Provocative Moments: Learning-Centered Advising, Self-Authorship, and Social Justice
If one believes that the purpose of education is to fulfill the ideals of a democratic society, academic advisors must envision their roles as part of the larger social justice movement that strives to embody those ideals. Assuming these roles entails a willingness to facilitate provocative moments for students—to engage them in reflective conversations about race, gender, and economic injustices. Lowenstein's advising theory and philosophy of learning-centered advising can guide advisors in this endeavor. Because primary-role advisors are, as Lowenstein proposes, “the most important person in the student's educational world,” they have a critical role in helping college students learn about and develop a genuine commitment to equity and justice as they journey through a formative period of adult development.
Introduction
The year 2020 was tumultuous and full of sociocultural upheaval, the fault lines of which lie along centuries-old structures of racial, gender, and economic inequality across the globe. Reflecting on nationwide Black Lives Matter protests against racial violence that punctuated the last year and the COVID-19 pandemic's devastation of communities of color, I argue that educators and academic advisors must view their role as part of the larger social justice movement that strives to embody the ideals of democracy. The January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and ongoing threats to voting rights have added even more urgency to embed social justice principles into advising practice and advisor competencies. Democracy is not just a form of government but a way of associational life in which individuals can realize their intellectual, creative, and social potential and contribute to collective well-being. If one believes that the purpose of education is to fulfill the ideals of a democratic society, advising practice must create equitable and just conditions that allow students to flourish. Doing so embodies NACADA's core values overall, but especially caring, inclusivity, and respect.
In addition to core values, as Arnsperger Selzer and Ellis Rouse (2013) have noted, NACADA's core competencies often touch on social justice concepts. Informational competencies include knowledge of “the characteristics, needs, and experiences of major and emerging student populations”; conceptual competencies include an “understanding of how equitable and inclusive environments are created and maintained”; and relational competencies include “communicating in an inclusive and respectful manner” (NACADA, 2021). These competencies “often [translate] to working with underrepresented and marginalized students who identify as LGBT, students of color, first-generation, international, veterans, etc … universities need advisors who have the necessary skills to promote equality” (Arnsperger Selzer & Ellis Rouse, 2013).
Committing to the work of equity and justice requires a willingness to engage students in reflective conversations about social injustice—not easy because pushing students beyond their comfort zone might breach “customer service principles set forth at some universities” (Schulenberg, 2013, p. 126). Advisors might also resist for fear of being perceived as politically divisive. Dr. Martin Luther King referred to the fear of disrupting the status quo as a “negative peace” that thwarts justice (1963). In Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963), King wrote
The Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice … Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating that absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
He also said that it is critical to shift from a struggle for decency—in which well-intended people react momentarily to extremist individuals or events—and toward a sustained commitment to and actions for genuine equality. “Many of the people who supported us in Selma, in Birmingham, were really outraged about the extremist behavior toward Negroes, but they were not at that moment, and they are not now, committed to genuine equality for Negroes” (NBC, 2018).
How might academic advisors participate in the movement toward a positive peace and sustained commitment to justice? Marc Lowenstein's theory of advising as integrative learning and philosophy of learning-centered advising (2014, 2020) can guide the field. Lowenstein builds on the developmental approach and advising-as-teaching paradigm that characterize much advising practice. Advising as integrative learning facilitates not just the personal growth of students but also their development as members of an academic community. Learning-centered advising initiates students to the life of the mind, helping them to understand how academic disciplines relate to one another and shape their worldview. Lowenstein (2020) wrote that primary-role advisors are in “a position of the utmost importance in higher education” (p. 9) and are “arguably the most important person in the student's educational world” (p. 12) because they help students understand the “logic of the curriculum” and make sense of their relationship to the world (2014, p. 7). The skills a student develops to create a coherent worldview, in partnership with a primary-role advisor (a “coach for curriculum building”), may last a lifetime, “even if circumstances change or his or her worldview is altered” (Lowenstein, 2020, p. 12). Lowenstein's description of the advisor-student partnership recalls Freire's (2018) philosophy of education, the aim of which is “life-affirming humanization” (p. 68). Freire (2018) conceptualized the teacher-student relationship as a co-intentional partnership in the task of unveiling and critiquing reality and recreating knowledge of reality to be liberated from unjust social orders:
The students—no longer docile listeners—are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher…The role of the problem-posing educator is to create, together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa is superseded by true knowledge, at the level of the logos … . Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge… Their response to the challenge evokes new challenges, followed by new understandings; and gradually the students come to regard themselves as committed (p. 81).
