(EN)COUNTERSPACES: An Analysis of Working Conditions for Student Affairs Professionals of Color in an Un-Ideal World

Publication Date

1-1-2023

Document Type

Contribution to a Book

Publication Title

Creating Sustainable Careers in Student Affairs: What Ideal Worker Norms Get Wrong and How to Make it Right

DOI

10.4324/9781003443834-14

First Page

201

Last Page

217

Abstract

This chapter offers the concept of encounterspaces as opportunities for healing, building community, and learning and strategizing ways to improve working conditions for professionals of Color. Paradoxically, professionals of Color also experience hypervisibility based on their embodied racial characteristics. The constant work required of ideal worker norms is compounded for student affairs professionals of Color by the additional labor they engage in to support students of Color. Hegemonic Whiteness and critical race theory shine a spotlight on the racialized aspects of maintaining the status quo, which involve upholding and ascribing to Whiteness. Full understanding of inequality regimes impacting professionals of Color necessitates an intersectional understanding of higher education, though a helpful starting place may be understanding how race impacts valuations of student affairs work. Graduate preparation faculty in higher education and student affairs programs have the potential to be powerful influencers in how graduate students and new professionals understand and engage with the field.

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