The Role of Student Affairs Practitioners in Improving Campus Racial Climate: A Case Study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the racial conflict that occurred at the University of Michigan (UMI) earlier last year when Black students expressed their frustrations with the underrepresentation, racial discrimination and disparaging remarks against African Americans on campus (Jaschik, 2014). Because student affairs is the service most relevant to the issue, the paper primarily focuses on multicultural student services and explores how the student affairs division addresses the shortcomings of discrimination and underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in order to enhance campus racial climate and promote equal representation of socially oppressed groups. Finally, two multicultural frameworks that can be used to enhance student affairs practitioners' multicultural skills and guide them in transforming their educational institutions are proposed.