In Lowenstein's philosophy of learning-centered advising, the advisor-as-teacher (Freire's “problem-posing educator”) has an especially critical role in helping college students learn about and develop a genuine commitment to equity and justice.
Self-Authorship
Students' meaning-making process may be understood through the framework of self-authorship. The road to self-authorship—where an individual's internal voice emerges and asserts its authority—begins with cognitive dissonance, perhaps even existential crisis, that challenges the individual's assumptions about the self, social relationships, and the world. Pizzolato (2005) referred to such experiences of dissonance as “provocative moments” (p. 625). Achieving desired college-learning outcomes such as critical thinking, cultural competence, and moral and ethical judgment depends on where students are on the journey to self-authorship (Baxter Magolda & King, 2012). “Students who are not yet able to author their inner psychological lives often allow their external influence to derail their academic goals, jeopardize their identity development, or ruin their relationships” (Baxter Magolda & King, 2012, p. 13). Guiding students to self-authorship exemplifies the kind of advising practice Lowenstein (2014) argued leads to integrative learning. That is, advising becomes a space for active learning, wherein students reflect on who they are and make educational decisions based on their self-knowledge (e.g., majoring in English because they love literary analysis versus accounting because their parents want them to be practical). Through advising-as-integrative learning, students can begin to make sense of their education as a whole and its relevance to their lives beyond the academy. Advisors can help students realize that racial, economic, gender, and other injustices affect their lives in some way, even if not immediately apparent. As the English major learns to deconstruct ideas about culture and society established in Western literature, and as the accounting major begins to understand the history of financial policies that have led to income inequality, primary-role advisors can challenge them to think about the roles they can take to dismantle stereotypes and unjust systems.
For the benefit of students, academic advisors can, and should, create appropriate provocative moments centered on race, gender, and socioeconomic class. Primary-role advisors, of course, have varying backgrounds and biases concerning sociocultural issues. In facilitating dissonance, they risk alienating students, who might misinterpret their motives. However, professional development that enhances the advisors' cultural competence can help them shepherd students through provocative moments in meaningful and mutually beneficial ways.
Dimensions of Self-Authorship and Cultural Considerations
To author is to create something; to have authority is to be accepted as a source of reliable information or evidence (Oxford English Dictionary, 2021). Self-authorship is to claim one's self—not an external authority, such as a parent or supervisor, or even tradition and stereotypes—as the creator of one's knowledge, values, beliefs, and identity. Speaking of students taking ownership of their learning essentially means talking about them becoming self-authoring individuals.
Self-authorship theories grew from Kegan's (1994) exploration of the evolution of consciousness, which was inspired by Piaget's constructivist theories of adolescent and adult development. Kegan (1994) focused on “the personal unfolding of ways of organizing experiences” that grow more complex; this is often disorienting as individuals differentiate themselves from others yet seek inclusion in their environment (p. 9). Three dimensions of this meaning-making process guide behavior: the cognitive/epistemological (the individual asks “how do I know?”), extrapersonal (“who am I?”), and interpersonal (“what relationships do I want?”). Self-authorship is continuous and cyclical and is shaped by the environment, social relationships, and the intensity and tempo of individual development (Baxter Magolda & King, 2012). Baxter Magolda (2010) built on Kegan's theory based on her 22-year longitudinal study of adults ages 18 to 40. She identified three phases on the way to self-authorship: trust in the inner voice, building an internal foundation, and securing internal commitments. Trust in the inner voice represents an epistemological shift; the individual begins to recognize their own identity, values, and beliefs separate from external authority. They also realize their ability to control reactions to, and perhaps even negotiate with, external authority. In building an internal foundation, the individual's beliefs, identity, and relationships become more salient. In securing internal commitments, the individual integrates all three dimensions and lives according to their self-defined values and beliefs. As college students develop self-authorship, they will find themselves at the crossroads, the space where their internal voice and external authority vie for prominence (Baxter Magolda, 2010).
Several scholars have critiqued Kegan's and Baxter Magolda's theories of self-authorship, arguing these perspectives emerged from foundational studies with predominantly White male participants. Recent scholarship more intentionally examined the role of race, ethnicity, gender, and other facets of identity on individual development. For example, Torres' research (2010) highlighted the experiences of Latinx students and showed that for this group and other students of color, confronting racism is a central task in identity development. Hofer (2010), who compared the epistemologies and academic performances of Japanese and American students, argued that constructivist and epistemological theories have a privileged Western culture that values autonomy over the collectivism prioritized in many Asian cultures. Pizzolato (2005) found that self-authorship among Asians and Asian Americans had a different trajectory: Individuals experience dissonance when moving away from collectivism and toward individualism.
