UCLA

Student activists have been an historic driver of higher education social justice reform. While this form of leadership is central to improving equity outcomes in higher education, scholars and practitioners often view organizational change as a top-down process centering senior administrators, staff, and faculty. Empowering student activists as more than token stakeholders in organizational transformation processes supports social justice outcomes, as well as broader institutional goals, vis-�-vis promoting civic engagement, leadership development, and knowledge production. Efforts to strengthen this type of student leadership require institutional resources that are supportive of activist leadership development, and administrative efforts to facilitate student activist’s engagement in institutional change processes. This dissertation study is an institutional ethnography of the Bruin Excellence & Student Transformation Grant Program (BEST), a student activist leadership development program at the University of California, Los Angeles that sought to develop and empower student activist leaders. Specifically, the institutional ethnography utilizes autoethnography, centering my experiences as co-founder and leader of BEST, to explore the history, conceptualization, evolution, and impact of BEST in fostering student leadership and campus transformation. Using personal narrative to tell the story of the program, this research triangulates autoethnographic research with qualitative and quantitative data collected by the program from 2016-2020. This narrative explores how leadership development programs can center student activist leadership growth and uncover the complex ways students engage in leadership to support equitable campus changes. Findings from the study contextualize the challenges and opportunities of activist leadership development programs within the often-antagonistic environment of a top tier public university. Institutional infighting over diversity resources and structural barriers such as funding and inconsistent administrative support pose an obstacle to impactful social justice initiatives. Further, leadership development programs working with activist students must seek to develop trusting relationships based on mutuality, socioemotional support, and an authentic commitment to social justice principles and practices. Findings from this research will necessitate the expansion of equitable policies and resources that support and affirm student activist leaders within higher education institutions.