly White universities. Racist stereotypes and racial microaggressions, the complexities associated with “onlyness” in the RA position, and heightened scrutiny from White supervisors are among the findings reported in this article. Also offered are implications for addressing racial toxins that dissuade Black male student leadership in residence halls and other out-of-class engagement venues.

This qualitative study explored how Black LGBQ students at three urban private HBCUs experienced and navigated spaces that affirmed their racial identity but posed challenges to their sexual and gender identities. Drawing on Black respectability politics and environmental press as power as theoretical framing, we utilized a critical constructivist epistemology to unearth the complexities and contradictions that Black LGBQ students face in HBCU settings. Our analysis yielded three themes: (a) affirming/othering, (b) institutional pride/institutional change, and (c) safe space needed/wasted institutional efforts. Implications for higher education administrators and policymakers are offered within.

The experiences of first-year, tenure-track faculty have been missing in the literature about new or junior faculty. Furthermore, the extant literature about new faculty does not offer a critical outlook on how oppressive institutional structures shape how first-year faculty of color approach faculty work. Drawing from analytical narratives, the authors reframe how doctoral student socialization and new-faculty support systems are discussed, especially pertaining to firstyear faculty of color. In doing so, and utilizing narrative inquiry as a methodological framework, the authors draw out the distinct voices of new faculty of color. The implications offered are important for scholars who study faculty experiences and for faculty advisors to doctoral students interested in the professoriate. Our interest in social justice-focused teaching and research started as students in the same doctoral program. There, as students of color at a predominately-White university, our perspectives on scholarship oftentimes conflicted with institutional norms. As a result, we found each other as a key source of support in cultivating our interests. As emerging scholars, research on graduate students of color was insightful, and it validated our approach to create a community of support (see Brown, Davis, & McClendon, 1999; Gay, 2004). However, our transition from doctoral students directly into tenure-track faculty roles was abrupt. We sought support from each other-former classmates who had moved on to faculty positions at different institutions during the same academic year. Together, we first searched for an understanding of our new role as captured in the literature. We drew from the research to better understand the general undercurrents of the faculty of color experience, which is generally marked by unwelcoming college environments, relatively greater service demands, and the marginalization of our scholarly contributions (e.g.

Over a relatively short time, college student development theories have evolved to reflect a significant shift in attention toward gender and other dimensions of social identity. Early research on college student development was conducted from a postpositivist perspective, included only men, and did not attend to or name social identity differences. In contrast, contemporary researchers use a range of perspectives, often include students of different genders in their studies, and explore dimensions of social identity development separately and intersectionally (Torres, Jones, & Renn, 2009).Intersectional understandings of gender, gender identity, race, and racial identity have significantly informed our individual research as relatively new scholars, including Brian' s work exploring the intersectional realities of African American college cisgender men across differing institutional contexts and Claire' s work on racial identity among cisgender White women graduate students. In this chapter, we want to transcend normative thinking on gender, honor the lived experiences of participants in our work, and echo and amplify the work of scholars before us who have troubled the notion that gender can be understood in isolation from other social identities. Our reflections on feminist scholars and frameworks that critically explore issues of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation led us to consider contemporary events and trends affecting higher education, including but not limited to:• Police brutality against unarmed Black men and the #BlackLivesMatter movement • Murders of unarmed trans * women of color • Rape culture, sexual assault and rape cases, and student activism around the enforcement of Title IX on college campuses • Persistent gendered and racialized inequities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT SERVICES, no. 154, Summer 2016

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