PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

Whiteness remains an intractable problem in American society broadly and within higher education specifically. In this project, I explore white emotionality among professionals in higher education and student affairs (HESA). Each chapter engages a different approach to understanding white emotionality, including autoethnographic research methods, phenomenological research methods, the literature from Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) in education, and the literature from Settler Colonial Studies (SCS) and decolonial thinking in education. From much of the literature in CWS, I identify a trap I call always-not-yet-but-maybe-someday-soon whereby attachment to the possibility of redemption defers the necessary but deeply unsettling emotional work of confronting whiteness. To address this, I turn to SCS and decolonial thinking and consider how the maintenance of whiteness through always-not-yet-but-maybe-someday-soon is interconnected with what Tuck and Yang (2012) refer to as “settler futurity.” Using key concepts from CWS, SCS, and decolonial thinking including unsuturing (Yancy, 2018), a politics of disappointment (Jones, 1999), and the scyborg (la paperson, 2017), I propose using professional development (PD) as one way to combat always-not-yet-but-maybe-someday-soon and settler futurity among HESA professionals. In contrast to accumulative and developmental perspectives on HESA professionals and multicultural competence (Pope et al., 2019), this vision of unsettled PD offers few guarantees but aims to provide opportunities for sustenance and accountability as HESA professionals grapple with the depths of white emotionality.

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2024, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Recent political movements such as the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements have brought renewed attention to the social roles of White women and their unique position of intersectional privilege and oppression. White women experience the benefits of whiteness while simultaneously experiencing the gendered oppression of womanhood. However, there is a lack of research exploring how White women conceptualize and respond to their own positionality as both White individuals and as women. This study utilizes constructivist grounded theory to examine how White women navigate their social location within the context of working in the nonprofit sector, a space wherein White women are overrepresented and often in close contact with various elements of systemic oppression. The analysis revealed that White women view nonprofit organizations as protected spaces that allow them to foster careers without encountering overt sexism. However, White women also believe that nonprofits are fragile and easily threatened by external pressures. They seek to protect these spaces by maintaining a homogenous culture that aligns with White womanhood. They view increasing diversity as simultaneously aligned with their personal and organizational values and threatening to the organization's culture and internal stability. As a result, White women engage in a variety of maneuvers that serve to symbolically pursue diversity without altering the fundamental culture of the organization. These maneuvers allow White women to see themselves as benevolent and values driven, while also maintaining their systemic power over People of Color. The findings offer insight into the role White women play in maintaining systems of racial oppression in response to their own fears of gender-based oppression, and guide recommendations for further intersectional deconstruction of oppressive systems. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://e (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Educational Studies

This post-intentional phenomenological study grounded in Critical Whiteness Studies explored the lived experiences with whiteness, the post-intentional phenomenon, of white international graduate students from Europe. The study was guided by an overarching research question with two sub-questions. Data collection included three separate semi-structured interviews with six participants, journal entries, as well as researcher conversations, and data analysis featured thematic coding through NVivo. The first subquestion explored how the U.S. higher education setting shapes white European international students' understanding of whiteness. This line of inquiry found an overarching theme of participants' development from colorblindness to more racial awareness by having to grapple with their own white racial identity and constructions of race and racism in and outside the United States. The second subquestion explored how white European international students enact and benefit from whiteness in the United States. This line of inquiry highlighted white privilege in the form of European privilege. Together, these two lines of inquiry gear at the overarching research question of the lived experiences with whiteness of white European international graduate students in the United States. Overall, these inquires culminated in reflections on the participants' understandings of nationality versus race and a sense of (not) belonging in the U.S. higher education setting.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Higher Education Administration

White senior-level student affairs professionals are well-positioned to address issues of social justice and inclusion, oppression, privilege, power, and Whiteness within the field of student affairs. Their level of responsibility, scope of interaction and influence, and professional position provide senior-level student affairs professionals with the opportunity to both engage with social justice and inclusion in their practice and make a difference in their institutions and in the field of student affairs. As White individuals, these professionals have additional power within their divisions, institutions, and society. Although student affairs professionals are expected to be competent in the area of social justice and inclusion, there is a gap in the literature that examines these professionals' experiences with this topic. The purpose of this study was to hear the stories of White senior-level student affairs professionals' experiences engaging with social justice and inclusion and addressing Whiteness in their student affairs practice. The research questions are: 1) What stories do White senior-level student affairs professionals tell about their experiences engaging with social justice and inclusion in their student affairs practice? 2) What stories do White senior-level student affairs professionals tell about their experiences addressing issues of Whiteness in their student affairs practice? To address this gap in the literature and answer the research questions, I utilized narrative inquiry and a transformative paradigm. I interviewed six White senior-level student affairs professionals from across the United States. Nine key findings emerged from this study. These findings are summarized as: positional power and White voice, sense of responsibility, unpreparedness, personal connection, influence of current events on action and awareness, policy and practice, Whiteness as a systemic issue, increased opportunities, and choice to engage with and addr (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2019, Educational Leadership

