About the Book
Contested Issues in Troubled Times provides student affairs educators with frameworks to constructively think about and navigate the contentious climate they are increasingly encountering on campus. The 54 contributors address the book's overarching question: How do we create an equitable climate conducive to learning in a dynamic environment fraught with complexity and a socio-political context characterized by escalating intolerance, incivility, and overt discrimination?
Rather than attempting to offer readers definitive solutions, this book illustrates the possibilities and promise of acknowledging multiple approaches to addressing contentious issues, articulating a persuasive argument anchored in professional judgment, listening attentively to others for points of connection as well as divergence, and drawing upon new ways of thinking to foster safe and inclusive campuses.
Among the issues this volume addresses are such topics as sexual violence; historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups; transgender and undocumented students; the professional skills, knowledge and/or dispositions needed to thrive and facilitate systemic change in contemporary higher education organizations; the implications of maintaining personal and professional identities via social media; and self-care.
In this companion volume to Contested Issues in Student Affairs (whose issues remain as relevant today as they were upon publication in 2011), a new set of contributors explore new questions which foreground issues of equity, safety, and civility - themes which dominate today's higher education headlines and campus conversations.
The book concludes with calls to action, encouraging student affairs educators to exhibit the moral courage needed to critically examine routine practices that (un)knowingly perpetuate inequity and enact the foundational values and principles upon which the student affairs profession was founded.
About the Author :
Peter M. Magolda was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University. He focused his scholarship on ethnographic studies of college students, critical issues in qualitative research, and program evaluation. He is author of The Lives of Campus Custodians and co-author of Contested Issues in Student Affairs, Contested Issues in Troubled Times, and It's All About Jesus!: Faith as an Oppositional Collegiate Subculture, and has served on the editorial boards of Research in Higher Education and the Journal of Educational Research. He was an ACPA Senior Scholar inductee, and in 2013 received the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Mentoring Award. He also received Miami University's Richard Delp Outstanding Faculty Member award, as well Alumni Award from The Ohio State University and Indiana University.
We deeply mourn the loss of author, teacher, and friend Peter M. Magolda. Marcia B. Baxter Magolda is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Miami University of Ohio and a nationally recognized author and speaker on student development and learning. She received the American College Personnel Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education's Research Achievement Award in 2007, for her outstanding contribution to advancing student learning.
Her scholarship addresses the evolution of learning and development in college and subsequent adult life, and educational practice to promote self-authorship. Her seventh and eighth books respectively are Authoring Your Life and Development and Assessment of Self-Authorship. Rozana Carducci isthe graduate director of the Master of Arts in Higher Education Program at ElonUniversity.
Shewas previously at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts, where sheserved as assistant professor in the Department of Secondary and HigherEducation and coordinator of the Higher Education in Student Affairs graduateprogram. Ahe has dedicated herself for two decades to the practice and study ofhigher education leadership, and brings that wealth of knowledge and experienceto Elon.
Inher role coordinating the graduate program at Salem State, Carducci managedrecruitment, admissions, curriculum development, faculty selection andevaluation, student professional engagement, program communications and alumnirelations.
Lori D. Patton, Ph.D. is Department Chair of Educational Studies and Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs inthe College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University. Patton is known for scholarship on critical race theory, diversity initiatives on college campuses, Black women and girls in educational and social contexts, and college student development. The author of over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications, she has received national awards for her scholarship including being ranked among the top 200 educators in the US. She is frequently sought for expertise on education topics.
Review :
"Magolda, Baxter-Magolda, and Carducci have curated an impressive volume, assembling an impressive collection of leading voices to grapple with how student affairs scholars and practitioners can and should promote growth, learning, and development for all students as they navigate environments marked by various forms of oppression and marginalization. In addition to tackling everything from how to support students managing trauma to student affairs' larger role as an agent of social justice, this text is a primer on how to engage in complex, sometimes contentious, discourse around difficult issues. So much can be learned from how the authors affirm, challenge, and push each other and our field to have the hard conversations necessary to move colleges and universities forward. We don't always agree and there isn't always a clear-cut 'right' or 'wrong, ' but the authors of this text show us how authentic, thoughtful, critical engagement can lead to action and progress towards real solutions to persistent challenges facing the academy."--Kimberly A. Griffin, Associate Professor "University of Maryland; Editor, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education"
"Just as the first, the second edition of Contested Issues will become a go-to book for student affairs graduate courses and professional development opportunities on campus. Magolda, Baxter Magolda, and Carducci have assembled a timely book that engages the most difficult and important issues facing student affairs professionals today--and likely into the future. The array of authors--representing faculty members and professional staff at all stages of careers--lends to the usefulness of this volume through the presentation of diverse and challenging perspectives."--Robert D. Reason, Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs "Iowa State University"
"Contested Issues is structured in four parts. The first provides anintroduction to the book's purpose and an overview of key issues in highereducation and student affairs administration. The second addresses challengesand opportunities related to the creation of inclusive campus learningenvironments. The third explores how to engage in socially just, intentionalstudent affairs practice. Finally, in its fourth section, ContestedIssues comes close to answering the question it posed at the outset, suggesting both that the creation of 'an equitable climate conducive tolearning' is possible and that the responsibility for doing so belongs toindividual higher education and student affairs administrators acting in avariety of big and small ways every day. In short, the book describes howcolleges and universities ought to be more so than it offers the precise stepsfor how to get to that point.
