244 Journal of College Counseling ■ October 2015 ■ Volume 18 © 2015 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. Received 05/06/12 Revised 10/12/12 Accepted 12/03/12 DOI: 10.1002/jocc.12018 African American and Latino Men’s Recommendations for an Improved Campus Environment Alison Cerezo, James Lyda, Alma Enriquez, Matthew Beristianos, and Michael Connor The purpose of this study was to share findings from semistructured qualitative interviews with 9 African American and 12 Latino men about their ideas on how university personnel could better support their needs. Stressing the need for African American men to learn self-reliance to counter microaggressions, African American participants offered recommendations to students rather than personnel. Latino participants discussed the need for personnel to provide critical information about college resources. Keywords: African Americans, Latinos, microaggressions D espite increased representation in the United States, African American and Latino young men struggle in many important areas of their lives. For the past 4 decades, they have maintained the highest school dropout and incarceration rates of all ethnic groups in the United States (Reyes & Nakagawa, 2010), and although most youth transition from adolescence to adulthood to lead healthy, sustainable lives, “some young people, a dispropor- tionate number of whom are Black and Latino males, are trapped in a cycle of prison, poverty, and disadvantage” (Reyes & Nakagawa, 2010, p. 37). With respect to college completion, the number of African American and Latino men attaining a bachelor’s degree is much lower than the number of White and Asian and Pacific Islander men (Aud et al., 2012). It is known that degree attainment contributes to greater economic stability (U.S. Department of Labor, 2015), which is positively associated with mental health (Eaton & Muntaner, 1999). Thus, diminished educational attainment has significant consequences for African American and Latino men, who already contend with gendered racism in the workplace, housing, and many other important areas of their lives (Edley & Ruiz de Velasco, 2010). The academic achievement of African American and Latino men is an impor- tant issue for counselors in educational settings. As outlined by Lewis, Arnold, House, and Toporek (2003), advocacy-oriented counselors “recognize the impact of social, political, economic, and cultural factors on human development” (p. 1) and, in the case of African American and Latino men, understand both the challenges they face in their pursuit of higher education and the importance of degree completion for men’s later quality of life. Unfortunately, research has found that as Latino men advance in college, they become less likely to rely Alison Cerezo, Alma Enriquez, Matthew Beristianos, and Michael Connor, California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University; James Lyda, Student Health and Counseling Services, University of California, San Francisco. Alison Cerezo is now at Department of Counseling, San Francisco State University. Correspondence con- cerning this article should be addressed to Alison Cerezo, Department of Counseling, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132 (e-mail: acerezo@sfsu.edu).