Raechele Pope

How have these student development theories of the past fallen short in their ability to address the identity realities and experiences of marginalized students. What was missing there? What is missing there?

Stella L. Smith
The theories help us understand how to help students feel like they belong, belong in the space that oftentimes they don’t feel like they belong. And so I know, when I was doing Student Support Services, I was a predominantly white institution. And sometimes the spaces in which I was doing that work, were the places where our students felt most comfortable. So how do I arm them, using these theories with a belonging that takes them throughout their their time at that institution.

Raechele Pope
Welcome to Student Affairs NOW, the online learning community for Student Affairs educators. I’m your host Raechele Pope. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com. You can find this on YouTube, or anywhere that you listen to podcasts. This episode today is brought to you by Stylus publishing, visit styluspub.com and use the promo code SANow for 30% off and free shipping. This episode is also sponsored by Vector Solutions formerly EverFi the trusted partner for 2000 colleges and universities EverFi is the standard of care for students safety and inclusion. Now, as I mentioned, I’m Raechele Pope. My pronouns are she her hers and I’m broadcasting from Williamsville, New York, near the campus of the University of Buffalo where I serve as the Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs, and the university Diversity Officer for the Graduate School of Education. I’m also a professor in the higher education and student affairs programs. The University of Buffalo is situated on the unseeded ancestral homeland. I’m joined today by two of the editors of the books where pegs and round holes, alternative approaches to diverse college student development theory. I’m with Dr. Fred Bonner and Dr. Stella Smith. As a self professed professor and longtime Student Development geek, I am so excited to have this conversation and to revisit the college student development frameworks with a focus on marginalized community. So thank you for joining me today for this episode of Student Affairs now, and welcome to the podcast. I was hoping that you could begin by telling us a bit about you your current role on campus and a bit about your pathways in education. Fred why you started off.

Fred A. Bonner II
Well, thank you so much, my dear friend, I’m always excited to see you and always excited to participate in any conversation related to higher ed and Student Affairs. And you have been doing great work, excellent work for a long time. And I so appreciate your friendship, your mentoring, your peer mentoring, and the role that you’re playing in the field of student affairs and an in higher ed Yes, yes, yes, would have missed it. And want to share just a little bit about me. My name is Fred Bonner. I am Professor endowed chair and the Willamina Delco Endowed Chair here at Prairie View A&M University. And if you don’t know anything about Prairie View, we are the HBCU in the Texas A&M university system. So about 45 minutes down the road from the College Station campus. But I am on the director, as you can see on my shirt of the MACH-III center that stands for minority achievement, creativity and high ability. So the mach three Center is a galvanizing space for us to be able to foreground research that focuses on minoritized populations to focus on issues of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. And it’s a place in a space that the system has been so generous to provide me with the opportunity and the space and room just to dream about what is best for minoritized populations and higher and higher education across the higher education spectrum. So I’ve been in this role since 2015. Prior to that, I was the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair at Rutgers University. So a little bit of a shift from the northeast coast to the south, but a good shift. I’m excited about being here and excited about the work that we’re doing. So and you’ll get an opportunity to hear from the associate director of the MACH-III Center, Dr. Stella Smith, but the two of us are basically as I said before trying to foreground what is best best practices, and the alchemy for success for minoritized populations across the higher education passport.

Raechele Pope
Great, thank you and all of those kind words you said about me? I certainly bounce right back to you. I feel so much at the same. Stella, Please introduce yourself.

Stella L. Smith
Thank you so much. My name is Stella Smith, and I am Associate Director of the MACH-III Center as Dr. Bonner said and I’m also an assistant professor in the educational leadership and counseling department of education at Prairie View A&M University. And a little bit, my pronouns are she, her and hers. And my journey in higher education has mostly been at the University of Texas. I was there for a very long time. And I came to Prairie View in order to do the work at MACH-III. And to be able to be part of Dr. Bonner’s, dream and vision of creating this space on campus to understand and develop asset based approaches to support underrepresented populations in education. And so I’ve had the the honor to be here since 2017, and have enjoyed all of the wonderful things that we’ve been able to do so far, and look forward to the things we’re going to do in the future.