Beyond the examination of individual White privilege, which often results in fragility, silence, and fatigue, White student affairs graduate students have little understanding of White supremacy as a system of racial oppression and the root cause of racism in higher education. This lack of racial awareness and preparation can lead to harm done to peers and faculty of Color in student affairs graduate preparation programs and an inability to advocate for students of Color or challenge institutional racism as working professionals. In other words, the current approach to engaging White student affairs graduate students may actually serve to reinforce White supremacy in higher education, creating barriers to achieving the goals of student affairs as a field. In order to address this problem, I co-engineered a Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) course for the student affairs in higher education graduate preparation program at a public teaching university located in the rural Midwest. This qualitative Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) study was guided by the following question: How does participating in a CWS course inform the professional socialization of White student affairs graduate students? Ten White student affairs graduate students, who were enrolled in a CWS course, gathered for research group reflection sessions and responded to written narrative prompts, which all served as data for the study. This data was analyzed both collaboratively in the research group reflection sessions and individually, using a Grounded Theory data analysis method. Key findings of this study indicate that participating in a CWS course provides White student affairs graduate students with an opportunity to reflect on how hegemonic Whiteness is constructed in their lives, a space to actively deconstruct hegemonic Whiteness, and a blueprint for how to critically reconstruct Whiteness both personally and professionally. The findings of this study present implications for (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Educational Studies

This critical narrative inquiry was guided by two overarching research questions. First, this study examined how white undergraduates interpreted and gave meaning to their white racial identities. This line of inquiry sought to understand how participants made sense of their white racial selves, the self in relation to people of color, and the self in relation to systems of racism and white supremacy. Thematic analysis of participant narratives resulted in three constructions of white racial identity: Ignorant, Emergent, and Critical. Second, this study explored how white college students perpetuated racial ideologies of whiteness on campus. This line of inquiry examined how, through discourse, white undergraduates maintained the dominant/subordinate relationship between white students and students of color. In order to do so dialogic/performance analysis of narratives was utilized. Such an approach is concerned not only with the content of narratives, but the structure and telling of a given account. This analysis resulted in four distinct narratives that participants frequently employed within the context of the interview: Narratives of Campus Racial Harmony, Narratives of Imposition, Narratives of Enlightenment, and Narratives of White Racial Innocence. Each narrative represented a motivated telling with a unique plotline. Further each narrative operated to mask racial hostility, protect white innocence, and locate problems of racism elsewhere.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2025, Leadership and Change

This study focuses on the lived experiences of seasoned White facilitators of racial equity workshops to understand how they navigate the complexity of occupying a White racial identity while working to challenge the belief systems of white supremacy ingrained in themselves and others. Through applying Critical Race Theory as a framework to grounded theory methodology, this study examined whiteness as a sensitizing concept in micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis, situating this dissertation in the theoretical exploration of the multifaceted and pervasive nature of whiteness. Much of the research on racial equity work examines White participants in nascent stages of engagement, concentrating on the external behavior and impact of White race talk during conversations about race and racism. Applying dimensional analysis to 18 in-depth interviews of White facilitators, whose experience in racial equity work ranged from 7 to over 30 years, this study identified two co-core, interrelated dimensions of engaging on a learning journey to embrace the both/and. In addition to these co-core dimensions, four primary dimensions depicting the phenomenon of whiteness emerged from the findings: colluding with whiteness, stirring whiteness, unraveling whiteness, and interrupting whiteness. Through analysis of these findings, this study presents four theoretical propositions and a theoretical model representing variations of the social processes White facilitators move through to interrupt whiteness in themselves and others. The methodological exploration used in this study provides an opportunity to explore the fullness of what it means to be White and engage in racial equity efforts, potentially contributing to the literature on utilizing grounded theory as a process to explore social justice efforts. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2025, Leadership and Change

