Where I Am From: Student Affairs Practice from the Whole of Students' Lives

By: Susan E. Borrego and Kathleen Manning

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Synopsis: Students from underrepresented groups—including students of color; students with disabilities; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students; and first-generation students—bring their wisdom, experience, and varied cultural perspectives to college and university campuses across the United States. Despite the longstanding presence of these students on college and university campuses, the theories, ways of conducting business, and spoken and unspoken rules of campus life do not adequately reflect the places from which many of these students come. The voices of these students are rarely heard in higher education nor are adequately represented in student affairs literature and research. Where I Am From: Student Affairs Practice from the Whole of Students Lives presents the voices of students in NASPA Minority Undergraduate Fellows Program (MUFP) via 42 self-biographical narratives. These students have strong, rich experiences that fly in the face of the “deficit mode” of many multi-cultural theories. Their narratives declare what needs to be said about their experiences and the corresponding work of student affairs practice in ways that theory does not. Compiled by Susan E. Borrego, who helped shape the MUFP program, and Kathleen Manning, a well-known author in the student affairs field, the narratives challenge student affairs professionals to re-conceptualize what we know about theory and practice.