Raechele Pope
Wow, that’s great. And thank you, for those for introducing yourselves to our audience. I believe that your that your work far exceeds, you know, the MACH center, and Texas and so we’ve all been beneficiaries of your work. And it’s no surprise, then that you folks in that center, and are focusing on student development theories. You know, I think it’s really important if we want to see our students thrive. So I was, I wanted to ask you just basically the general question, what are your thoughts on the importance of Student Development theories and our work with helping students succeed and thrive on college campuses? What have you thought about student development theory? And, and and what what are the directions that you’ve been seeing? Fred, why don’t you start us off there.

Fred A. Bonner II
Excellent. That is a very important question, a very key question, particularly for those of us who study Higher Education and Student Affairs. So going back to some of my early training in higher ed and Student Affairs. I was always intrigued by the narrative about a story about how students learn how they grew, how they develop. But the story and the narrative was always told from my perspective, then in some ways, I thought left me out. It was a perspective where my voice the people who I knew the African American males from my community, or the Hispanic males from my community, or the Hispanic females or the Native American students, so I just always felt like we you know, as we, we would always talk about the the alphabet soup of names the Schlosberg, you know, on and on and on, you know, and I was packing, I mean, the work that she was doing, I mean, the list is long. But again, the work that these Vanguard scholars was doing was very, very important. It’s quintessential is key. I mean, you know, you, you can never diminish or wash away, or Colbert, or these people really gave us the seminal works, the seeds that planted that have grown into student development theory. However, what I wanted was some seeds that was sprinkled in my garden, you know, I come from a place where, you know, they’re received, there are people who are planting, there are people who are sewing, but it didn’t seem like I didn’t see the manifestation of those groups. So what did it look like for an African American male coming from? Like me, I come from a small rural town in East Texas, oh, my high school graduating class back in getting old 1987 was the largest class that my town had half or while there was 100 students, so. So here it is, I’m coming from small town, East Texas, but I went to a public high school there, and my mom was a teacher there. My father was my high school assistant principal. So I came from this background of these educators coming from these very rural settings, but some educated smart black folks from the country. But that story didn’t get mapped into the theories that I was reading. So I’m wanting to know what it looked like for me to go off to the University of North Texas and major in chemistry. You know, what did it look like for my, my friend who decided to go to Grambling State University and major and so on, and on and on, and on and on. So I think the seeds of what we were trying to do with this book, they come from this long standing tradition and history of folks like me, who want to know more about, you know, what does it mean for me to learn, grow and develop in the higher education context?

Raechele Pope
You know, so I mean, that’s, that’s it’s really interesting what Fred was saying that I didn’t feel that I was included. My voice wasn’t heard or my flower wasn’t able to grow or plant wasn’t able to grow and Wondering, Stella with maybe you can that for us a bit? How have these student development theories of the past fallen short in their ability to address the identity realities and experiences of marginalized students? What what was missing there? What is missing there?

Raechele Pope
Thank you so much for that question that is critically important. So it was it was listening to Dr. Bonner talking, I was thinking back to my student support services time, so I spent some time doing direct student support as a student affairs professional. And when I think about this book, although I come at it from a faculty lens from an editor lens, I also come at it from a practitioner lens as well. And so I think about how the book helps practitioners discover connection and empathy, but not sympathy. So when you think about these traditional theories that are put into place, when you take one of those theories, and you try to put it on an underrepresented population, sometimes the student affairs professional will come up with a sympathetic kind of connection with the student, not empathetic, we’re trying to show that those students are bringing assets. And that is what some of these theories have lacked. They haven’t shown our students as bringing assets, because the things that they bring that are so remarkable, are not included in those traditional theories are not thought about into those traditional theories. They’re also bringing connection, like helping student affairs professionals understand how they need to connect with students, we would call it intrusive advising, to try to make sure that you are there when a student needs you. And sometimes there when the student doesn’t think they need you. And available, so the student knows that they can come to you if for some reason you haven’t, you haven’t realized that they are in crisis. But I think over all of that the theories help us understand how to help students feel like they belong, belong in the space that oftentimes they don’t feel like they belong. And so I know, when I was doing Student Support Services, I was a predominantly white institution. And sometimes the spaces in which I was doing that work, were the places where our students felt most comfortable. So how do I arm them, using these theories with a belonging that takes them throughout their their time at that institution. And I think the theories that we talk about in this book, allow student affairs professionals to begin that work to begin to figure out how to support our students. Each of them is unique, but gives them a closer pathway and a closer guideline to do that, than what is traditionally out there. In terms of the theories.

