As we sat down to draft this chapter, we struggled to determine its focus. Should we focus on ways that student affairs professionals and our students might act as allies, or should we focus on strategies that student affairs professionals might employ to best foster the development of allies? They are, of course, issues with considerable overlap. If ally work can be conceptualized, as Ellen has done previously (Broido, 2000b), as possessing three components (inspiring and educating dominant group members, creating institutional and cultural change, and supporting target group members), then developing the next generation of allies is indeed a key constituent of ally work.

We also spent considerable time discussing where self-understanding fits into this three-component model. A great deal of progress on social justice issues has come from people with limited self-understanding: dominant group members who lack self-awareness have been responsible for much social good. Self-understanding thus is not a prerequisite for ally action. However, we believe that effective and sustainable ally behavior requires a solid foundation of self-understanding—that is, understanding based on continuous critical reflection into the roles of power and privilege in one’s life and relationships.