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Centering Student Voice: How Community College Leaders Can Use Social Media for Authentic Community Engagement and Healing

Fadeke Adeola Atobatele

Abstract

Community colleges are core institutions of access, equity, and opportunity for millions of students nationwide; however, they continue to operate beneath the shadow of institutional stigma and systemic undervaluation. This theoretical paper suggests that community college administrators must intentionally and strategically utilize social media technology not only as a means of marketing but as a site of transformative transformation, where student voice and genuine community engagement are central, and institutional and communal healing experiences are enabled. Citing an ethic of radical care (Rivera-McCutchen, 2021) as well as the wider cry for a “hard reset” in educational leadership (Ladson-Billings, 2021), this article integrates the current literature on social media application in higher education, community college leadership, and equity-oriented practice. It contends that when college leaders at community colleges co-design digital spaces with students, celebrate student stories as public scholarship, and consider social media an instrument of justice-oriented practice, they operationalize a mode of radical care that extends beyond the classroom and into the broader community. Leadership practice and institutional policy and the need for further research are noted.

Keywords

social mediacommunity collegesstudent voiceradical carecommunity engagementeducational leadershipinstitutional healingequity

References

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