Diversity Cupcakes
Maybe you’re familiar with a “diversity cupcakes” program on your campus. It works as it sounds: Students are given cupcakes to decorate with different toppings to signal their experiences and identities, and to prompt them to think about how they are distinct and unique.
That exercise came up again and again in a recently published paper on race and campus housing. For the paper, researchers spoke with 22 resident assistants of color at predominantly white institutions, several of whom described diversity cupcakes as emblematic of the need to cast aside robust discussions about race and identity for the sake of their jobs and, ultimately, the assumed comfort of their mostly white residents.
The paper, “Diversity Cupcakes and White Institutional Space: The Emotional Labor of Resident Assistants of Color at Historically White Universities,” was published in the Journal of College Student Development’s July-August 2021 issue. It found that RAs from marginalized communities often end up taking on more emotional labor than they bargained for. Many times, it’s at the service of their white peers or at the expense of their own mental health.
The research is part of a larger study examining how race shapes student life, said Zak Foste, an assistant professor of higher-education administration at the University of Kansas and the paper’s lead author. Foste and his co-author, Steven Johnson Jr., a doctoral candidate in higher-ed administration and assistant dean of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the university’s School of Business, talked to several RAs who said other students and campus officials had questioned their authority. In one instance outlined in the paper, a Latino RA reported his mostly white residents for an alcohol-policy violation, and a campus police officer thought that he was the person who had violated the policy.
The researchers also found that when RAs planned programming around race, diversity, and inclusion, they felt campus administrators assumed that the programming would make the mostly white residents uncomfortable. At many predominantly white institutions, students are treated as customers who shouldn’t be made uncomfortable, Foste said. Sometimes RAs of color suppress their feelings or quash programming plans.
In other instances, RAs said they felt a tension between their identities as people of color and their roles at the college, Foste said. For example, a Black RA named Ezra (whose full name, like those of other RAs, was withheld in the paper) told the scholars that he didn’t feel comfortable attending a mandatory program with campus police officers. Nevertheless, his supervisor pushed him to go, saying his discomfort would help him grow as a person.
“But me growing up in Alabama, being Black, I’ve been uncomfortable my whole life,” Ezra told the researchers.
Tricky Choices
Johnson said he had become interested in this research, in part, because of his previous experience in campus housing. He was an RA as an undergrad at Iowa State University and later was a graduate-hall director at Michigan State University.
One point that stuck out to him in the study was the tricky choice that some students had to make about their work. Some RAs said they had taken the job because they’d had a good housing experience themselves. Others said they needed funding that came with the job. When those students did not like parts of the job — like when they had to water down diversity programming or to interact with the campus police — they needed to carefully navigate their next step. They wanted to avoid conflict with housing administrators that could jeopardize the job that helped them afford college.
RAs in the study also said they felt the emotional weight of racist incidents on campus and elsewhere. But some said they were given little time to process those events. One RA, Erin, an Asian American student, told the researchers that housing administrators expected RAs to shut out their own feelings after a racist incident and follow the college’s talking points or protocol, pretending everything was OK.
“They expect us to work as employees who are robots and can just spew things out,” she said.
Overwhelming Expectations
Many RAs told Foste and Johnson that this was the first time someone had asked them questions about their identity and work.
RAs have an immersive job in a fishbowl role, Johnson said. Their high visibility can add to the pressure that many RAs of color feel. Students and administrators will often see RAs as only RAs, even when they are away from their residence halls.
To alleviate some of those pressures, campuses should consider creating a space for RAs of color to convene and vent, Johnson suggested. Administrators should also take stock of what exactly the campus asks of RAs while considering that they’ll be balancing the job with schoolwork and other activities, he said. Many RAs in the study said they were overwhelmed, but sometimes the expectations themselves are overwhelming.
Foste and Johnson are continuing to research race and campus housing. A forthcoming larger study will touch on, among other things, who is entitled to or afforded notions of comfort, belonging, and safety in campus housing.
