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D-L Stewart

Professor & Chair, Higher Education Department, University of Denver

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About D-L

Stewart's research focuses on broad issues of diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice in U.S. postsecondary education. Overarching themes in Stewart's writing include race, gender (with a focus on transgender issues), sexuality, disability, and religion/faith/spirituality through the historical and contemporary experiences of minoritized students, as well as institutional transformation. Additionally, Stewart's work reflects an emphasis on understanding these issues through intersectionality and other critical theoretical frameworks. Stewart serves as a speaker and consultant for postsecondary institutions and professional associations.

In the News

"Refuting the Politicization of Student Affairs Work," D-L Stewart, Inside Higher Ed, November 8, 2018.
"Refilling Your Well and Finding Kinship in Virtual, Campus, and Literary Spaces," D-L Stewart, Interview with Saby Labor, Resilient Campus, July 24, 2018.
"Making Waves toward Radically Democratic Spaces in Postsecondary Education," D-L Stewart, Interview with Saby Labor, Resilient Campus, July 17, 2018.
"Wakanda Foreva," D-L Stewart, Interview with Shawna Patterson-Stephens and Cameron Beatty, Scholar Tea, April 1, 2018.
"Language of Appeasement," D-L Stewart, Inside Higher Ed, March 30, 2017.

Publications

Gender and Sexual Diversity in U.S. Higher Education: Contexts and Opportunities for LGBTQ College Students (edited with Kristen A. Renn and G. Blue Brazelton) (Wiley, 2015).

Includes an enlarged body of research on LGBTQ students, that extends beyond research on identity development, campus climate and policies, transgender issues, and institutional features such as type, leadership, and campus resources, to include LGBTQ student engagement and success. Puts this research in the context of widespread changes in public attitudes and public policies related to LGBTQ people, integrating scholarship and student affairs practice. 

"Experiences of Black Collegians in U.S. Northern Private Colleges: A Narrative History, 1945-1965" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Draws on oral histories and archival documents to present a narrative study of Black collegians and expands on the limited existing scholarship focusing on northern college racial integration during the post-war period. 

"Engagement That Matters: Exploring the Relationship of Co-Curricular Activities on Student Self-Reported Gains in Learning Outcomes for Racially Minoritized Students in the U.S." in Advancing Equity and Diversity in Student Affairs: A Festschrift in Honor of Melvin C. Terrell, edited by Jerlando F. L. Jackson, LaVar J. Charleston, and Cornelius Gilbert (Information Age Publishing, 2017), 53-76.

Reports findings of the relationship and predictive power of selected co-curricular activities on student self-reports of growth in learning outcomes using data from the 2000 College Senior Survey administered by the Higher Education Research Institute. Shows that certain co-curricular activities are more strongly associated with growth in certain outcomes than others among racially minoritized students.

"Whiteness as Collective Memory in Student Publications at Midwestern Liberal Arts Colleges, 1945-1965" American Educational Research Journal (2018).

Investigates how student publications portrayed whiteness as the dominant feature of the campus environment between 1945 and 1965 among the member institutions of a consortium of elite U.S. Midwestern liberal arts colleges. Demonstrates the invisibility of Black students' structural exclusion and offers a new model for understanding and analyzing desegregation and integration in historically White institutions.

"Visibly Invisible: Federal Educational Policy Regarding Queer Students, Faculty, and Staff during the Obama Administration" (with E.I. Annie Russell), in The Obama Administration and Educational Reform: Toward New 21st Century Schools for the Global Knowledge Economy, edited by Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher (Emerald Insight, 2014), 291-311.

Discusses federal educational policy that affects queer students, faculty, and staff in higher education. Reviews the status of queer people in colleges and universities, then, acknowledges the challenges of developing policy to address queer issues, while also illustrating recent policy changes and judicial rulings that have positive implications for queer people in higher education. Concludes by identifying remaining gaps and recommendations for future policy development, including the need for federal nondiscrimination laws that cover sexual and gender minorities and restructuring policies for queer inclusion. 

"Producing 'Docile Bodies': Disciplining Citizen-Subjects" International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 30, no. 10 (2017): 1042-1046.

Highlights how the academy's historical and ongoing enforcement of discipline and normalizing judgments made the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election inevitable. Concludes by lifting up the consistent resistance of Black students as the foundation for the liberatory revolution necessary within the academy.