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the lived experience of mid-level student affairs leaders who identify as cisgender, gay, White, and male in order to further understand the multidimensionality of embodying both privileged as well as marginalized identities. Four participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide and the resulting transcripts were analyzed utilizing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) perspective. Experiential themes that emerged from the analysis of the individual cases as well as across the cases include unintended pathways into the field of student affairs, experiences of challenging heterosexual male supervisors and the preference for women supervisors, experiences of bias, strategies utilized to navigate privileged identities, and the role that the COVID-19 pandemic had on prioritizing the pursuit of life-work balance. Overarching themes of the tension between the values and expectations of student affairs and the pursuit of work life balance as well as the complexity of navigating the multidimensionality of privileged and oppressed identities are discussed. Unanticipated findings include the level of variation in the salience of the participants gay identity as well as the scarceness of reference to masculinity. Implications for leadership, the scope of the study, and areas for further research are also discussed. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2024, Educational Leadership

Cabrera (2018) contends that higher education institutions, originally not racially inclusive, continue to struggle with this legacy, often upholding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion values performatively rather than substantively. This study explores the pervasive influence of Whiteness in the strategic plans and mission statements of Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in U.S. higher education, analyzing how these documents reflect and perpetuate racial inequities. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), the qualitative research examines texts from eleven PWIs to address how Whiteness is manifested in the mission statements and strategic plans. Furthermore, this study examines whether the demographic backgrounds of the Strategic Planning Committee members influenced the discourse within the plans or mission statements. The study identifies six discursive strategies: Avoidant, Passive, Symbolic, Performative, Structural, and Transformative Discourse, which range from the deliberate exclusion of systemic racism discussions to comprehensive systemic changes aimed at promoting equity. The research finds that demographic diversity alone does not ensure more inclusive outcomes, emphasizing the complexity of achieving genuine diversity and inclusion within institutional planning. This study offers critical insights for scholars and practitioners in higher education, highlighting how institutional language perpetuates Whiteness and suggesting the need for approaches that go beyond demographic representation.

Ed.D., Antioch University, 2024, Education

This dissertation presents research pertaining to how classroom teachers can become more effective in teaching their students of color. Through an examination of literature pertaining to critical whiteness studies, critical pedagogy, antiracist education, and transformative leadership, a professional learning program has been designed to offer space for educators to recognize their roles within the school system pertaining to whiteness ideologies and racist policies and practices. Backward design and Understanding by Design were applied to develop a professional learning program and allows for flexibility in the learning process. It is the goal that this program be delivered for the participants to critically reflect on their current teaching practices and how they may be unintentionally harming their students of color. Furthermore, the professional learning program will offer opportunities for implementation of new learning that will lead to changes in instructional practices that create equitable learning experiences for all students. Included in the program design is formative assessment as well as impact assessment questions to determine the merit and worth of the program. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohio.link.edu).

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Antioch Seattle: Counselor Education & Supervision

Supporting the development of an antiracist identity in counselors could facilitate change toward equity, justice, and opportunity within the counseling profession and increase awareness of white counselors in working with clients of color. Understanding obstacles to and enablers of antiracist attitudes in white women counselors holds the potential to bring change to the profession as a whole, given their position in the majority. This quantitative study used instruments to assess white racial affects of white fear, anger, and guilt along with antiracist self-efficacy as influencing antiracist accountability in a sample of white women counselors in the United States (N = 64). White fear was shown to have a moderate inverse relationship with antiracist accountability, and white anger was demonstrated to have a moderate positive relationship with antiracist accountability. White guilt did not show a statistically significant influence. Both white fear and white anger were mediated by antiracist self-efficacy, and a strong positive relationship was shown between antiracist self-efficacy and antiracist accountability. Implications for the counseling profession, the practice of counseling, and counselor education are presented. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, Counseling Psychology

The Angry White Man Phenomenon is a social phenomenon with potentially harmful effects on people of all races, regardless of gender identity (Kimmel, 2017; Metzl, 2019). Kimmel (2017) hypothesized that the unfulfilled promises of success and happiness embedded in the existing hierarchal system has caused some White men to experience “aggrieved entitlement,” which is the root of their anger. No psychological research is currently published to support this hypothesis, and little is known about this phenomenon's psychosocial mechanisms. The current study seeks to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying the Angry White Man phenomenon. These mechanisms are hypothesized to be traditional masculinity ideology, whiteness, and system justifying beliefs. Specifically, using profile analysis, this study aims to identify the unique way in which White men endorse these constructs. Additionally, the study seeks to examine the relationship between the emerging profiles and aggrieved entitlement. A total of 428 White men participated in the current study. Results revealed a two-class solution for the latent profile analysis with significantly different mean scores for aggrieved entitlement. Class 1 exhibited the lowest endorsements of TMI and markers of Whiteness, displaying the least distress when their status was threatened, and the lowest mean scores for aggrieved entitlement. Class 2, consistent with the proposed AWM ideology, had the highest endorsements of TMI, markers of Whiteness and gender role strain, endorsing the highest levels of aggrieved entitlement. These findings contribute to understanding the nuanced connections between masculinity ideology, whiteness, and aggrieved entitlement, shedding light on the varied responses to ideological threats within different sociocultural contexts. Implications for research, practice, and theory are discussed.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Dance Studies

