Roadblocks to Cultivating Change

Abstract In this article, we explore challenges to the creation of restorative universities. Drawing upon interviews with staff, faculty, and administrators at one US university campus, we discuss how loose coupling in higher education (Weick, 1976), and the nature of higher education as a porous institution (Ellis, 2021), make establishing a restorative campus difficult. In our analysis, we explore how divergent understandings of restorative justice, challenges related to the use of mandates around restorative approaches, lack of coordination across campus, and policies that contradict restorative approaches, intersect to create institutional barriers to system-wide implementation of restorative approaches. We also note potential windows of opportunity for embedding restorative justice approaches across university campuses.