Applied Critical Leadership: Centering Racial Justice and Decolonization in Professional Associations

Authors

Rachel E. Aho, University of UtahFollow
Stephen John Quaye, Miami University

Abstract

With a history steeped in exclusion, segregation, political unrest, and glacial-paced progress, it is no surprise that higher education professionals continue to experience and illuminate issues, such as racism, colonization, and identity-based harm, particularly under the divisiveness of today’s presidential administration. Knowing this, leaders within higher education must prepare to meet these realities. To prepare students for navigating these challenges, educators often rely on the direction, guidance, and thought leadership produced via professional associations. As such, those involved in professional associations play a critical role in determining the priorities of the field. Given the tumultuous national climate, these priorities, now more than ever, must reflect the needs of Native First-Peoples and people of color. By invoking an applied critical leadership framework, the authors seek to explore what critical association leadership looks like through a discussion of their involvement with ACPA’s Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Aho, R. E., & Quaye, S. J. (2017). Applied critical leadership: Centering racial justice and decolonization in professional associations. Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs.