Black Exodus: The Attrition of Black Campus Housing Staff

Housing and residence life has identified the need and priority to recenter the purpose and role of our work in a post-COVID world. Housing and residence life has not, in the same way, identified the need and priority to critically examine how the systems and models of our work are founded within an oppressive system, steeped in whiteness and patriarchy, all of which create environments and climates that are dangerous and violent for Black/African American staff. In the almost three years since COVID-19 has shaken up our work, we have seen, as a field, a significant exodus of staff of color, moving out of toxic and harmful departments and out of the field itself. By examining staff departure trends and research, as well as the impact of racial battle fatigue, this article seeks to create meaning and understanding for departments around the larger issues behind their Black staff departures. It is imperative that we examine this attrition as part of a larger trend and a larger endemic issue, and not as isolated professional decisions, in order to create substantial systemic change to promote and provide equity within housing and residence life programs.