Stylus Publishing (VA) Contested Issues in Troubled Times: Student Affairs Dialogues on Equity, Civility, and Safety

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 to this volume, through a format of opening positional essays paired with a response, role model productive dialogue across differences to 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?In addressing 24 contemporary and contentious questions (such as, how do student affairs educators navigate the tension between the First Amendment right to free speech and the expression of ideas that create a hostile campus climate?), the contributors present diverse ideological and political conceptualizations of each issue.Rather than attempting to offer readers absolute truths and definitive solutions to these persistent and messy issues, 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. Review 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 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 diff