InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies

This article explores the findings of a qualitative study conducted to better understand how students who identify as members of the LGBT* community and as people of color describe the ways in which student affairs professionals can meet their needs for persistence through college. This study also sought to assess how the students’ perception of the race, gender identity, and sexual orientation of the student affairs professionals impacted the degree to which the students felt their needs were being met. Using a hypothesis coding structure, the researcher explored whether students would describe their needs being met through practices of transgressive teaching, a style of engaged pedagogy described in the seminal text Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks. This article will also make recommendations for future research and for student affairs practice.