Accepting educational responsibility for whiteness in academic advising: moving towards anti-racist advising practices

Abstract

Academic advisors serve as a front-line resource for college students and greatly contribute to student success. However, the presence of whiteness-at-work, or the everyday yet insidious practices that allow whiteness in education to go unchallenged, positions advisors to either perpetuate or dismantle whiteness in their advising practices. This paper uses composite counterstory in the tradition of critical race theory by weaving together the accounts of several academic advisors of Color working at historically white institutions with other sources to develop an understanding of how whiteness-at-work operates within academic advising. Recommendations for advisors and institutions of higher education are offered to move the field of academic advising toward more racially-just advising practices that disrupt whiteness.

Keywords:

• Academic advising
• anti-racist practices
• counterstory
• whiteness-at-work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geneva L. Sarcedo

Geneva L. Sarcedo is an academic advisor in the School of Education and Human Development and First-Year Experience and Ethnic Studies instructor at University of Colorado Denver. Her qualitative research centers race, whiteness, and marginalized student success in higher education, particularly among first-generation and low-income college students of Color.