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An Inside Voice Fighting for the “Outsiders”: Student Engagement, Purpose, and Legacy on Boards of Higher Education

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Bridging Marginality through Inclusive Higher Education

Part of the book series: Neighborhoods, Communities, and Urban Marginality ((NCUM))

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors explore the roles and experiences of students who served on governing boards of higher education. In doing so, the authors highlight the intentional way in which these students approach the trusteeship and work within the system to challenge dominant bureaucracies. The authors illuminate how these trustees create student-centered university service programs during times of need as a way to respond to social injustices. Findings reveal that the trusteeship gave students opportunities to maximize their engagement with communities both within and outside of the academy. The authors argue that the influential and integral roles that students play on the board and in their community make colleges and universities more responsive to societal issues that extend beyond the realms of higher education.

College is a place where young people discover and reinvent themselves, where the norms that guide our thinking and govern behavior are set and challenged. What starts on campuses migrates out into the larger culture. That makes universities an incubator for nascent social movements and a barometer that can measure where our country is headed.

—Jennifer Eberhardt (2019), Biased, p. 229

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We use “trustees” in this chapter to be representative of other terms for board members such as regents, governors, visitors, curators, and so on.

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  1. University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    Raquel M. Rall & Carlos A. Galan

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  1. University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Marguerite Bonous-Hammarth

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Rall, R.M., Galan, C.A. (2022). An Inside Voice Fighting for the “Outsiders”: Student Engagement, Purpose, and Legacy on Boards of Higher Education. In: Bonous-Hammarth, M. (eds) Bridging Marginality through Inclusive Higher Education. Neighborhoods, Communities, and Urban Marginality. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8000-7_7

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