Raechele Pope
Yeah, I really love that asset approach that you talked about, and helping students feel like they belong. And I remember way back and I got UB, Fred, way back when I was a student. And I remember at that time, they were talking about these theories. And then the people who didn’t fit the the developmental progress or schematic that was was laid out, we’re seeing as developmentally delayed, you know, and I remember some of those early things that and it took some folks to push and say, Wait a minute, the model was just different. I remember with gender, for example, one of the early authors said, it’s not that we are developmentally delayed, because of our connections with relationship, this develops before that. And that was eye opening. And so that’s how we started saying, Well, maybe it’s just a little different. Maybe it’s a different sequence, and some of the stuff that you folks are talking about other. Both theorists and scholars who write about this stuff are saying, it’s not always just that it’s in a different order. Sometimes it’s just different. And that we’ve got to recognize that there is that that there is that difference, and that difference is, is value. Now, let me ask this question a friend, it’s a very similar question to the one for sale, but I just want to take a different tack. If we develop student development theories that actually responded to the needs in the identities and the realities and experiences of our marginalized students. How would they look different? How would they be different? Or what would the students experience that was different?

Fred A. Bonner II
Well, that’s, that’s an excellent question. And I love what you said last, how is the student’s experience different? So when we have to start, I think is that fact that students are having these experiences, no matter what their identity is? So they’re having the experiences so now that we recognize here’s the experience, so maybe that’s your foundation? Yeah, but now the new wants is when we start to look at what the experience means what I layer my identity on top of that. So, an experience is an experience is an experience. I mean, there are certain things and to say there’s a baseline that all college students go through A, B, C, and D. However, they’re going to A, B, C, and D, differently based on what they’re bringing to the environment. You know, even if we take away race and take away gender, take away those identifiers. As we delve into some of the K 12 literature, you know, we talk a lot about pirate to social and cultural capital. So if we look at what students are bringing to the higher a context, you know, did they have books in the home? Did they have parents who read to them? Did they have access to resources? Did they have computers did they have X, Y, and Z, on and on and on and on. So when we start to look at each student that’s going off to college, so here is the first year experience? Well, everyone’s gonna have this first year at your experience. However, now we’re starting to layer on the identity factors, the race, the gender, the social cultural capital, you know, the rural versus urban. So there are so many different ways that approaches and so many different identifiers that signal that those frameworks, they can’t all be the they can’t be operationalized the same way because students don’t experience it the same way. Because they come in with such different backgrounds experiences, different traditions, different mores from their homes. You know, I guess the best way I can say Dr. Pope, so one of my favorite books, and one of my dear colleagues from my days at Texas A&M, he’s still there. I think he’s retiring this year, Dr. Joe Bacon. So all of his great work in sociology, and I used to keep his book by me pretty close. So one of my favorite one of his books, he has a million, but one of my favorite books is the white racial frame. And that book is so so, so intuitive, and so, so, so emblematic of how I think we should look at student development theory, because here, just because you take away the frame doesn’t mean that you still don’t have a pitch. And I think that is what we sometimes miss. The students are coming to you, they are the picture. And we are framing them in a particular way. And these theories serves these theories, serve as frames, and I will say, my blackness, my boldness, my black maleness. Nine times out of 10 is is bigger than that little frame that you’re putting me in, right? Your frame is seeing me as this, I’m seeing myself as this and how often do we do that to students of color, we put them in a frame, that’s five by seven or eight by 10.

