Critical Imperatives for Studying Queer and Trans Undergraduate Student Retention

The dearth of retention scholarship that centers (or includes) queer and trans (QT) students has resulted in inadequately capturing the nuanced dimensions of student retention. As a scholarly community, we are at a critical juncture where it is academically, administratively, and morally necessary to reexamine assumptions about retention to better acknowledge and center QT people in this body of work. The purpose of this article is to provide critical imperatives for studying QT undergraduate student retention, including methodological, institutional, interpersonal, and individual contexts. I close with implications for education scholars, institutional researchers, and assessment professionals when studying QT student retention.