Historically White Colleges and Universities: The Unbearable Whiteness of (Most) Colleges and Universities in America

In this paper, we examine the academy as a specific case of the racialization of space, arguing that most colleges and universities in the United States are in fact historically white colleges and universities (HWCUs). To uncover this reality, we first describe the dual relationship between space and race and racism. Using this theoretical framing, we demonstrate how seemingly “race neutral” components of most American universities (i.e., the history, demography, curriculum, climate, and sets of symbols and traditions) embody, signify, and reproduce whiteness and white supremacy. After examining the racial reality of HWCUs, we offer several suggestions for making HWCUs into truly universalistic, multicultural spaces.

Make Space, Take Space

This chapter focuses on the impact of a culturally relevant course centering the experiences of Black women attending a Historically White Institution (HWI). This chapter will provide an overview of the course creation, implementation, and positive implications of a gender-specific course steeped in the African Diaspora. Using Black feminist thought, the authors examine how Black female students experience community, self-discovery, and academic success. The chapter highlights student voices and discusses the lasting impact of the case design on the students and collegiate community. In addition, the co-creators share the impact of the course on their own well-being and its larger impact on the collegiate campus.

Opera, Sound Recording, and Critical Race Theory

This review essay considers the relationships among opera, sound recording, and critical race theory, and explores them at a moment when these fields are beginning to converge. One of my concerns will be the recent and ground-breaking studies and collections on opera and race by Naomi Adele André (2017, 2019), Kira Thurman (2012, 2019), Pamela Karantonis and Dylan Robinson (2011), and Mary I. Ingraham, Joseph K. So and Roy Moodley (2016). Another will be the neglected history of opera and sound recording; notable scholars here include Karen Henson (2020), Robert Cannon (2014), and Richard Leppert (2015). Finally, I will focus on the thought-provoking analyses of race and sound by Alexander Weheliye (2005), Brian Ward (2003), Jennifer Lynn Stoever (2016) and Nina Sun Eidsheim (2019). There are obvious connections among these three bodies of scholarship, yet these connections have not yet been clearly identified and explored. Although many scholars have come to embrace opera as a material and embodied phenomenon, the artform’s dissemination, analysis, and enjoyment through sound recording is still overlooked as a site of enquiry, especially its potential as a fertile site of inquiry about identity. To overlook the issue of identity in relation to recording is to perpetuate the belief that recordings are primarily documents of performance practice. It ignores the army of technicians who invisibly craft the acoustic object, many of whom are historically white and male. This review essay seeks to address this neglect and to suggest some ways in which the processes of making and consuming opera recordings is intimately related to whiteness and anti-Blackness—but also to Black possibility. In what follows, I cast a broad net, ranging widely and at times unexpectedly. I begin with some recent events in American musicology and in the New York operatic scene; then, turn to a consideration of some of the scholarship just mentioned; and finally conclude with a brief discussion of a specific recording, the Metropolitan Opera’s “live” sound recording of the 2019 production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

“What Is the Real Belief on Campus?” Perceptions of Racial Conflict at a Minority-Serving Institution and a Historically White Institution