Raechele Pope
That’s, that’s, that’s lovely. And then, and then, that really is we forget that the frames that we developed, were to help us gather some information to recognize things that were both similar and different. And then all of a sudden, we start, you know, start thinking everybody has to fit the frame, as opposed to we fit the frame to the person. By all five by seven frames, we have to recognize there’s different sizes, we have to recognize the horizontal and the vertical, etc. YThat’s it. So the new folks wrote this book, or, you know, edited this book wrote parts of this book, to offer some alternative approaches to remind people that these frames were just that frames, you know, they weren’t the whole picture. And you wanted to make sure that your the theories that you offered the theories that you highlighted, were particularly for for these, marginalized students. But before we get into the frames that you start off with, I want you to tell us a little bit about the origin story of this book. That’s always fascinating for our listeners. How did it begin? How did you come up with the idea for this, this book, and talk to me about how the how you decided who were going to be the CO editors? And then where did you find these amazing chapter authors? How did you all get together to tell this story and to offer this important resource to us?

Fred A. Bonner II
You know, I kind of chuckle that’s an excellent question, and I chuckled because I immediately think about Estella’s character in the Golden Girls are not 22. Let me take you back. When I tell you if, Dr. Bonda was on here, she would definitely say this. And she says it several times. This was a labor of love. This book, Dr. Pope, it actually started way back when I was well, the idea it was a nascent idea. And it started way back when I was teaching college student development theory. And I’ve taught that course for a lot of years and a lot of different spaces. I first started teaching the course at A&M College Station. No, no, no, no, I first started teaching that course, when I was at Bowling Green State University. So that was my first tenure track position. And I also taught it at UT San Antonio, when I was there in the master’s in higher ed student affairs program, transition to Texas A&M, and I really double down on teaching it there in the SAHE program at a&m. So that was kind of like my standard course for masters and doctoral level students. And then last fall, and Matt Well, Glasgow went to Rutgers University. So in the CSA program, I taught the course there. And now transitioning to Prairie View, still teaching the course. And across all of those contexts, still had this nascent idea that was budding, evolving, and say, you know, it is very phenomenally whitespaces students were saying, none of that theory does not fit, it doesn’t sound like me, what does it mean? Best, you know, I have to, I have to force myself to fit into these boxes. So there’s always this level of discomfort that the students, particularly my students of color, my students who identified differently, alternatively, whether it was a sexual orientation, whether it was their racial, ethnic identity, so there was so many nuances. So many times when I taught the course, we spent just as much time talking about how it was different than the actual theory itself. So and I was here with them, just to whet their appetite. Because the one thing that I always say in class, my two primary key terms to get the class started is typically, I want you to problematize and deconstruct. So there are so many issues out there. Everybody has issues, People Magazine has issues, we we study problems, so I can you take that issue and make that issue a problem that we can attack. And I want you to deconstruct, so you never take these theories, you never, you know, don’t put that in your mouth until you know where it came from, you have to really, really know how are these theories norm? Do they fit you with a normal population? Is that look sound like you, you know, have the same issues. So maybe so maybe not most of the time, not, but I need you to know, I need to deconstruct how that works. You know, how does it work for you? So what does this theory mean? You know, what does it mean, for this brother coming from Third Ward Houston, in this context. So I guess I say now, being in a historically black college university context, it became even more profound, to have access to some theories that reflected the student population that I’m teaching. And again, I always say, I am not throwing away a single, traditional, excellent theory, because those theories are the foundations though. I’m not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Absolutely not. So I’m just saying that this book is, as the title says, alternative theories of college student development. So we want you know, we’ve been traveling down this road, this highway of college student development theories, since the, you know, the 60s even before, and people of color, we, we were traveling, we’re good with traveling. But sometimes we need offerings. There’s some things, there’s some issues, there are some topics, there are some, you know, you don’t always want was just on the main highway, sometimes you need to get to that restaurant cut off, we need to do that very same thing by way of our theories, you know, and that’s what this book offers. It gives us some off ramps to really pursue some venues, some avenues that are really reflective of who we are and what we bring to the higher ed space.

Raechele Pope
Yeah. So I understand that this was something that had been germinating with you for years and years and years, as you were feeling some discomfort and with the theories and they’re not telling the whole story. Yeah, they might tell certain people stories very well. But they’re not telling the whole story. But then how do they get from that germination that idea that you have how to turn into now this book, Stella what would you add to that? How did it move from this idea and this I’m problem that was tickling at Dr. Bronner, for so long have you had to you?