Jones (2010) argued for intersectionality as a framework for research on self-authorship. While scholarship acknowledging the cultural influences on identity advances the understanding of self-authorship, she wrote that it treats race, gender, and class as discrete constructs that are not fully integrated into self-authorship theories. This additive approach is problematic because it “presumes the whiteness of women, the maleness of people of color, and the heterosexuality of everyone” (Risman, 2004, as cited in Jones, 2010). Emerging from Crenshaw's (2018) legal scholarship on racial and sex discrimination, intersectional analysis centers race, gender, and class in lived experiences. Furthermore, it calls attention to the power dynamics at play between individuals and the institutional structures and systems that might thwart their progress. Duran and Jones (2019) argued that a truly intersectional approach to studying college student identity development:
challenges people to move away from thinking about contexts from a power-neutral perspective and instead to acknowledge how overlapping axes of oppression inform the way students see themselves … intersectionality can reimagine taken-for-granted concepts in college student development, as well as those grounded in a constructivist and/or dominant perspective from a critical lens. (p. 469)
Provocative Moments in Advising
The goals of self-authorship in young adults include critical thinking, cultural competence, and moral and ethical judgment. When college students begin to trust their inner voice and own their learning, they might make curricular decisions that align better with their values and interests. They do not necessarily reject external pressures that compel them to declare a major for which they lack passion, but they might pursue supplementary studies that feed their soul. Learning environments that promote self-authorship challenge students to grapple with dissonance and ambiguity and see themselves as knowledge-creators (Schulenberg, 2013). Advisors can create such learning environments by engaging students in reflective conversations (Schulenberg, 2013; Puroway, 2016), problematizing the curriculum (Puroway, 2016), or creating exercises that encourage introspection of their values, beliefs, and identity, such as responding to ePortfolio prompts. Primary-role advisors also can help students recognize how intersections of identity and institutional structures shape their view of education and progress in academic work. First-generation students from underserved communities, for example, begin to understand that their course struggles might be attributable to the lack of resources in their high schools and not their personal failings. However, is it appropriate for advisors to challenge students on identity politics—prickly topics such as race, gender, and class? Should primary-role advisors raise the specter of sexism or racial bias against a professor when a student complains about a bad grade from that professor? Should advisors probe deeply into the reasons why a student betrays resentment for need-based scholarships? One might assume that White students balk at discussions of race or wealthy students avoid questioning their economic privilege. But students of color are often leery of such conversations, particularly with advisors who do not look like them. Likewise, poor students might be reluctant to reveal their financial struggles and insecurities.
Suppose one believes that “helping students learn is an essential quality of advising” (Lowenstein, 2014, p. 7) and views advising as integrative learning. In that case, it is the obligation of advisors to facilitate provocative moments centered on race, gender, and class. Just as they broach uncomfortable topics about student life that affect learning and well-being (e.g., binge drinking, sexual assault, mental health), primary-role advisors can help students recognize how sociocultural constructs shape their college experiences, overall education, and life beyond the academy. In addition to understanding the “logic of the curriculum,” students must be able to make sense of their relationship to the world (Lowenstein, 2014, p. 7). Given the exigent need to remedy social injustices that directly impact many students and others on campus, advisors must create opportunities for provocative moments through which their students may flourish.
Learning-Centered Advising and the Learning Partnerships Model
However, creating provocative moments without offering adequate support could blindside the student and lead to mistrusting the advisor. Baxter Magolda (2004) offered the Learning Partnerships Model (LPM) to balance provocative moments with support. Using the LPM in advising affirms students' agency and efficacy in making sense of their curriculum. When advisors ask critical questions that encourage them to identify their values, beliefs, and interests and connect these to their chosen majors, students might find their ideas matter.
Three principles guide the LPM: validating students as knowledge-creators, situating learning in students' experiences, and defining learning as mutually constructive meaning (Baxter Magolda, 2004). This model evokes Freire's (2018) description of students as “critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher” (p. 81) and resonates with Lowenstein's (2020) description of learning-centered advising:
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“The college student has the task of creating meaning out of her or his learning, or alternatively, of creating a curriculum, or an education out of the raw materials of the various courses that he or she takes” (p. 12). Validating students as knowledge-creators.
