Running head: STUDENT DEVELOPMENT THEORY 1

Student Development Theory: A Detailed Analysis

Ashley George

HED 602: Student Development Theory in Higher Education

Instructor: Laura M. Gonzalez, PhD

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Student Development Theory: A Detailed Analysis

Student development theory refers to the composition of psychological examinations and

theories that are applicable to college students. These examinations are centered around how

these college students gain their knowledge in a post secondary academic institution. As aspiring

student affairs practitioners, it is important to understand student development theory and

synthesize the changes that college students face. The essence of higher education is the growth

of a student and how their personal development contributes to their achievements, within the

academic institution. Also, it is essential to realize that not all students are boxed into a single

theory and that just like DNA, each student has their own individual strand of development that

leads them towards their own significant student development path. By effectively applying

these theories unto my own personal development, I hope to be able to add intentionality to my

work as a student affair professional. While using analogies and creative writing, this essay will

investigate my personal student development and correlate them to significant psychosocial,

cognitive structural, and moral development theories. This is the development of Ashley

Michelle Noland George.

Colored American

I am a colored American who describes her melanin like she drinks her tea, with

cinnamon, sugar, and honey. As a young woman accepted in neither the white nor black society,

I unswervingly wished that the color of my skin and how I grew up privileged was a blessing in

both communities. Imagine a wide eyed brown-haired little girl sitting in an art class so antsy

and excited that it is finger painting day, that she instantly eyes the colors that she wants when

her teacher pulls them out of the cabinet. Imagine that your teacher tells you that you must paint

with your fingers a self portrait of yourself in the colors of your choice. Your teacher lays out all
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types of colors and asks for you to put your hands in your lap after you picked the three colors

that you want to put on your cheaply made paper plate. The little girl picks her three colors, puts

her hands in her lap, and decided that she wanted her teacher to put them in corners so that they

all will not mix. Upon painting, the little girl notices that it was not the right colors, so she had to

take a small portion from each color and make a separate and new color in the middle of her

plate. This method was used so that she could seclude a color that fit her skin tone without

mixing too much of each color. Imagine that those three colors in the corners of her plate were

brown, white, and black. The color in the middle was closely like her coppery honey brown skin.

Feeling secluded was a sensation that I felt my entire life up until I came to college and joined an

organization that accepted me. Imagine being annoyed and embarrassed of your own skin that

you oftentimes fantasize about being a white girl with strawberry blonde hair that has thin

features (Denise Richards) or a dark-skinned girl with skin as delicate as the Sirrah night fall

(Ryan Destiny). These images in my mind were socially accepted. The battle that I was facing

was racism, but my war will end up being colorism. I could not pick a side and contextually

analyzed that there was not a middle ground for sandy colored women like me.

Identity Crisis

My personal development truly molded itself when I moved from the quiet family-

oriented countryside of Birmingham, Alabama to the white suburbs of Greensboro, North

Carolina. Surprisingly, I have faced more racial discrimination living in North Carolina than

Alabama. I lived with this racial discrimination until eighteen years of age. A semester before

graduating high school, I uprooted myself to an urban neighborhood to gain a better insight on

black culture before attending Winston- Salem State University, as well as to be closer to my

boyfriend, family and my church. Here at this institution I would face years of colorism. In this
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situation, the theory that best associates with the reasons I attended WSSU is the Gilligan’s

Theory of Woman’s Moral Development. Experiencing the black culture was important but at

the time, other individuals also played a major role in me uprooting from the suburbs. This

theory mentions that a woman transition from goodness to finding truth (Patton, 2016). I

discovered that I needed to find my identity and my sense of belonging without other influences

and examine the truth behind why I was going through an identity crisis.

Being light skinned, privileged, and educated seemed to be a deterrence for me when I

tried to relate to my peers. I noticed that the culture of that institution honored naturalistic

hairstyles and protective styling, which I had neither style. I was too light to be black and too

dark to be white. When choosing my institution, I had to make a choice of what battle that I

wanted to fight. Did I want to deal with colorism? Did I want to deal with racial discrimination

and prejudice? Both battles seemed uncomfortable but the fight I chose to fight was colorism. At

the time, I did not know that some students at Winston Salem State University would challenge

my blackness and then they would later embrace me as an individual that is still apart of the

black experience. They challenged me because I had grown up in the suburbs and did not face

many of the challenges that the black community went through. These challenges include the

gentrification of neighborhoods, gang violence, police brutality and low resources for education.