Raechele Pope
Thank you for that question. And so this particular book is really close to me because it is one of the first things that I worked on as as part of MACH-III. So it had this long history of being an idea, to me helping to helping Dr. Bonner to put this proposal together and actually start the process of creating this amazing text. And so, you know, submitting the proposal going out and identifying chapter authors that really brought these alternative perspectives to that could be written well that that were emblematic, excuse me, of all of these different alternative ways in which we could approach student development. And so, again, as Dr. Bonda says, It was a labor of love, even after that it took some time for the book to finally come to fruition. But what a wonderful product that we that we had given because we took the time to really think about which ones are the theories or the ones that are important. For this volume, we always hear that we need to make another volume, because there’s all these other theories that need to be brought out to the forefront and to be a companion to this particular volume. But, you know, I think what the book also demonstrates is that we’ve got so many practitioners out there ready, and researchers out there ready to share these alternative theories, you know, they’re there, we just need to pull them to the forefront, and have them in a place where people can use them and can access them in order to support their work. So it’s really wonderful, I’m very proud of the fact that we have both practitioners and faculty that have written these chapters. So you know, that these theories or theories that they’re actually putting into place, these are theories that are helping students get through their time at whatever type of institution that they’re at. And I think what is also so wonderful about this book is that practitioners are seeing themselves in the chapters as well. So as we think about a, we do need to help students. And that’s definitely what we’re here for practitioners and faculty are, and staff are being validated by seeing that there are these theories that might have helped them then do help them now as they’re going through an academic space. So I just, once we got on it, we were on it, and it and it happened. And we’re really excited about that.

Raechele Pope
Well, that is one of the things that I wanted to bring up about the book before we jump into the frameworks at all was that this is a book that there are people who are going to pick this up from anywhere in the country, and they’re going to recognize some of those chapter author names, they are going to be Oh, yeah, these are some of the theories that I’ve been studying and other classes. This is what I know about student development in this direction. Clearly some of those folks on this cutting edge of this work. And then at the same time, there are names that aren’t known nationally, that are known on their particular campus or in their particular region, because they are doing this really intense practitioner work. And I thought that that was brilliant, because some of the things that they’re talking about some of the things that they’re suggesting some of the examples that they’re providing, are so clearly practical, accurate, speaks to the voices that have been feeling left out and reminding us of the importance of that work. So that was, I just think that was a piece of genius, and you’re putting this together. I am, you know, I want to stop teasing people and start talking about some of these frameworks, because they are so important. And they add so much more. So let me ask this question about the frameworks themselves. There are a variety of them offered, you know, in the book, so what frameworks can or should we use in conceptualizing student development theory? And how, and what are some of the things that you’re that you’re actually offering? What are you suggesting? That that people know and use and do differently? Fred why dont you start us off there?

Fred A. Bonner II
Sure. So I would say, What’s, to me, what is one of the things that’s most critical about these frameworks is that one, they give the alternative perspective and they honor the value the voice and the experiences of each one of those. Lack of a better term, the older nomenclature sub population, so population, we’re not some anything So other populations that are covered. So with each one of those populations, you have authors, you have scholars, you have practitioners, you have individuals who are truly talking about their experiences in whatever capacity they bring to the book. And I’m big one of the courses that I have taught are sometimes teaches qualitative research. So and definitely is not just new kind of tests, you know, whether we teach a qualitative research or not, but sharing a good deal, your dissertation. So we’re always seeking quality one particularly qual research. So but one of the key terms in qualitative research that I always get students to think about when they’re talking about their positionality statement is the EMIC versus the IDIC perspective. So the insider perspective, the EMIC perspective, versus the IDIC perspective, the outsider perspective. So I’m, you know, it’s kind of it gets weary being the subject of the narrative, as opposed to being the producer of the narrative. Right? Why is someone else telling my story about being a black man about being a black college student? Who is? And again, I’m not, I’m not trying to say that people outside the IDIC perspective, doesn’t matter, it does matter. But you can have the perspective all the time. Every once in a while, can I speak for myself? Can these black men who look like me have their own narrative? Can we foreground, our own masculinity, our managing our own gender identity? So these are the things that I think, you know, that black woman should talk about her epistemology and what that means, by way of a theory, you know, that our Native American man should talk about, you know, what does it mean to be in a higher end environment where everything is about this very, very low context culture, when I come from a high context culture? So how do we get the narratives? How do we have the opportunities for people to truly talk from an authentic space? And I think that is what this book does. It allows the foregrounding of EMIC perspectives told by the individuals who are actually going through these experiences, as opposed to the IDIC perspective, somebody outside pontificating, and trying to imagine who I am, you don’t have to imagine who I am when I’m sitting right before you might could tell you. But that is what people of color people, different identities have not been able to do. The hiring literature has validated and valued, this particular line of inquiry and this particular line of telling the story, that is not always indicative, not always representative of who I am. And that’s what we wanted this book to be. We each one of these chapters, it is a representation, an authentic representation of who these people are. And I suppose I’m so glad you said when you said the brains of this book is that it’s not just research one scholars or scholars coming from our big AAU institutions, because we know, you know, I take that part of it comes from my experience as being a professor and writing a letters of recommendation or serving as an external reference evaluator for so many colleagues and scholars. And I can remember when I was in the big research, one when I was at Texas A&M, when I was at Rutgers, and when scholars would come up, you know, one of the things that we will say it in the narrative, as you know, in most institutions, for tenure and promotion, when you’re selecting those people to serve as your external evaluators, they tell you to get individuals from peer institutions, institutions have a similar kind of gait classification ilk. So we get that however, there’s always this caveat.