The scope and scale of the contemporary issuescovered across the volume's 24 paired contributions is daunting. The chaptersmake clear both the challenges associated with the current socio-politicalreality and also that it has merely brought to the foreground long-simmeringissues associated with equity, inclusion, and social justice in highereducation institutions. That is, the challenges described in ContestedIssues are not new, they merely appear so to some because the currentsocio-political environment has swept away the thin veil of civility and laidbare the fact that college and university campuses have long disregarded theirrole in perpetuating systems of power, privilege, and oppression.
Taken as a whole, Contested Issues makesthe case that higher education and student affairs administrators must changethe way they approach their work to navigate the troubled times in whichcolleges and universities find themselves. It does not make the case that theproblems they must confront are new nor that the solutions to them are simple.It does not provide the answers but rather the questions that will lead to thischange. In so doing, Contested Issues is a powerfully usefultool for anyone who seeks to understand colleges and universities in athoughtful, reflexive way and appreciate more fully the systems of power, privilege, and oppression that are fundamentally intertwined with highereducation."
-- "Teachers College Record"
From the Foreword:
"Contested Issues in TroubledTimes: Student Affairs Dialogues on Equity, Civility, and Safety is a resource that has the capacity to bridge the gapbetween who we say we are as student affairs educators, who we actually are, and who we hope to become. The contributors effectively grapple with issuesplaguing our campuses and influencing our roles as professionals. The ques-tionsto which contributors respond not only raise awareness of critical andcontested issues but also prompt readers to do the difficult work of consider-inghow the field both fuels and works to disrupt them."
--Lori D. Patton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies "Iowa State University"
"Contested Issues in Troubled Times invites readers to engage some of the most perplexing issues confronting college and university educators in the 21st century. As the essayists wrestle with provocative questions that defy simplistic solutions, they model productive dialogue and offer a rich constellation of perspectives for the reader to consider. Contested Issues urges those of us invested in the student affairs profession to think beyond traditional field assumptions and strategies as we construct novel and nuanced practices that will help us move from troubled times toward a promising future."--Alyssa Rockenbach, Professor of Higher Education "North Carolina State University"
"Contested Issues in Troubled Times offers fresh perspectives on the role of student affairs educators and practitioners in engaging in the difficult but crucial work of promoting inclusive environments on college campuses. Importantly, it does so in a way that does not hide--and indeed celebrates--the diversity of viewpoints shared among colleagues. This book will undoubtedly serve as a valuable springboard for rich discussions in the classroom and in the student affairs profession."--Linda J. Sax, Professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies "University of California Los Angeles"
"A cross between professional development resource and inspirational essays, Contested Issues in Troubled Times artfully draws readers into a series of carefully crafted conversations about contentious issues in higher education, invites personal reflection and then encourages courageous action. The book promises to help student affairs educators channel their potential to put professional philosophy, commitments, research, and competencies to work to become agents for cultivating and sustaining inclusive learning environments."--Jillian Kinzie, Assistant Director, Center for Postsecondary Research "Indiana University Bloomington"
"In an era where overt oppression, righteous indignation, and name-calling are on the rise, an important skill for student affairs educators to practice is engaging about difficult issues productively. The contributors of this book model this kind of dialogue in thoughtful ways. Stemming from their previous innovative Contested Issues in Student Affairs volume, this companion book by Peter Magolda, Marcia Baxter Magolda, and Rozana Carducci adds a unique perspective on the important goal of building coalitions across differences."--Stephen John Quaye, Past President "ACPA: College Student Educators International, Associate Professor, Miami University"
"In this update to the original Contested Issues, a new generation of scholars challenges the usefulness and authenticity of many of the habits that we have lazily and superficially adopted. They rightly question best practices and position the profession of student affairs to focus on changing systems and structures to increase equity for marginalized students."--Anna Ortiz, Professor of Educational Leadership "Long Beach State University"
