Exploring the Leadership Identity Development of Students of Color at a Selective Liberal Arts College

Students of color negotiate their own sense of what it means to be a person of color in the face of racial/ethnic stereotypes. This study aims to explore students of color\u27s identity as student leaders and further understand what role race plays in these students\u27 perceptions of race and leadership development. There has been a limited research on students of color, specifically regarding the experiences of these students who attend highly selective liberal arts colleges. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and understand how students of color who are considered relational leaders navigate the highly selective liberal arts college as student leaders, as well as how they construct their identity as leaders. Using critical race theory as the guiding framework for this study, five themes emerged: (a) individual social experiences, (b) early transition challenges and responding by involvement, (c) understanding leadership development and involvement as a process, (d) resisting and responding to racism and microaggressions, and (e) defining leadership for self. Implications for highly selective liberal arts colleges and other four-year institutions, as well as future research recommendations and implications for practice are discussed

Advising in science education: Critiquing where we have been, moving toward an equitable and holistic advising approach

This article explores and wrestles with the various discourses that arise when considering why it is important to advise students from an assets-based and holistic approach into science-related majors and careers. Our hope is to inform how and why it is important to advise students into science-related careers, specifically, and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, more generally, from an ethical and justice-oriented approach. We begin with a review of empirical literature that highlights the different approaches to advising and the challenges racially and gender-minoritized students often face in STEM fields. We then review contemporary research from science education that document the hostilities that racially and gender-minoritized students experience in undergraduate and graduate science programs. We find the intersection of these two subfields to be productive for elucidating multilevel, context-dependent strategies, which can redress the inexcusable and alarming underrepresentation and exclusion of racially minoritized peoples in science programs and careers in the United States. We end by contemplating the ethical question of how science programs, careers, and the broader field would need to change, to keep historically minoritized students from experiencing further material and epistemological violence. We argue that, without this reimagination, even the most effective advising models will only ensure that more racially and gender-minoritized students are sacrificed on the altar of “equality” for the sake of the economic and geopolitical needs of the state

Providing Spaces on College Campuses and through Social Media for Men of Color to Offer Counterstories

Counterstorytelling and history can be useful to understand the historical and political context of power, privilege and the oppression of historically marginalized communities in the United States (Zinn, 1994). Similar to counterstorytelling and history, social media has become an important source of news that influences the examination of society and culture, and its interaction of race, law, power and privilege. If one was born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, one might simply accept anything and everything that social media tells us. “Knowing a bit of history—while it would not absolutely prove the government [and media] were lying in a given instance—might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth” (Zinn, 1994, p. 1 4). This truth is very much rooted in the lived experiences of our daily lives

Leading and Thriving: How Leadership Education Can Improve First-Year Student Success

Leadership development transforms the lives of many students and leadership educators regularly witness these changes. But little research has articulated what is being taught that facilitates this change, how we can make it happen more often, or how we can measure this change. These transformations contribute to desirable outcomes including student persistence and academic achievement. Leadership studies programs have great potential to contribute to these positive student outcomes especially with first-year students.Using the Social Change Model of Leadership Development, we delineate how the study of leadership aids students in experiencing these transformations, as defined by Schreiner’s Thriving Model, along with example lessons that serve elements in both models. Significant implications are discussed, including greater engagement with first-year students and outreach to at-risk students. This is followed by recommendations for leadership educators and a discussion of future research focus areas

No Place Like Home: The Coming Out Experiences of Gay Men in Student Affairs and Higher Education Preparation Programs

Development occurs over the lifespan, and student affairs educators are not exempt from that life-long process. This article examined the coming out experiences of gay men within student affairs master’s preparation programs. The study was comprised of 11 participants representing seven different higher education/student affairs administration programs. The findings of this study offer the following: first, the study offers insight on the coming out experiences of gay men in graduate preparation programs. Second, the findings showcase the role that student affairs programs, curriculum, and instruction play in the identity exploration process for gay men. Finally, findings from this study offer implications for pedagogical approaches and frameworks within student affairs/higher education administration programs