Fred A. Bonner II
Not all intelligencia not all scholars, not all top scholars are in research ones. So you will find these amazingly brilliant scholars who might be at a Berea College who might be at an institution might be at a Stephen F. Austin State University, no less institution, great institutions, but not the cachet, and copy of being a research one? Why apply that there is saying notion that very same thought behind the scholarship that we’re doing in this very present context, as the world’s system starts to recognize HBCUs I mean, we got this HBCU frenzy going on right now. The worry that I have about that is that for the traditional audience is that there was this poet years and years ago that I heard. This is back when slam poetry was just kind of coming on the scene I will never forget. It was this Africana scholar. She was out really, really sharp and she had this poem, I just remember the hook, she just kept. She just kept reiterating this hook. And the hook said, you take the culture, you leave the people, you take the culture, you leave the people, you take the culture, you leave the people, you take the culture, you leave the people. So that has stuck with me. That was like 9097, that is stuck with me all the time. You take the culture, you leave the people, right? So with this big ethos, this move this zeitgeist we have in this country right now about HBCUs. I want us to not only take the culture, but also take the people along with you as you move. And I think this book does that?

Raechele Pope
Well, I think it does, in a couple of circumstances, because you could look in this book is so broad, you know, with your 19 chapters and or 18 chapters. And then there’s seven parts to this book. And so there are parts where you’re talking about African American populations, you’re talking about Asian American student populations, and providing frames and frameworks for those, you’re talking about LatinX college populations, and again, providing multiple frames there, LGBTQIA populations and providing multiple frames there multiracial and Native American college student populations, non traditional age college student populations. And so it really has a whole lot going in there. And with each of those, you take the culture and not the population. And you’re saying that I’ve taken both, you know, and that that’s such an important part of that. So let me ask you a couple of questions about these frameworks that were offered. And what again, these scholars, these practitioners offered that is both similar. And different if you were to think about how these frameworks translate to practice. Now, you know, for those of us who are scholars who are professors, we know the importance of that sometimes we don’t, we’re not living that anymore, even though we, you know, we lived it before, right? So what I’d like to know is, you know, as you think about those different chapters, and the folks who offered these frames, how can these frameworks translate to practice in the various domains. And so I’m saying to my listeners, right, now, listen up. Because those of you who are doing this in practice work, this book is offering you opportunities to really see it, or there are a couple that stand out for you, Stella, as you think about one or two of these chapters that said, Here is here’s some real clear ideas as to how to translate these theories.

