Debunking the Myth of Job Fit in Higher Education and Student Affairs

Brian J. Reece is the Associate Director of Residential Life at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, where he also serves on the institution’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force. Previously, he was the Associate Director of the Toppel Career Center and Lecturer in Mental Health Counseling in the Department of Educational & Psychology Studies at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL. Brian has spent six years on the Directorate Body of the ACPA Commission for Social Justice Educators, where he co-founded the CSJE Blog and recently became Chair-Elect. He is also a reviewer for the Journal of Critical Scholarship in Higher Education and Student Affairs. Vu T. Tran currently serves as an Assistant Director of Residence Education at Michigan State University. As a graduate of The Ohio State University’s Higher Education and Student Affairs PhD program, Vu’s research focuses qualitatively on issues of age and adult identity, adultism, and social justice education in the context of colleges and universities. He has been involved in various forms of social justice education work throughout his career, including the Asian American Cultural Center at the University of Connecticut, the Program on Intergroup Relations at the University of Michigan, and the Next Step Social Justice Retreat at the University of Vermont. He has also been involved in numerous capacities with the Social Justice Training Institute, as well as ACPA’s Commission for Social Justice Educators. Elliott N. DeVore is a PhD Student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Tennessee, studying Counseling Psychology. After completing his MEd in Student Affairs and a Graduate Certificate in Social Justice in Higher Education at Iowa State University he worked as a Residence Director at the University of San Francisco where he also conducted workshops with the Gender and Sexuality and Intercultural Centers and campus ministry, advised the Queer Student Alliance, and taught

Figures and Tables Foreword–Stephen John Quaye Acknowledgments 1. From Fit to Belonging. New Dialogues on the Student Affairs Job Search—Brian J. Reece, Vu T. Tran, Elliott N. DeVore, Gabby Porcaro 2. Innocent Until Proven Guilty. A Critical Interrogation of the Legal Aspects of Job Fit in Higher Education—David Hoa Khoa. K. Nguyen, LaWanda W.M. Ward 3. Employer Definitions of and Reflections on Fit in Hiring Processes—Léna Kavaliauskas Crain, Mathew J.L. Shepard 4. Holograms, Misfits, and Authentic Selves. Fit as Narrative Agency through Inequality Regimes—Jessica Bennett, Travis York, Van Bailey, Marshall Habermann-Guthrie, Luis Jimenez Inoa, Meghan Gaffney Wells, Akiko Yamaguchi 5. No, I Can’t Meet You for an $8 Coffee. How Class Shows Up in Workspaces—Sonja Ardoin, becky martinez 6. Finding Fit as an “Outsider Within”. A Critical Exploration of Black Women Navigating the Workplace in Higher Education—Stacey D. Garrett, Natasha T. Turman 7. Code Word FIT. Exploring the Systematic Exclusion of Professionals of Color in Predominantly White Institutions—Heather O. Browning, Patrice M. Palmer 8. Negotiating Fit While “Misfit”. Three Ways Trans Professionals Navigate Student Affairs—C.J. Venable, Kyle Inselman, Nick Thuot 9. “You’ll Fit Right In”. Fit as a Euphemism for Whiteness in Higher Education Hiring Practices—Kyle C. Ashlee 10. (Re)Viewing and (Re)Moving the Mystique Surrounding "Fit" in Student Affairs. A Challenge to Our Field—Walter P. Parrish, III Editors and Contributors Index