Religion and spirituality played a founding role in American healthcare. Though it shows up differently today, religious diversity continues to be present in powerful ways in American medicine. However, despite its relevance, most health field professionals are not adequately prepared to engage the religious diversity they encounter. This article explores how religious identity and diversity curricula in health fields programs can ultimately improve patient care and health equity. Highlighting best practices and key pedagogies, this article profiles campuses that have successfully integrated religious diversity education into health fields curricula.

This article focuses on the role of modern-day culture centers in higher education. An interview of 26 staff members from campuses across the country found that culture centers took on a significant role in coalition building between Asian American and Black communities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the current time of racial reckoning. The leadership role of these centers during this time highlights expansion of their original basic mission. Beyond serving as “home away from home” and retention spaces for historically excluded communities, the centers became educational spaces that promote cross racial understanding and affirm multiracial identity. This article reveals the racial narrative about Asian Americans, including the dangers of the model minority myth. The article further provides key historical references to Black and Asian American coalition building in the 20th century, which influenced how culture centers evolved in increasing cross racial understanding on their campuses. With expertise in diversity, inclusion, and equity, the current centers’ staff members have the opportunity to serve as thought leaders for their campuses and enhance their role and the centers’ role in campus administrative policy development for racial and social justice.

Creating racially just campuses requires dismantling the cultural imperialism of Whiteness—how Whiteness becomes the norm to which all else is measured, compared, and excluded. Little is known about how Whiteness shapes the most prevalent athletic cultures: non-revenue teams. Using critical Whiteness studies and life-history interviews with 47 rowers and track and field college athletes, I propose three components of athletic cultures: isolation, compliance, and competition. Athletes learn these elements are neutral and necessary for athletics; however, they normalize White persons’ overrepresentation in sport, require loyalty to one (White) cultural form, and position social outcomes as individually and fairly won.

Over recent decades, the underrepresentation of women in higher education leadership has continued to be problematic, even as the majority of students at all degree levels (associate through doctorate) are women. Long-standing assumptions about the effectiveness of the “pipeline theory”—that as greater numbers of women assume entry-level positions in the career pipeline, they will naturally move gradually toward higher leadership roles—have proven largely to be unfounded. Hence fresh strategies are needed that address the reasons that women are often hesitant or unwilling to pursue or assume top-level leadership roles. This article briefly reviews the leadership literature, which has been predominantly male-normed, and offers a response to the challenge issued in the literature that new and nuanced approaches to preparing the next generation of leaders must be envisioned and implemented if the unsatisfactory status quo is to be addressed. Viewing leadership as a platform for purposeful influence is linked to four aspects of spirituality that may be constructive in terms of enhancing women’s leadership aspirations while also providing support on their leadership journeys: (a) leadership to advance a meaningful purpose, (b) leadership as a response to a sense of calling, (c) leadership from the perspective of to “stewarding” gifts and strengths, and (d) leadership that honors relational responsibility.

With a sample of 160 Muslim college students attending 34 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), ordinary-least-squares regression analyses were conducted to examine students’ sense of belonging and mattering. Conceptually grounded in the minoritized religious and spiritual campus climate framework (MRSCC), the findings indicated that Muslim students who felt comfortable talking with non-Muslim peers about critical social issues (i.e., racism, sexism, Islamophobia, etc.) were unlikely to feel like an outsider. Muslim students who indicated that they felt supported by administrators and faculty were more likely to report feeling like they matter. Support from administrators was also significant for Muslim students’ belonging.

Little scholarship explores the attention to religious, spiritual, and secular identity in the graduate preparation of student affairs professionals. To address this gap, we undertook a phenomenological examination of the experiences of second-year graduate students in four elite master of education programs with respect to these identities. We found that both secularists and devout religious believers experienced a marginalization that chilled discussions about these identities and their willingness to share their own identities. Their view that other students and professors did not perceive spiritual, secular, or religious identity development as important amplified their fear and sense of marginalization.

Using data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, this study examined the relationship between several faculty practices and interactions with students and students’ civic engagement attitudes. Several faculty practices were associated with positive civic attitudes, including frequency of student–faculty contact, use of cooperative learning classroom activities, use of course content that helps students see connections between intended careers and how they affect society, and use of course content that helps students understand the historical, political, and social connections of past events. Implications for institutional policy and practice are discussed.

Developmental complexity, in particular developing an internal voice, is one of the foundations of character development. Here the author describes developmental complexity, its evolution over adolescence and young adulthood, how it links to character development and the five strategies to promote it, and how learning partnerships are one form of practice that could incorporate developmental complexity and character development across the college experience.

In an era of great moral and social conflict, it is timely to examine more closely higher education’s commitment to character development as an intrinsic and essential aspect of students’ learning and development during the college years. The development of character has been central to the work of student affairs since its beginnings in American higher education, and character development has been a central tenet of holistic student development. This introduction to the Journal of College and Character’s special 20th anniversary issue underscores the journal’s commitment to character development and provides brief summaries of the articles by senior scholars and leaders in the field included in the issue.

College students receive countless messages about “following passion” and “doing what you love” (DWYL). What happens when these repeated messages ultimately do a disservice to some students? Although pursuing one’s interests is strongly encouraged, the author explores the limitations of the DWYL advice at all costs, including the privilege that is often tied to Western-oriented career development concepts. Rather than focus solely on passion, career-related discussions with students should include authentic conversations about purpose, meaning, and the shifting future of work—and how students might best prepare for these changes. Several examples of institutional programs are highlighted. Suggestions and implications are provided for higher education professionals and student affairs practitioners.