While the arts may appear more inclusive than other academic fields, Black women dance educators in Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) of Higher Education have not received an equitable experience. This dissertation investigates how Black women dance educators experience and navigate Racial Battle Fatigue in their institutional roles. This dissertation argues that Black women dance educators experience Racial Battle Fatigue and have a specific relationship to it based on their in-depth understanding of the body. This dissertation utilizes the embodied knowledge and experiences of Black women dance educators to expose their perpetual navigation of Racial Battle Fatigue and challenge the normalized forms of institutional violence that perpetuate its existence.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Although “transracialism” became a trending topic within the last decade, there is a lack of scholarship on the subject. Both public and current academic discourses on “transracialism” discuss the possibilities of racial fluidity in correspondence with transgender scholarship and experiences. This analogous approach contributes to a conceptual collapse of race and gender, and thus this dissertation argues that careful attention must be paid to how race and gender are mobilized and operated both separately and intersectionally through an interrogation of whiteness. This dissertation examines a notable pattern of white women and gender non-conforming people racially self-identifying as non-white through three prominent case studies of Rachel Dolezal, Oli London, and Jessica Krug. In consideration of the people harmed by Dolezal, London, and Krug, this dissertation traces how whiteness prioritizes and maintains its status as the peak of racial hierarchies in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Dolezal, the first person to claim “transracial” as an identity outside of adoption, manipulates racial, gendered authenticity to position herself outside of normative whiteness while remaining complicit in white supremacy. London, who identified as both “transracial” and genderqueer, actively argued race and gender to be equivalent social constructs. Krug, who did not identify as “transracial,” demonstrates how social justice organizing rhetoric can be used to police and exclude people of color from conceptualizing terms of liberation and justice for their communities.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Educational Studies

Social justice is one of the core values within the counseling profession, as listed in the ACA Code of Ethics (2014). Counselors in training are charged with developing social justice skills that center advocacy and dismantling oppressive systems for clients, students, and communities. Although there is emerging interest in research, models, and frameworks for social justice within the counseling field, people and communities who are racially marginalized still face systemic barriers to accessing mental health services. Additionally, there are systemic barriers within counselor education for counselors in training that are created and maintained by the culture of Whiteness. This constructivist grounded theory study examined the impact of the culture of Whiteness on the critical consciousness (CC) development of counselors in training. CC development is a measure of social justice development through a critical lens of reflection, motivation, and action (Freire, 1970/2020, Castro et al., 2022). In semi-structured interviews with 18 counselor educators, 4 themes, 8 Level 1 subthemes, and 15 Level 2 subthemes emerged from the data analysis of initial, focused, and thematic coding. The results show that the culture of Whiteness and CC development are conflicting constructs, and that the culture of Whiteness impedes CC development through the systems in which it is embedded. Counseling systems are embedded with the culture of Whiteness at every level, including the individual student, instructor, counselor education programs, CACREP, and academia. Additionally, the culture of Whiteness creates and maintains systemic barriers in counselor education, which negatively influences CC development for counselors in training. These barriers include the admissions process, assessment and student performance, the curriculum and counselor education texts, and courses such as Theories, Diagnosis, and Assessment. Counselor educators can begin to counteract these barriers by co (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, American Culture Studies

