“A Little Bit of Everything Ends up Being so Much”: The Costs of Involvement

Student affairs professionals (SAP), by nature of their education and knowledge of student development theory, recognize the necessity of student involvement. Since authentic involvement leads to student success (Astin, 1999; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2005), SAP create opportunities for students to engage in on-campus organizations. It is not uncommon for colleges and universities to have hundreds of clubs and student organizations, offering a seemingly endless buffet of options to students. As practitioners, we saw the benefit of this type of organization. Myriad options create multiple opportunities for students to engage. However, our thoughts on involvement changed when we were in our respective doctoral programs. As I (Dena) listened to Sophie, an African American sophomore research participant who attended a historically white institution, I heard about the challenges she faced. She said, “It's always pushed in your face that you need to be well-rounded, so you try and get in a little bit of everything, but a little bit of everything ends up being so much.” Sophie's message stayed with me and prompted me to reconsider what we, in the field of student affairs, consider involvement. Sophie struggled with belonging on a campus she described as “dominated by Caucasians.” As I reflect on student involvement, I realize my complicity in a system that views involvement from a deficit perspective. Instead of creating affirming spaces where students can celebrate their unique identities and knowledge, student organizations are often used to assimilate students into the “Caucasian-dominated” norms. At that moment, I was humbled by my lack of knowledge.

But Canonical research and identity-evasive best practices have pushed SAP to limit the applicability and effectiveness of involvement for a swath of the student body. As we examine the push for involvement on college campuses, it is imperative to critically examine the impact traditional forms of student engagement (i.e., fraternities and sororities, service organizations, study-abroad, family weekends, student government, etc.) have on oppressed and posttraditional populations. If involvement is a valuable component of student life, we must work to make sense of the lived experiences of posttraditional students (Iloh, 2018), as well as those who come from backgrounds for which higher education was not designed to serve and focus on reducing the oppression of communities of color at the intersection of their identities. In this Bottom Line, we make the argument that our prevailing conceptualization of involvement opportunities is limited by white epistemology that centers on “an idealized vision of ‘the student body’” (Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2018, p. 135). The “ideal student body” is predominantly “white cisgender-heterosexual men, 18–23 years-old, middle to upper-class, enabled, and (Protestant) Christian” (Stewart & Nicolazzo, 2018, p. 135) and live on-campus. It is necessary to reframe involvement to be identity-affirming and occurring in both physical and virtual spaces.

An Involved Life

Traditionally, most involvement opportunities on college campuses are designed for undergraduate students living on-campus students by virtue of on-campus meeting locations and evening meeting times. Campus involvement also presupposes current students have extra time to devote to campus activities, do not work full-time or part-time jobs, and do not have children and/or others to care for outside of classes. For students with marginalized identities by race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and citizenship status, the push for involvement takes a deficit lens. Rendόn (1994) critiqued the field's understanding of involvement indicating the onus for involvement is placed on the student to become involved versus educators validating students’ own unique experiences and backgrounds as inherently being considered involved. For example, students engaging in activist efforts, such as advocating for changes in policy, protests, and campaigns are forms of involvement on campus though not formally recognized as such because it is juxtaposed with traditional values in higher education. For example, Dache (2019) illustrated how the geography of Ferguson, Missouri served as a “knowledge center” for student-community activists as they fought and strived for liberation (p. 80). In this instance, the involvement occurring alongside the local community provides opportunities for growth alongside student development outcomes, such as social identity development, moral development, and cognitive development.

In terms of colonized versus decolonized space, colonized spaces privilege assimilation to western ways of knowing and white-dominant norms and access to spaces and places. For example, Sophie's comment on campus spaces and membership as “dominated by Caucasians” illustrates the pervasiveness of white norms on campus. Instead of emphasizing the number of activities to get involved in and encouraging quantity, student and campus leaders could ask Sophie more about who she is and what she cares about, and provide access to opportunities to further her interests in these domains on campus, off campus, or in virtual spaces. Even further, campus leaders should consider policy and structural barriers to involvement. For example, Foste's (2021) article on the racialization of campus housing noted how even the timing of payment for housing deposits contributed to racial and class segregation for students on the three campuses in the study. Extending Foste's (2021) study to involvement opportunities, such as membership policies and space reservations, would illuminate where students with marginalized identities (i.e., race, gender, class, sexual identity, and ability) have access to spaces and activities that affirm and/or do not affirm their identity.

Separate and Not Equal

Building on Dache's (2019) argument in her study, most involvement/engagement theories, including Tinto's (1993) Theory of student departure, presume that students need to separate from their past and home lives and assimilate into the college environment. As a result of this assumption, Rendón notes when marginalized students

… enter college as strangers in a strange land, they are faced with unlearning past behaviors and attitudes while learning new practices, values and conventions that are quite removed from their worlds. Indeed, these students become strangers in a learning paradise—at experiencing the exuberance and wonder of the intellectual world, and the agony and trauma that come from having to unlearn the past and assume a new identity. (p. 2)

The Financial Cost of Involvement

Our current conceptualization of involvement has psychological costs for Students of Color in assimilating to white norms and financial costs. Clubs and organizations, fraternities and sororities, and studying abroad cost money; money which students may not have or if they do, the money may be needed for other expenses, such as food, course expenses, or for family members. In their study on the sense of belonging and how money influences peer relationships, McClure and Ryder (2018) found:

One troubling takeaway from these findings is the ability to spend money in college may “track” students into particular social pathways and friend groups. Students with ready access to spending money were able to participate in fraternity and sorority life, study abroad, and pay costs of regular social routines with friends, such as dining out, meeting for coffee, or drinking at bars (p. 206).

Impact

When narratives surrounding campus involvement are limited to membership in clubs, organizations, and activities, portions of the student body are excluded. The results of limiting the scope of involvement to on-campus or place-based activities result in exclusion and psychological isolation. During the pandemic, there were students who did want to gather physically, yet students with marginalized social identities find online spaces, virtual gatherings, and peer-to-peer mentoring groups more affirming and supportive of their development. ACPA's Strategic imperative for racial justice and decolonization reminds us that “love is at the core of all we do” (2018, p. 11). Even further, the racial justice and decolonization framework centers on responsibility, problem-posing, agency, and authentic relationships. When colleges and universities focus solely on the number of clubs, organizations, and activities and not the impact of these organizations on student learning, students are dehumanized as the numbers say more about the institution's ability to offer students the opportunity to get involved versus centering students and their need for engagement and belonging.

Reframing Involvement

Reframing involvement on college and university campuses will take some reimagining and creativity. The pandemic has given higher education time to reconsider how we define and engage students on campus and in virtual spaces. As we move forward now and in the future, there are three main suggestions we offer for reframing involvement opportunities:

Gather in smaller groups (virtually and in-person). Small group and peer-to-peer interactions provide affirming spaces for marginalized student populations on and off campus. These small group interactions can influence identity development and give students a sense of agency. Large group interactions are limited in their ability to provide students with opportunities to develop authentic relationships.