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“Each student will have a unique curricular structure; even two students who take the same set of courses may have different educations because they may relate the component courses in different ways” (p. 12). Situating learning in students' experiences.
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“The advisor has the unique opportunity to introduce the student to the idea that education is not just a sum of its parts, to provide examples by recommending some choices with a structural rationale, to encourage early efforts at thoughtful curriculum-building, and to support generally the student throughout the curriculum-building process” (p. 12). Defining learning as mutually constructive meaning.
For the LPM to be effective, advisors must be explicit about the purpose of provocative moments, the challenges and support students can expect from advisors, and the potential outcomes. I provide this transparent design in an advising syllabus, which I adapted from a colleague's syllabus. The syllabus explains my advising approach and the advisor-student relationship. For example, I use “we” language to emphasize our relationship as coinvestigators in making meaning of the curriculum. I also frame my purpose to challenge students in the institutional mission to highlight social justice principles as values shared by the campus community.
Advising Syllabus
As your academic advisor, I will provide support as you transition to university life and prepare to thrive in [our campus'] educational community. I will guide you toward integrative learning—i.e., reflecting upon and seeing the connections between the courses and major(s) you select and their relevance to your values, beliefs, interests, and goals. Integrative learning aligns with the university's educational mission to promote free inquiry and open discussion. It also helps you begin to articulate for yourself the purpose of education—particularly a liberal arts education—and its role in promoting the common good, citizenship, and democracy.
Transitioning successfully to the academic culture in college requires self-direction and active engagement in the liberal arts. We will work together as you cultivate keen academic self-management habits, an attitude of curiosity, and a willingness to explore various intellectual ways of knowing. At times, we will challenge each other to reflect critically on the curriculum and question assumptions we hold about various topics, including race, gender, class, and other dimensions of individual and social identity that shape our interactions. By doing so, we strive toward the university's mission “to cultivate not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings, but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.”
I will work with you to discern your own personal, academic, and professional aspirations. Our collaboration will help you build a coherent educational path for your time at [this institution]. As you hone your skills and abilities through your academics and engage in challenging conversations, we will work to identify the wealth of resources and information available to you.
Additionally, stated learning objectives include understanding the core curriculum and major requirements; identifying personal, intellectual, and career goals; customizing a curricular path that allows them to achieve their goals; reflecting intentionally on the short- and long-term value of their courses; building resilience as students encounter challenges in their courses and college life overall; and reflecting critically on the value and purpose of education for the individual and society.
To invite reflective conversations about social justice, the physical environment in my office signals openness to talk about race, gender, and class. On display are posters from an annual spring-semester performance that gives voice to stories of marginalization. Another shelf holds an iconic photograph of a legendary university president interlocking arms with Dr. Martin Luther King at a 1964 rally. Chatting about the institution's history and traditions with first-year students, I can initiate a dialogue about race by relating the story behind the photo. More subtly, in my email signature block, I list my pronouns (she, her, hers) and include the link, https://www.mypronouns.org, where readers may learn about why gender-inclusive language matters. I also post a land acknowledgment that is particularly relevant to my university's area to signal my openness to conversations about diversity and inclusion.
Topics of diversity and inclusion have also arisen during conversations with advisees about the First-Year Experience (FYE) class, a required two-semester course sequence designed to help new students integrate their academic, co-curricular, and residential experiences. FYE assignments and classroom discussions are organized around health and wellness themes, community standards, cultural competence, academic success, spiritual life, and discernment and prompt students to examine their roles in transforming the campus community. The course introduces them to concepts of identity and implicit bias, inclusive leadership, and civic engagement. Reviewing results from a recent campus survey on inclusivity, students learned that many of their peers, especially students of color, feel they do not belong. For example, only 60 percent of Black students surveyed reported a sense of belonging, compared to 87 percent of White students. In my FYE class, I conduct a privilege for sale exercise, where students use fake currency to buy race, economic, and gender privileges. This activity helps students recognize privileges they might take for granted in their daily lives. Examples of these privileges include not being followed or harassed when shopping alone, choosing to wear hand-me-down or second-hand clothing to be stylish, and using a public restroom without fear of abuse or intimidation. Students reflect on how money affects access to privileges and what types of privileges are important to them; they also empathize with individuals who lack those privileges.