Raechele Pope
No, that’s an interesting question. You know, it’s almost like asking you which one of your kids do you love. So so whatever I named doesn’t mean that I don’t love the other words, it’s just the one that popped into my head when you. So when I think about all of the chapters, and this is particularly placed in what I do right now, so as a as a faculty member, in a doctoral program, and thinking about a population that is often not talked about, I really, I really think about the non traditional age student chapter. And as something that really stands out to me only because there are so many of underrepresented students in graduate programs that I think are being underserved and not well served in those spaces. The institution does not change the way it does what it does for a graduate student in most cases. And so those chapters talking about different ways to support the educational experience of a of a non traditional student, particularly one that’s in a graduate program, a working student, I think are really, really important and critical now that we’re coming out of COVID. I mean, I think there’s things about the student experience that have been revealed that were there before. I think those of us that kind of worked through it as we were trying to make it through undergrad and knew we weren’t traditional, but didn’t get the kind of support that we needed at that time. You know, now institutions are making changes and shifts in order to support all these different diverse, diverse types of students and being a non traditional student adds a level of level of identity, that sometimes we don’t recognize, and we don’t talk about and I believe that That is a really important section of, of the book, and one that is often not talked about as much. And I think it gets to the multiple identities that we bring in, you know, we talked about multiple identities, but and as I was thinking about that question, everybody has multiple identities like it’s, you know, everybody is walking through life and multiple identities, it just so happens that we are now trying to help people recognize the fact that we come in with multiple identities. I think about being at an HBCU. You know, people think HBCUs are monoliths, but there’s all sorts of dark people walking around with multiple identities on this campus, like, we are not all the same. And so and that is the same for all of the groups that we’re talking about. So by asking people to recognize people, for people, to recognize them for what they bring to the table, and provide them and let them know that you are thinking of them, what they bring to the table as assets versus deficits, and that you’re willing to work with them to get the things that they need to be successful in that space. That’s what every one of these theories is trying to say.

Raechele Pope
Wow, you know, and I think I think you hit it on the head. And you’re right. I’m telling folks, if you haven’t read this book, if you don’t have this book on your shelf right now, go get it. You know, and I’m looking at my timer here. And we are really getting close to out of time. And there’s tons of stuff that I wanted to ask you tons and stuff, I’m sure that you could have said we didn’t talk about this. So let me just give you a couple of minutes each to say, look, I wish we would have covered this, but we didn’t get to it and say a little bit about that. And so Fred, why don’t we start with you? What do you wish we had a chance to cover didn’t quite get to and what can you offer to us?

Fred A. Bonner II
Yes, yes, ma’am. And I would say, My dear friend, you’ve actually covered a lot of the landscape piece of this some excellent questions. And I’m not surprised because you’re brilliant. I mean, you do. But, you know, I was saying it kind of piggybacks on what Dr. Smith just said, the thing that I’m most, one of the things that I like about this book is that it really, really unpacks some areas, it actually allows the reader to go down some pathways that are not traditionally thought of, for instance. So and this connects to a book, my book series, I have a book series, diverse faculty in the academy. And the interesting thing about that series, the very, very first book in my series, was racial battle fatigue. So we your racial battle fatigue. And so this kind of goes to me talking about problematizing deconstructing. So even when we get to the alternative theories, there’s like, our thought processes sometimes don’t go to an alternative place. So what I like about the very first book in my series is that it’s an alternative to the alternative, what I mean by that. So whenever we typically hear a lot of scholars in higher education, racial battle fatigue, the very first place that we go, is for African American scholars, not black, which I get it because my dear friend, I’m good brother, Dr. William Smith coined the term so very strong black scholars, so and black folks, African American folks who have used racial battle fatigue in some very in putting it put in a critical ways. What I love about this first book is that it’s racial battle fatigue and faculty. But it’s not black faculty is Asian American faculty. That is what I like about this book, in the sense that we get to problematize theory for some populations that our assumption is that they don’t need a theory. They’re doing fine. Right? We’re moving beyond that whole notion of that the stereotype, you know, model minority syndrome. But we see this book also allows Asian American populations to theorize and fit the frame to their culture, some of the things that we don’t know. And I’m also proud about the fact that we have different approaches to Native American LGBTQIA. And as Dr. Smith said, I actually piggyback on what she said about non traditional students just this past week, and our doctoral class here at Prairie View A&M University. Our students We’re saying we had this really wonderful discussion. And it was actually Dr. Smith policy class, this really wonderful discussion about what these students were bringing into the doctoral program. And what we found out is that we need to talk about what it means to be a non traditional doctoral student. So basically, we’re spending so much time talking about what it means to be a freshman, a sophomore, just getting into college. Do you know some of us here, you know, they talk about their family backgrounds, they were talking about, you know, having not having resources, how difficult it was just to get to Prairie View, or get into a doctoral program. So like, we get a doctor by the year we need to talk about at that level, you know, what it means some of these non traditional issues, but has anyone ever unpack what it means to be a non traditional doctoral students because we can’t fail? Sometimes just trying to make it here in these spaces whether this is A&M, Prarie View with his Howard with his fist, we are struggling to, but no one really problematizes what it means to be a non traditional doctoral student.

