ABSTRACT
College men have become, in many ways, an at-risk group on college campuses. Concerns have been identified regarding recruitment and retention of male students, the greater likelihood of male students struggling to succeed academically, the greater likelihood of college men being the victims and perpetrators of violence-including suicide, higher rates of college men violating college policies, and increasing rates of college men exhibiting decreased emotional, mental, and physical well-being, including substance use and abuse (Aud, Wilkinson-Flicker, Kristapovich, Rathbun, Wang, and Zhang, 2013; Edwards and Jones, 2009; Groeschel, Wester, and Sedivy, 2010; Shen-Miller, Isacco, Davies, St. Jean, and Phan, 2013). Scholars have investigated the relationship between these aspects of college men’s lives and the fact that these students are men, acting as they believe they are expected to as men in both the college context and in the broader culture of the United States. In a review of 30 years of research on men’s gender role conflict, O’Neil notes that “restrictive ways of thinking about masculine norms are significantly correlated with men’s psychological problems and interpersonal conflicts” (2013, p. 490). This chapter challenges higher education professionals to understand college men as men; men who have been and are continuing to learn what it means to be men within a social context that, they believe, stipulates their behaviors as college students, as residence hall members, as partners in friendships and romantic relationships, as athletes, and as members of their college and home communities.