Because all advisees engage these issues in various sections of the FYE course, I can delve deeper into topics of equity and justice during one-on-one meetings. Taking Lowenstein's (2020) learning-centered advising approach, I start advising sessions by asking students how they like their classes and what they learn in each course. I remind them of advising as integrative learning and prompt them to identify connections between their disparate courses and majors. Discussing FYE topics permits students to reflect on equity and justice and their relevance to students' values, beliefs, interests, and goals. Conversations about core requirements (e.g., social science, history, philosophy, and theology) often lead to new, more complex insights about race, gender, and class. At institutions that do not offer a similar first-year experience course, asking students about their hometown, family, or extracurricular activities (e.g., organizations supporting gender diversity and sexual orientation, cultural diversity clubs, volunteer work) could open opportunities to broach sociocultural issues. Similarly, soliciting students' opinions about high-profile university events–for example, a lecture featuring Ann Coulter or BLM protests on the quad–could direct their attention to current events outside the campus bubble.
When meeting with my advisees, I also ask what they care about and what issues or problems affect their families or communities that they want to address through higher education and their intended major. In my advising of first-year architecture students for the past two years, reflective questions have included:
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In what ways could architects promote understanding and acceptance of diverse residents in a community?
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How does taking a sociology course inform the way you, as a future architect, approach the design of buildings and interior spaces to promote a stronger sense of community or civic engagement? (For students taking an introduction to criminology course, we might explore how contemporary prisons could be designed to promote rehabilitation.)
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How might a literature course rethink the way you envision architectural projects? (For one student, a class on Native American literature introduced her to an unfamiliar culture and inspired her to consider cultural diversity more fully in residential designs.)
Provocative moments could, of course, potentially cause students to disengage from advising. White students might be uncomfortable discussing racial justice issues they know little about because they have not been exposed to certain groups. Students of color might avoid these conversations because of racial battle fatigue; they might perceive gestures to engage them as microaggressions. Gay, lesbian, or transgender students, particularly in private, religious universities, might fear being outed or judged as disordered. Minoritized students experiencing imposter syndrome and desiring to fit in might be wary of conversations that call attention to their race, gender, or social class. Thus, establishing and nurturing trust between advisors and students are crucial to facilitating provocative moments. Not only does this take time, but it also requires the cultural competency of advisors.
Advisor Cultural Competency
In addition to being “intellectually agile” and broadly educated (Lowenstein, 2014, p. 8), implementing the LPM requires advisors to be culturally competent, a skill grounded in NACADA's core values and developed through interpersonal communication, relationship-building, and ongoing assessment of the self—core competencies in the relational component of NACADA's core competencies model (2021). Advisors' intentional reflection about their cultural values is essential to creating equitable and inclusive environments for students, ones in which provocative moments can happen. Through intentional reflection—wherein time and space are created for deep, guided introspection—advisors can “understand how their own identities, biases, privileges, and stereotypes may impact the way they engage with students different than themselves, and how their practice impacts students' success and achievement” (Arnsperger Selzer & Ellis Rouse, 2013).
One example of a professional development program that cultivates cultural competence and entails “personal, reflective analysis of [advisors' own] education” (Lowenstein, 2014, p. 8) is the National SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Project (National SEED Project, 2021). After immersive training about SEED principles and practices, participants lead SEED seminars on their campus. Exercises entail self-analysis of identities and experiences, focusing particularly on how individuals' educational formation addressed or ignored issues of equity and justice. SEED's philosophy resonates with the goals of self-authorship in college students. SEED believes “each of us is an authority on our own experiences and that cultivating spaces for self-learning and peer-sharing leads to meaningful conversations and change toward equity and diversity” (National SEED Project, 2021). Without “blame, shame, or guilt,” participants listen to others' voices and deepen their awareness of and responsibility for systems of oppression, power, and privilege (National SEED Project, 2021).
During monthly seminars throughout the academic year, SEED leaders guide a cohort of 15 to 20 colleagues through their provocative moments. Before each session, leaders assign short readings, videos, and journal prompts on race, gender, class, physical (dis)ability, and mental health topics. Participants share personal reflections using the serial testimony method. Similar to the circle-discussion format, serial testimony asks each participant to speak the truth of their own experience and assume responsibility for their thoughts. This method promotes deep listening by establishing an order for speaking and giving equal airtime to those who wish to speak (e.g., two minutes per person to share journal reflections), substituting personal testimony for argumentation, and honoring freely chosen silence. Facilitators encourage participants to use the metaphors of windows and mirrors to guide reflection and conversations. This framing acknowledges multiple ways of seeing the world. Looking through windows enables individuals to recognize the realities of others; peering into mirrors, they see their reality reflected (Style, 2021).