Seeing through colorblindness

In our work with fraternities and sororities, how often do we reflect on the role race plays in recruitment practices or how it shapes the experiences of members, chapters, organizations, and the fraternity community as a whole? In our estimation, not often enough. However, if we explore the history of fraternities and sororities, we learn these organizations were typically created and organized specifically around race. From the founding of Phi Beta Kappa in 1776 to the beginnings of many other organizations through the late 1960s, historically White fraternities in the United States were legally racially exclusive (Kendall, 2008), most going so far as to include racial segregation policies in their constitutions (Hughey, 2010). During this time of racial exclusion, Black collegians banded together to form Greek-letter organizations collectively referred to today as “the Divine Nine” (Kimbrough, 2003). More recently, people from other racially minority groups, including Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and others, formed Greek-letter organizations (Kimbrough, 2003)

Cash by any other name? Evidence on labeling from the UK Winter Fuel Payment

Government transfers to individuals are often given labels indicating that they are designed to support the consumption of particular goods. Standard economic theory implies that the labeling of cash transfers or cash-equivalents should have no effect on spending patterns. We study the UK Winter Fuel Payment, a cash transfer to older households. Our empirical strategy nests a regression discontinuity design within an Engel curve framework. We find robust evidence of a behavioral effect of labeling. On average households spend 47% of the WFP on fuel. If the payment were treated as cash, we would expect households to spend 3% of the payment on fuel. © 2014 Elsevier B.V

Feline Immunodeficiency Virus Integration in B-Cell Lymphoma Identifies a Candidate Tumor Suppressor Gene on Human Chromosome 15q151

Infection with immunosuppressive lentiviruses is associated with increased cancer risk,but most studies have implicated indirect mechanisms as the tumor cells generally lack integrated viral sequences.An exception wasfound in a B-cell lymphoma (Q254) where the tumor cells contained a single integrated feline immunodeficiency virus genome. Additional analysis now indicates that feline immunodeficiency virus integration in lymphoma Q254 resulted in promoter insertion and truncation of a conserved gene on feline chromosome B3, whereas the unaffected allele of the gene appeared to be transcriptionally down-regulated. The orthologous human gene (FLJ12973), is expressed ubiquitously and encodes a WD-repeat protein with structural similarity to DDB2, the small subunit of the xeroderma pigmentosum XP-E complex. Moreover, the gene is located within a region of frequent tumor-specific deletions on chromosome 15q15. These observations demonstrate the direct mutagenic potential of the lentiviruses and identify a new candidate tumor suppressor gene

Precise mass and radius values for the white dwarf and low mass M dwarf in the pre-cataclysmic binary NN Serpentis

We derive precise system parameters for the pre-cataclysmic binary, NN Ser. From light curve fitting we find an orbital inclination of i = 89.6 +/- 0.2 deg. From the HeII absorption line we find K_{WD}= 62.3 +/- 1.9 km/s. The irradiation-induced emission lines from the surface of the secondary star give a range of observed radial velocities. The corrected values give a radial velocity of K_{sec}= 301 +/- 3 km/s, with an error dominated by the systematic effects of the model. This leads to a binary separation of a = 0.934 +/- 0.009 R_{sun}, radii of R_{WD} = 0.0211 +/- 0.0002 R_{sun} and R_{sec} = 0.149 +/- 0.002 R_{sun} and masses of M_{WD} = 0.535 +/- 0.012 M_{sun} and M_{sec} = 0.111 +/- 0.004 M_{sun}. The masses and radii of both components of NN Ser were measured independently of any mass-radius relation. For the white dwarf, the measured mass, radius and temperature show excellent agreement with a `thick' hydrogen layer of fractional mass M_{H}/{M}_{WD} = 10^{-4}. The measured radius of the secondary star is 10% larger than predicted by models, however, correcting for irradiation accounts for most of this inconsistency, hence the secondary star in NN Ser is one of the first precisely measured very low mass objects to show good agreement with models. ULTRACAM r', i' and z' photometry taken during the primary eclipse determines the colours of the secondary star as (r'-i')_{sec}= 1.4 +/- 0.1 and (i'-z')_{sec} = 0.8 +/- 0.1 which corresponds to a spectral type of M4 +/- 0.5. This is consistent with the derived mass, demonstrating that there is no detectable heating of the unirradiated face, despite intercepting radiative energy from the white dwarf which exceeds its own luminosity by over a factor of 20.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures, 8 tables, minor changes, accepted for publication in MNRA