As a light skinned woman growing up in the suburbs, people always falsely labeled me

and consistently lacked the realization that I still am apart of the African American culture no

matter the socioeconomic origins. Slowly, over the years I realized my sense of privilege and

decided to control my own self-reflection of myself. This narrative included my own sense of

empowerment and analysis of who I was. Like wine, this process of self reflecting and

discovering my individualism took time and it did not happen overnight. It took four years within
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an academic institution, a church, counseling, and a TRIO program to influence this positive way

of thinking. So, it is no surprise to say that I needed to attend an historically Black institution to

help break those colorism and racial barriers – Winston Salem State University (WSSU).

Choosing Your Battles

Attending Winston Salem State University was the perfect storm for me. At WSSU, I had

to develop competence. Like Chickering’s Seven Vectors theorizes, the first vector included

developing those intellectual and interpersonal competences/tasks to specifically synthesize how

I develop a relationship with other individuals from all both the black and white communities

(Patton, 2016). In order to accomplish those tasks, I had to find a way to close that racial gap that

I had placed to separate myself from both cultures.

Fortunately, I found that bridge between those two communities and found a place I was

accepted into, which was a TRIO program. I joined a TRIO program that embraced all cultures,

socioeconomic backgrounds, sexualities and identities. TRIO is a federally funded grant program

that supports students and provided tutoring, academic support, and most importantly counseling

for students whom have had limited resources and income (Student Services 2019). I began

attending as many workshops and events as possible. The faculty of this program made me feel

significant and I felt like I had finally felt a sense of community. Instead of initially building

repertoire with my peers, I built significant relationships with as many faculty members at

WSSU. By doing this, I was placed in many administrative positions and earned the respect of

my peers. This concept of developing mature interpersonal relationships with the faculty at

WSSU is Chickering’s fourth vector and contributes to the overall discussion of how

interpersonal relationships can lead to student institutional leadership. I facilitated workshops

and informed the students at WSSU about the concept of colorism and how it impacts every
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ethnicity. I was so interested into diving into the black culture that I signed up for my first

Africana Diaspora Studies course, where my professors would soon hire me to help them teach.

From this experience, I learned how to creatively and academically write; influencing me

to win two CIAA scholarships. I used these scholarships to travel abroad to Africa and Brazil. I

began to feel like I was finally creating my own black experience. Reflecting on my experience, I

am amazed at how I gained the respect of so many individuals as just a freshman in college

through the concept of mentorship and through my writing. Not only did I gain the ability to

celebrate differences, but all these experiences stated above, gave me the opportunities to meet a

wide variety of people from all over the world. This exposure helped me to understand the

unique differences and perspectives that each type of student had of themselves and how it

impacted their academics. Once I established these interpersonal relationships and began to

establish an identity, I then moved into Chickering’s sixth vector, which was developing a

purpose and developing integrity (Patton, 2016).

CANCER

As children, we colored outside of the lines and did not pay any attention to how we were

coloring but what we were coloring. As adults, if we are tasked to color something then we try to

color inside of the lines and be as precise as possible. As a junior, I felt like I was coloring within

the lines. I felt that my life was so perfectly mapped out that even if I made a mistake, I would

still be within the confines of the item that I was coloring inside of. My routine of working two

on campus jobs during the week, being a mentor, babysitting and waitressing on the weekend,

calling my family in the mornings, attending classes, and doing my classwork during one of the

four jobs that I had became normal. It was comfortable for me to make a weekly color-coded

schedule and gave me constant gratitude that I stuck to that schedule. I had finally gotten the
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courage to say, “My Black is Beautiful” and consistently meant it with every ounce of breath that

it took me to pronounce each syllable. As strange as it seems, I had found myself within the

black community, but I still wanted to be accepted by the white community.

