Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education

Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education should be required reading for anyone involved in—or interested in—academic governance. It not only provides a comprehensive overview of the disturbing situation in our institutions of higher education, it provides practical yet visionary suggestions for effecting real and sustained change and creating more inclusive environments for all members of campus communities. – Santa J. Ono, President and Vice Chancellor, The University of British Columbia

Through Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education, Chun and Feagin have produced the next classic work for higher education leaders who care about and seek to articulate the import of diversity on (predominately white) college campuses. A stunningly comprehensive book, it provides clear and innovative guidance on how to enact transformational change while navigating hurdles such as discriminatory speech and actions, microaggressions, implicit bias, asymmetrical power relations, and unhealthy environments. The real triumph of the book is that it is so much more than a roadmap to change. Rather, Chun and Feagin seek to reframe the conversation around these hurdles, asking if the terms to describe these barriers and the solutions devised to address them are still useful today. Significantly, the authors rely on first-person narratives to shine a light on the current higher education and political climate, and to mine those narratives for new and innovative approaches to intervention. After reading this book, with its frank and honest interrogation of diversity impulses in higher education, readers will be equipped to work toward creating a campus culture that is built on a foundation of empowerment, organizational awareness, and real inclusion. – Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman, Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity, Texas A&M University

Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education is a very timely book.Most work on racism in college campuses is extremely focused on implicit bias and individual-level prejudice, which misses the elephant in the room: the whiteness of institutions of higher learning. Chun and Feagin provide a toolkit of concepts and analyses that will serve general readers as well as help students, faculty, and administrators understand why racial issues in their campuses are not merely "isolated incidents." – Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, James B. Duke Professor of Sociology, Duke University

Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education is an important contribution to the conversation on how we make our colleges more accessible, more diverse, more equitable, and more inclusive. After having been a chief diversity officer for five years at a major research institution, this is the book that I wish I had read before taking on the task. It will be on my bookshelf within my reach for as long as I am in the position. – Dr. Robert M. Sellers, Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion & Chief Diversity Officer, University of Michigan

Edna B. Chun and Joe R. Feagin issue a challenge to professionals working in higher education to look more critically at the context in which "diversity" work is done, and to look at the systemic underpinnings of racial (and gender) inequality in higher education in general, and specifically at Historically White Colleges and Universities (HWCUs)…. On the whole, this book provides a compelling argument for a shift in the paradigm of diversity and inclusion work at HWCUs. At the same time, they admit to some utility of the existing framework, and in doing so, provide strong options for utilizing the existing framework for maximum impact and additionally supplementing and challenging some of the more problematic aspects of the hegemonic diversity framework. If people expect to advance real, meaningful change in HWCUs, this type of critical perspective is needed; while unconscious bias and microaggression workshops are ubiquitous, we must contend with the impact of elite white decisionmakers, historical and contemporary systemic racism and sexism, and the white racial and male sexist frames, which continue to contribute to significant inequities for women and people of color. – Social Forces

Excellently researched and organized, this study looks at the everyday discrimination and exclusion minority groups face at historically white campuses. ... Though anyone in higher education will benefit from this excellent text, it should be required reading for everyone who works in any level of campus leadership. – A. Sheppard, Arkansas State University