Recent research has examined how and why athletes engage in social justice activism, as well as the reactions and impact of such. Framed by feminist cultural studies and informed by Black feminist thought and intersectionality (King, 2018; Collins, 2009; Crenshaw, 1993), I explored the experiences of Black women athletes engaging in social justice activism. A feminist methodological approach (Ramazanoglu & Holland, 2002) guided this inquiry to understand how Black women athletes define social justice activism, their experiences with social justice activism, and their motivations. These Black women athletes shared powerful stories about their activism and the challenges they faced. Twelve Black women athletes participated in semi-structured interviews. These athletes represented six sports at the professional and colligate level. Using open and axial coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) the higher order themes include activism and intersectional identities, everyday activism, challenges, and cultivating a better future. Activism engagement is deeply personal for these Black women athletes given their experiences of adversity and their prescribed status as outsiders within. Because of this status, their activism engagement is largely on a day-to-day basis whereby they recognize the power of speaking up and building social connections. They also use social media as a primary form of everyday activism. A lack of support at the organizational and individual level was reported as a major barrier to their activism engagement, particularly for athletes attending historically White institutions. The cultural expectation for them as Black women to address social inequities was another challenge. Ultimately, motivations driving athletes' activism include their fierce determination and ethic of care to ensure the next generation of Black athletes and Black peers and family members can live safely and freely. As such, these Black women represent a new wave of athlete activism in whic (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Theatre

This thesis examines the creative and critical potentials of what I call “queer, mediatized dramaturgy.” I articulate the ways in which the multimedia play Circle Jerk by Brooklyn-based performance company Fake Friends brings together two artistic lineages of queer theater and mediatized performance. I elaborate how Circle Jerk makes use of this “queer, mediatized dramaturgy” to critique white gay male culture. Then, I embark on a practice-as-research investigation of the techniques of queer, mediatized dramaturgy. I reflect on my own rehearsal experiments with the queer, mediatized devising techniques of Fake Friends. Lastly, I consider the practical application of queer, mediatized dramaturgical principles in the creation of my (mostly) solo performance piece CANNIBAL is a SLUR, exploring its potential as a tool for performing sociopolitical critique.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2023, Educational Leadership

This research is for mothers of Black children and the white teachers who teach our children. The teacher demographics in K-12 education is overwhelmingly white yet the students are not. What happens when teachers with unexplored bias are placed in classrooms with excited and eager Black children? If the story we are told as parents and society is that education is the vehicle to success, then the hope is that the driver of the vehicle is committed to delivering success to our children. Personal experience led one Mom to believe that education has the potential to be harmful if white teachers do not have a clear understanding of Black culture and identity. This learning should take place prior to teachers being placed in classrooms with students of color, specifically Black children. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain an understanding of how white teachers thought about the Black students who sat in their classroom spaces and how might their behaviors connect to their white racial identity. Using Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies as the Theorical Frameworks, this exploratory study provides insight into the experiences of three white teachers who are currently working in K-12 along with one Teacher Educator who works in an undergraduate program where he works to prepare teacher candidates. Through conversations with the four respondents, three areas came to light: 1) Better information on and practice with classroom management techniques are needed in teacher education programs; 2) the complicated view that teachers and schools are places that save and change lives; and 3) white teachers need spaces to understand their own white identities. This study offers implications for practice for teacher educators, teacher candidates, policymakers, school administrators, and families. If teacher education programs and school administrators can provide spaces for white teachers to navigate and interrogate whiteness, then they can do (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Leadership and Change

Of the roughly 3.5 million public school teachers in the United States, approximately 80% are White. In contrast, about 51.7% of the nation's students are African American, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian. This mismatch is expected to grow as the number of BIPOC students in our nation's public schools continues to increase. Studies have shown that strong positive relationships are essential for learning, but often, the relationships between White teachers and BIPOC students are strained at best, leading to poorer learning outcomes. The purpose of this Constructivist Grounded Theory study was to explore an understudied question: How do White teachers who have been deemed exemplary by educators and parents of Color perceive their relationships and experiences with BIPOC students in an educational system and a society that often marginalizes them? Open-ended interviews were conducted with 19 middle and high school teachers in Massachusetts. Dimensional analysis revealed Being-and-Becoming Across Difference as the core dimension. Five primary dimensions were identified: Reflecting, Relating, Embodying Humility, Affirming Culture, and Holding Hope. Results of this study suggest that significant changes are needed in the recruitment and hiring of White teachers and that pre-service and in-service professional development must support White teachers in far more robust and sustaining ways than currently exist. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, https://aura.antioch.edu/, and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Popular Culture

Smallville uses both the mythos of Superman, the character of Clark, and the character of corn to explore what it means to become a hero, what values and ideals become a part of that journey, and how location and culture are integral to it all. By exploring themes of Indigeneity, whiteness, masculinity, ruralness, and American identity, I argue that the stories of both corn and Clark Kent are not only significant in terms of American myth, but in how American popular culture is shaped by and shaped into something as seemingly inconsequential as an ear of corn.