In high school, I noticed that there was a bump in my head. It kept growing and I kept

ignoring the signs because I was afraid that it would worry my family. When something bad

happens to me I tend to ignore it hoping that it will go away. It was only until my mom was

braiding my hair that her concerns forced me to go to the doctor. The bump in my head had

grown from the size of a pimple to the size of a quarter. I was told that if I did not get this tumor

removed then it would be detrimental to my life. I had a series of four surgeries in less than two

months after receiving that news. After the surgery, my birthday was spent crying in my bed of

depression. I could not go into class with half my head shaved. To me, my doctor had taken my

identity from me when he cut my hair. Thankfully, one of my professors allowed me to get an

incomplete instead of failing me. I switched my major my senior year to graduate on time and

my professor just inputted a “B” in the system instead of having me finish off the incomplete.

She must have known that I was swamped with work and classwork. I then was admitted into the

hospital to be watched because I was crying so hard and so often that my EKG results began to

come out abnormal. They diagnosed me with severe anxiety and depression, and I started

counseling soon after being released. Again, the faculty members in the TRIO program helped to

pick up the pieces. They visited me in the hospital and the university again came to the rescue

and showed me that no matter what I looked like; I still had my voice. I still had the power to self

analyze and heal.

Additionally, the theory that correlates best with this transition is the Schlossberg theory

of transition, which cancer was the event that changed my perspective. I had to transition rom
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being a social worker major to an interdisciplinary studies major. My routine and relationships

changed throughout the course of just a few short months. My identity also changed and the way

I interacted with faculty, professors, and other students. I had just gotten a grasp on my identity

only for it to be ripped away and left me clueless. Just for me to realize that I needed to heal

again and to build myself up from the foundations of what seemed to be crumbled rock.

Healing

Self analyzation and healing are a process that always remains under construction and

there is always a maintenance repair. There was no choir behind me when I heard the angels

whispering delicately in my ear and affirming me about the power of healing. It was a sudden

and instant thought to begin healing and these angels encouraged me to realize that my hair was

apart of the toxic mentality that I had to appease the culture that did not always embrace me It

was just the alter that I embraced and my newfound identity. A woman of color with freshly cut

spiral twisted hair and metal entrenched in my scalp to hold the staples firmly holding my skin

together. A simple reflection of myself and countless amounts of therapy helped me realize that I

spent a revolting amount of money on making myself into this toxic image of a woman living in

a white society. I had to accept that even though I could not solve how each community

embraced me, I can solve how I embrace each person within a community.

A great example is how Perry describes cognitive and ethical development are the

concepts of multiplicity and commitment (Patton, 2016). Multiplicity describes the process of a

problem being solvable and problems that are not known yet. I knew that I could encourage and

educate the community to embrace others without racially dividing those that do not fit into their

communities visual status quo. I knew that I could control and solve the way I viewed myself,
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but I do not know how I will react when my physical identity challenged or changed. Like

Perry’s cognitive and ethical development theory, I had to make a commitment to accept that the

uncertainty of cancer reappearing in my life or having to shave my head again was apart of life.

Identity should not come with a price tag. Prior to my surgery, my hair was just as important to

me as my religion was and I had spent hundreds of dollars each month shaping my hair into an

image that I considered acceptable. My staples began to heal and so did my mentality

These adversities, struggles, and all my achievements contributed holistically to my

personal development. These collections of theories in congruence with my development has

shaped my worldview and enriched my perspective of how I can be a better practitioner for my

students who may be experiencing the same adversities that I went through. Going through these

adversities have made me a stronger individual. Throughout this essay, these theorists have

helped me synthesize how I developed and successfully walked across the path towards

graduation. Even though the meaning of student development is constantly changing, the

concept of how one gets to a designated goal is essentially the same notion of self realization,

having a support system, and person growth. With these theories, I would like to understand how

these theories differ based upon individuality. I had a hard time discovering that each theory or

vector will not apply to every student. Personally, I believe that the foundation of student support

services and student affairs relies on a commitment and service to others. I want to be the voice

for the voiceless that breaks the barriers of marginalized injustices. I am Ashley Michelle George

and I want to be the change agent for social justice, social activism, and student affairs.
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References

Patton, L., Renn, K., Guido, F., & Quaye, S. (2016). Student development in college: Theory,

research, and practice (3rd ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Schlossberg, N. (2011). The challenge of change: The transition model and its applications.

Journal of Employment Counseling, 48, 159-162.