Alex Kenney

Dr. Kenney is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education and College Student Affairs at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in the Graduate School of Education. As an afropessimist scholar, his research examines manifestations of antiblackness across individual, institutional, and spatial contexts, nuancing conversations on race and racism in higher education. More specifically, his research employs case study methodologies to qualitatively investigate Black students’ lived experiences at historically white institutions and within college town communities, demonstrating the endemicity of Black suffering both on and off campus. Moreover, Dr. Kenney highlights how Black students engage in acts of fugitivity to escape, resist, and foster moments of triumph on anti-Black campuses.

Publications:

• Shaped by antiblackness: black undergraduates’ experiences of antiblackness at a historically and predominantly white institution

• “We Haven’t Seen Any Action”: A Black Critical Theory Analysis of How Black Undergraduates Perceive Institutional Responses to Incidents of Anti-Blackness

Accomplishments:

• CSA Professional of the Year Award- Rutgers University New Brunswick

My work connects with social and racial justice by seeking to explain how to support Black students in creating and sustaining sites of refuge on HWI campuses.