An organizational conflict lens offers a distinct understanding of how higher education administrators and postsecondary students experience racial conflict on their campuses. Despite students of color historically reporting incidents with overt and subtle forms of racism on college campuses (George Mwangi et al., 2018; Hurtado & Ruiz, 2015; Nguyen et al., 2018; Serrano, 2020), postsecondary leaders continue to report positive race relations on campus (Jaschik & Lederman, 2017). This conflict in perception is the focus of this article. To understand how race-related conflicts are perceived in higher education, I examined perceptions of racial conflict across two types of postsecondary campuses. I used compositional diversity, or a numerical illustration of various racial and ethnic groups (Hurtado et al., 1998; Milem et al., 2005), as a determinant to decide which campuses to study for how racial conflict is understood by administrators, faculty, and students. Drawing from organizational conflict theory, this year-long qualitative study involved 35 open-ended interviews conducted at a minority serving institution (MSI) and a historically White institution (HWI). The main research question was: How does compositional diversity shape stakeholders’ perceptions of racial conflict? Across both campuses, and despite differences in compositional diversity, administrators responded similarly: they noted minimal problems among students regarding racism on their campuses. Alternately, students across both campuses responded similarly: they noted these issues as well but described it in terms of frequency and severity. To make sense of this, I describe findings in three ways: interpersonal and structural racism, intergroup conflict, and historical perspectives about racial conflict. Background/Context: Despite students of color historically reporting incidents with overt and subtle forms of racial conflict on college campuses, postsecondary leaders continue to report positive race relations on campus. Unfortunately, various forms of conflict are often reduced to isolated incidents that are disconnected from aspects of campus culture and climate. Although conflict is a permanent and indelible aspect of organizations, racism and other forms of race-related conflict on college campuses continue to be studied on an interpersonal level, less so at the organizational level of higher education. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: An organizational conflict lens offers a distinct understanding of how higher education administrators and postsecondary students experience racial conflict on their campuses. Despite students of color historically reporting incidents with overt and subtle forms of racism on college campuses, postsecondary leaders continue to report positive race relations on campus. This conflict in perception is the focus of this article. To understand how race-related conflicts are perceived in higher education, I examined perceptions of racial conflict across two types of postsecondary campuses. I used compositional diversity, or a numerical illustration of various racial and ethnic groups, a determinant to decide which campuses to study for how racial conflict is understood by administrators, faculty, and students. The main research question I asked was: How does compositional diversity shape stakeholders’ perceptions of racial conflict? Research Design: To understand perceptions of racial conflict, I conducted a multiple case study of two types of institutions in the northeastern United States: a historically white institution (HWI) and a minority-serving institution (MSI). I purposely selected two racially distinct institutions to explore compositional diversity in higher education. I first asked: How does compositional diversity shape stakeholders’ perceptions of racial conflict? Drawing from organizational conflict theory, this year-long qualitative study involved 35 open-ended interviews conducted at a MSI and an HWI. Specifically, I sought respondents who were positioned informants. This approach assumes that informants’ positions inform their behaviors. Conclusions/Recommendations: Although the data here cannot be applied to all institutions, some lessons can be extracted for further exploration, should administrators and researchers desire to understand race-based organizational conflicts. Indeed, across both campuses and despite differences in compositional diversity, administrators responded similarly: they noted minimal problems among students regarding racism on their campuses. Alternately, students across both campuses responded similarly: they noted these issues as well but described it in terms of frequency and severity. To make sense of this, I describe findings in three ways: interpersonal and structural racism, intergroup conflict, and historical perspectives about racial conflict.

Black Students and Positive Racialized Emotions: Feeling Black Joy at a Historically White Institution

Black students attending historically White institutions of higher education (HWIs) experience the full spectrum of emotions. Given the permanence of racism and Black collegians’ inequitable experiences at HWIs much research focuses on Black students’ negative emotions as a result of racist conditions. Little research, however, examines Black students’ positive emotions and feelings on campus. This paper centers on affect, exploring how Black students experience “Black joy” in an otherwise White space. Guided by Eduardo Bonilla Silva’s theory of racialized emotions as well as socio-historical scholarship examining the dynamism of Black life in oppressive contexts, this paper analyzes how participants, themselves, understand and describe Black joy. In this paper, the author draws upon interviews with 29 Black collegians at the same HWI. Findings demonstrate how Black students associated Black joy with being, achievement, and collectivity. By studying Black students’ accounts of joy at an HWI, scholars stand to gain a more textured understanding of both HWIs and Black collegians’ experiences.

THE COMPLEXITY OF IDENTITY FORMATION OF BLACK LEARNERS ATTENDING HISTORICALLY WHITE SCHOOLS

This purpose of this paper is to examine the complexity of identity formation experienced by black learners attending historically white high schools in the Northern Cape. Black South Africans were considered and treated as both intellectually and racially inferior during the apartheid years. This may have created an identity dilemma for a number of generations of South African blacks. The situation was further exacerbated, when black learners were admitted to historically white schools. The staff component (mostly white) of historically white schools appeared to be inadequately prepared for these drastic changes. Consequently, the school that should normally contribute to developing a positive identity formation of learners, seemingly had the opposite effect on black learners. An empirical investigation, by way of the quantitative research method was employed, to ascertain the perceived effect historically white schools have on the identity formation of black learners attending these schools. Some of the findings of this study indicate the manifestation of negative influences, low educator expectations, the disjuncture between the home- and school education, as well as the high failure and drop-out rate, of black learners, as having an effect on the identity formation of black learners. Certain suggestions are made as to how to address the situation.