This case highlights the importance of providing individualized onboarding support for new Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) leaders, whose qualifications are often questioned, as they transition to new roles. An experienced student affairs leader accepted a leadership position at a community college in the Southwest. She understood the state’s politics and the populations served by the college. From the start, there was resistance to her vision as she navigated organizational culture. Her professional qualifications did not convince colleagues that she was competent. She received little support from her supervisor, who took a laissez-faire approach to managing his team’s dynamics.
AlexanderB. (2020). Academia next: The futures of higher education. Johns Hopkins University Press.
2.
AltamiranoM. A. (2024). US higher education in crisis: A study of leadership challenges in a post-pandemic world. In RudolphJ.CrawfordJ.SamC.-Y.TanS. (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of crisis leadership in higher education (pp. 625–637). Springer.
3.
BaileyT.JaggarsS. S.JenkinsD. (2015). What we know about guided pathways: Helping students to complete programs faster. Research overview. Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University.
4.
ByrnesW. J. (2019). Getting on the balcony: Deploying adaptive leadership in the arts. In ByrnesW.BrkićA. (Eds.), The Routledge companion to arts management (pp. 155–169). Routledge.
5.
CollinsP. H. (2000). Gender, black feminism, and black political economy. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 568(1), 41–53.
6.
CrenshawK. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, Special Issue: Feminism in the Law: Theory, Practice and Criticism. University of Chicago Law School, 1989, 139–168.
7.
DavilaN.Pina-RamirezW. (2018). Effective onboarding. Association for Talent Development.
8.
FrancoP. M.AdamsL.BoothS. C. (2024). From onboarding onwards. Contemporary Topics in Patient Safety3, Article 9.
9.
GarciaG. A. (2016). Complicating a Latina/o-serving identity at a Hispanic serving institution. The Review of Higher Education, 40(1), 117–143.
10.
GarciaG. A. (2019). Defining “servingness” at Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs): Practical implications for HSI leaders. American Council on Education.
11.
GarciaG. A.OkhidoiO. (2015). Culturally relevant practices that “serve” students at a Hispanic Serving Institution. Innovative Higher Education, 40, 345–357.
12.
GirouxH. A. (2021). Race, politics, and pandemic pedagogy. Bloomsbury.
13.
GregoryB. T.Nathan MoatesK.GregoryS. T. (2011). An exploration of perspective taking as an antecedent of transformational leadership behavior. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 32(8), 807–816.
14.
GruenertS.WhitakerT. (2015). School culture rewired: How to define, assess, and transform it. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
HealeyM. L.GrossmanM. (2018). Cognitive and affective perspective-taking: Evidence for shared and dissociable anatomical substrates. Frontiers in Neurology, 9, Article 491.
17.
HeifetzR. A. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
18.
HeifetzR. A.LaurieD. L. (2001). The work of leadership. Harvard Business Review, 79(11), 124–134.
HolleyR. P. (2022). Equality versus equity: A new perspective on an intractable problem. Journal of Library Administration, 62(7), 963–972.
21.
IqbalJ.AsgharA.AsgharM. Z. (2022). Effect of despotic leadership on employee turnover intention: Mediating toxic workplace environment and cognitive distraction in academic institutions. Behavioral Sciences, 12(5), Article 125.
22.
Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act of 1990, 20 U.S.C. §1092 (f) (2018).
23.
JoV. H. (2008). Voluntary turnover and women administrators in higher education. Higher Education, 56, 565–582.
24.
LunaG. (2012). Planning for an American higher education leadership crisis: The succession issue for administrators. International Leadership Journal, 4(1), 56–79.
25.
MastaS. (2019). Challenging the relationship between settler colonial ideology and higher education spaces. Berkeley Review of Education, 8(2), 179–194.
26.
MirandaM. T. (2024). From the margins to the center: A critical phenomenological study on the experiences of BIPOC DEI leaders at two-year predominantly White institutions in the Midwest [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
27.
MosqueraP.SoaresM. E. (2025). Onboarding: A key to employee retention and workplace well-being. Review of Managerial Science, 19, 3687–3711. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-025-00864-3
PattonL. D.RennK. A.GuidoF. M.QuayeS. J. (2016). Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
30.
PetzerD. J.KleynN. S.RuitersM. (2021). Inclusive onboarding in academic departments. In LindgreenA.IrwinA.PoulfeltF.ThomsenT. U. (Eds.), How to lead academic departments successfully (pp. 164–180). Edward Elgar.
31.
Pratt-ClarkeM.MaesJ. B. (Eds.) (2017). Journeys of social justice: Women of color presidents in the academy. Peter Lang, International Academic Publishers.
32.
ReddickR. J. (2023). Restorative resistance in higher education: Leading in an era of racial awakening and reckoning. Harvard Education Press.
33.
RossW. E.HuangK. H.JonesG. H. (2014). Executive onboarding: Ensuring the success of the newly hired department chair. Academic Medicine, 89(5), 728–733.
34.
SteinS.de Oliveira AndreottiV. (2017). Higher education and the modern/colonial global imaginary. Cultural Studies↔ Critical Methodologies, 17(3), 173–181.
35.
TateS. A. (2020). The student of color attainment gap in higher education and the institutional culture of equality, diversity, and inclusion. In PapaR. (Eds.), Handbook on promoting social justice in education (pp. 1153–1171). Springer.
36.
Van RooijB.FineA. (2018). Toxic corporate culture: Assessing organizational processes of deviancy. Administrative Sciences, 8(3), Article 23.
37.
VujnovicM.FosterJ. E. (2022). Higher education and disaster capitalism in the age of COVID-19. Palgrave Macmillan.
38.
WilliamsB. M.HotchkinsB. K.EvansM. E. (2023). The permeation of whiteness in student leadership organizations. In FosteZ.TevisT. L. (Eds.), Critical whiteness praxis in higher education (pp. 188–204). Routledge.
39.
WiseC. B. (2013). No crystal stair: Narratives of female community college presidents of color. Drexel University.