Raechele Pope
Right? Right. Right, right. Well, in our our literature is so limited when it comes to graduate education in general. And, you know, one of my doctoral students right now is saying, nobody knows my experience in graduate school, we have very little going on. And so then you take that population, and you open it up, as you folks have done in the book, open it up and see who else is in there. Stella, I want to give you a chance to say what do you wish we had covered that we didn’t get to that? Is that around alternative approaches to Student Development, or the book that you folks have offered us?

Raechele Pope
Well, I think as Dr. Bonner said, we had a really robust discussion. I think it’s just enough of a teaser in order for people to go get the book and get it because it’s going to be affirming for you, it’s going to be affirming for you personally, as you read it, I think, as you see yourself in some of these theories that we hope you see yourself in some of these theories, and how it will be helpful and instructive as you work with students. So I know we see it at Prairie View as faculty members, we spend a lot of time working with students, and doctoral programs, we spend a lot of time working with students, advisors, and undergraduate programs and faculty and undergraduate programs, I want you it will be helpful for you so that you can see at least a glimpse of what frame your student might come in. Now that frame is going to change because each person is individual, but at least it will help you recognize and help that student open themselves up and be able to get the education that they deserve in that space. That is really what this work is about. It’s about how do we create a space that supports these underrepresented students in a way that gives them the experience that they need to go on and do amazing things. And that is our role. And we hope that this text will help those people on the front lines, those practitioners, those faculty members, those advisors have the tools to do that work.

Raechele Pope
Well, that’s great. Oh, I’ll grab the book, because I’m gonna show it to folks as I talked about this. This is the book that we’re talking about Square Pegs and Round Holes, Alternative Approaches to Diverse College Student Development Theory. For those of you who are watching this on YouTube, you got to see the pictures and for those of you who are listening, you remember that title? I want to thank you both I want to thank our sponsor Stylus publications and Vector Solutions and I want to remind you that Square Pegs is published by Stylus. Stylus is proud to be a sponsor for the Student Affairs NOW podcast, browse their student affairs, diversity and professional development titles at styluspub.com. And use the promo code SAnow for 30% off all books plus free shipping. You can also find Stylus on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter @styluspub. Vector Solutions, how will your institutions rise to reach today’s socially conscious generation? These students report commitments to safety, wellbeing and inclusion are as important to them as academic rigor when they’re selecting a college. It’s time to reimagine the work of student affairs as an investment and not as an expense for over 20 years Vector Solutions, which now includes the campus Prevention Network, which was formerly EverFi has been the partner of choice for more than 2000 colleges and universities and national organizations. So with nine efficacy studies behind their courses you can trust and have full confidence that you are using the standard of care for students safety, wellbeing and inclusion. Transform the future of your institutions in the communities you serve. Learn more at vectorsolutions.com/studentaffairsnow. Huge and heartfelt shout out to Natalie Ambrosey, the production assistant for the podcast who does all the behind the scenes works and works so hard to make us look and sound good. To our listeners, I am so grateful for all your time today this conversation has given me so much to think about. And I hope it’s done the same for you. As you listen today. If you found this content to be useful for your student affairs, practice and scholarship, we’d love it if you share this episode with your social media networks. Please subscribe to the podcast, invite others to subscribe share on social media or leave a five star review. It really helps the conversations like this to reach more folks and build a bigger learning community. Again, I’m Raechele Pope, and thanks to these amazing folks, doctors, Fred Bonner and Dr. Stella Smith, and took everyone else who’s listening and watching. Be safe out there folks.

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Troubling the Waters: Alternative College Student Development Frameworks

College Student Development Theory: Transgressive Frameworks and Models for Diverse Populations