Black Students on White Campuses: 20 Years of Research.

Literature is discussed in terms of eight noncognitive variables affecting Black student life. The author recommends actions for student affairs professionals. From the 1960s to 1980s people in the United States have witnessed a broad sweep of social change in the country. With issues pertaining to Blacks, people have seen a complex mixture of overt repression, social consciousness, legal changes, backlash, assassinations, political interest, disinterest, and neglect. Higher education has gone about its business during this turbulence. There are many ways in which student affairs professionals might try to understand what Black students have experienced during the last 20 years. The purpose of this article is to examine this period through student affairs research on Black undergraduate students at White institutions. Such an article accomplishes several purposes. First, it allows for a focus on an area in which Black students have had to deal directly with a system largely run by Whites for Whites (Sedlacek & Brooks, 1976). Second, it allows one to step back and get a perspective on where student affairs has been and where it to be going. Third, it puts an emphasis on empirical research rather than commentary, wishful thinking, or frustration. An index of the maturity of the student personnel profession may be found in its success in providing systematic knowledge on which to base its development. The May 1986 issue of the Journal of College Student Personnel, with articles by Brown, Cheatham, and Taylor, provided a lively discussion of how student affairs professionals can learn about Black students on White campuses. Should student affairs professionals go to the literature and see what the research says (Brown, 1986; Cheatham, 1986) or offer broad generalizations about Blacks based on a nonempirical synthesis (C.A. Taylor, 1986)? This article is in support of the former position. The literature was organized using a model based on noncognitive variables that have been shown to be related to Black student success in