Thesis advisor: Shawn McGuffey / Thesis advisor: Zine Magubane / In this dissertation, I show how the racial conflict theory promoted in the book White Fragility isn’t the only useful perspective to explain negative responses to the training and other activities by DEI administrators. Specifically, I argue a class analysis can illuminate the antagonistic relationship between DEI administrators and other stakeholders. Since DEI professionals are an extension of the management class, which is responsible for regulating the behavior of students and employees on behalf of employers in educational institutions, it is predictable that some students and employees will respond with silence, anger, and disengagement. If it is true that these negative responses cannot be reduced to White Fragility, then DEI professionals need to appeal to the interests of their audience and clearly show how their activities can actually be beneficial for students and employees despite the fact that they are extension of management. This dissertation includes three of my articles on administrators in higher education that helped me to develop the aforementioned argument. The first article argues that we should expect race-conscious student services administrators to experience role conflict when students complain about the ways that the executive-level administrators contribute to the reproduction of racial inequality. I contend that role conflict arises because student-centered administrators have to navigate the contradictory expectation of being an advocate for students with grievances about the institution while helping the executive-level administrators improve the reputation and revenue-stream for the university. Therefore, students cannot always expect student-centered administrators to effectively highlight and address their grievances. The second article argues that students who complain about inequity on campus should expect student-centered administrators to respond with self-help coaching. I use the term self-help coaching to capture the process when administrators teach complainants how to highlight and remedy organizational problems themselves. The third article focuses on the ways that student equity administrators (i.e. specialists who work in offices focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and multicultural affairs) frame their work as beneficial for students. Specifically, I describe three types of frames: expert accountability, affirmation, and advocacy. In the conclusion, I show how DEI professionals can use this information to appeal to the interests of students and employees who recognize their antagonistic relationship with management. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

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The study aimed to provide organizations with the information needed to develop and incorporate strategies and policies that would increase opportunities for advancement among African American women to the benefit of organizational performance and bottom lines while providing guidance to seeking top-level career advancement in higher education. Study 1 adopted a qualitative approach, with interviews of 13 African American female leaders. Seven themes resulted: perceived characteristics needed by Black women for success in securing a leadership role; experiences of the barriers from the intersectionality of gender and race; sources of motivation and inspiration; leaders, women, colleagues, and other professionals who understand the struggles; motivational influences of goal progress; motivational influences of outcome expectations; and motivational influences of social support network. To build on Study 1, Study 2 aimed to understand the factors influencing perceived career success for 91 recently graduated African American female professionals. Five research questions asked about the explanatory power of motivation and inspiration, social support at work, perceived discrimination, resilience, and self-efficacy. Two research questions used stepwise multiple linear regression to examine the social support, perceived discrimination, and the influence of these variables on career motivation, self-efficacy, and resilience. The findings of Study 1 revealed the support and factors that helped the participants overcome hindrances. These factors formed Study 2, indicating that each independent variable helped explain career success for recently graduated African American female professionals. The findings showed barriers and facilitators for African American women at both ends of the leadership pipeline: those who achieved leadership positions and those just beginning their careers. / Business Administration/Human Resource Management

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