Since September 2012, my institution's annual SEED seminars have engaged academic advisors, faculty members, and other personnel in intentional reflection and meaningful conversations that help them create equitable and inclusive environments in their departments and programs. Through SEED training, advisors can learn to employ the LPM effectively in their advising sessions and model for students how to embrace and work through provocative moments. I served as a SEED leader on my campus for the past two years. Samples of assignments and exercises used include:
Session on Gender: Participants read Jamaica Kincaid's Girl and Richard Blanco's Making a Man Out of Me and then wrote their own gender story modeled on either narrative. In writing personal narratives, participants drew on messages from their past that instructed them about their gender.
Session on Race: Before our meeting, participants read Dr. Martin Luther King's (1963)Letter from Birmingham Jail and Ta-nehesi Coates' essay, The Case for Reparations. They also wrote journal reflections on actions they have taken regarding racial justice (e.g., kneeling during the singing of the national anthem to protest racism) and obstacles that have prevented action.
During sessions, participants shared their reflections, noting the windows and mirrors they saw in each other's narratives. Because maintaining confidentiality is one of SEED's ground rules, participants felt free to share deeply personal reflections that demonstrated their socialization to racism, sexism, class bias, and other types of injustice. Conversations also centered on how faculty members and personnel can take action in the classroom, departments, and other work environments to achieve genuine equity and justice.
SEED practices may be incorporated into learning-centered advising (Lowenstein, 2020) and a Freirian-inspired approach (Puroway, 2016). For example, during a meeting with a first-generation, low-income student who struggled with calculus, serial testimony involved each of us sharing our experiences learning math or other subjects, with me confessing to a bad grade in an introductory economics course. Serial testimony situated “questions for dialogue in the lived experiences of students” (Puroway, 2016, p. 6). I asked about high school classes and teachers, college preparation, and barriers to learning. We also discussed how imposter syndrome and stereotype threat affect learning and how these arise from negative images of certain populations and inequitable educational structures. Problematizing the curricula by helping the student recognize power structures in education (Puroway, 2016) and guiding them as they created meaning out of their learning (Lowenstein, 2020) encouraged a growth mindset, prompting the students to set aside embarrassment about seeking tutoring. In other instances, I honor students' freely chosen silence when they are unwilling or unready to grapple with provocative moments and instead focus on more transactional matters.
Faculty members and other personnel at my institution have benefited from the university's ability to fund participation in SEED training; however, other institutions might lack the budget to support advisor training. Advisors unable to participate in SEED could consider another training opportunity that provides similar comprehensive professional development programming.
The Education Subcommittee of NACADA's Race, Ethnicity, and Inclusion (REI) Work Group recently launched a five-part Inclusive Excellence Leadership workshop series to help the NACADA global community achieve greater racial and ethnic diversity and equity within leadership roles and structures. While this REI initiative focuses on race and ethnicity, its principles and practices may be applied to gender, economic status, and other socio-cultural dimensions. In the 2020-2021 Inclusive Excellence Leadership training, participants worked to identify the assumptions and biases that have shaped their educational and career journeys. Bimonthly sessions helped participants develop fluency in social justice topics, engaged them in a critical examination of their roles, and guided them in creating action plans to achieve equity and justice in their work spheres. Participants learned definitions of diversity, inclusion, equity, equality, power, structural and institutional racism, and personal bias. By reconceptualizing these terms, participants began to understand their impact on NACADA as an organization and on their advising practice. Following this training, advisors can articulate the value and benefits of a diverse and inclusive organization committed to equity and justice; they can apply these principles and practice in their daily work with students.
Given the racism, sexism, homophobia, income inequality, and other discrimination and violence that beleaguer our communities, educators must engage students in these issues meaningfully—and fearlessly—on their journey to self-authorship. This challenge requires primary-role advisors to embrace provocative moments that can lead to genuine, life-affirming equity and justice. We must no longer move toward social justice; we must assert it (King, 1964).
Contributor Notes
The author thanks Dr. James Creech and Dr. Holly Martin for taking the time to provide valuable feedback.
Cecilia Lucero is a first-year academic advisor in the Center for University Advising at the University of Notre Dame. She is also director of the Balfour-Hesburgh Scholars Program, faculty affiliate in the Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience, and faculty advisor to Show Some Skin, a student-led initiative with a mission to give voice to marginalized stories of identity and difference. Lucero may be reached at clucero@nd.edu.
