Diversity in Higher Education in the United States - Paper Example

In order for the United States to compete in the twenty-first-century global economy, administrative leaders of higher education must create culturally inclusive learning environments for their diverse student body. The population growth of the United States has been a carefully watched topic for many years. The current population projections by the Pew Research Center shows that future immigrants and their descendants will account for 88% of the United States population increase(Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S. | Pew Research Center, n.d.). With the projected demographic change, this review analyzes the need for administrative leaders in higher education to not only become more diverse but to have transformative leadership skills to empower all students of the twenty-first-century. This review questions how universities have prepared for the changing face of America and their ability to create more culturally inclusive campuses for students to thrive no matter the race, gender or income. The following two literature reviews attempt to increase the amount of knowledge regarding the need for administrative leadership in higher education to master inclusion and how a transformative coach-approach leadership model is integral to inclusion.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Since the 1980s, government agencies and companies across a range of industries have been man aging diversity. Diversity management is the strategy used to find and create a diverse and inclusive workplace. However, higher education has been slow to respond to the call for a more diverse and inclusive workforce. There is a long-standing lack of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of staff and administration: "I argue that enrollment of a diverse student body is but a pragmatic first step toward the broader social goal of inclusion and ask whether motives for campus diversification are aligned with pedagogic goals. I address this question by focusing on inclusion, namely, organizational strategies and practices that promote meaningful social and academic interactions among students who differ in their experiences, views, and traits. After illustrating the contours and pace of diversification, I discuss challenges to achieving meaningful integration as campuses become more racially diverse by focusing on ethnic programming and evidence about students' social interaction patterns. Integration is not an automatic by-product of campus diversity; therefore, to harness the benefits of diverse student bodies, institutional leaders must pursue deliberate strategies that promote inclusion.

The purpose of higher education in the United States is to prepare the minds and hearts of future workers of our country. Institutions of higher education are called upon to connect students with real-world problems and teach them how to engage, create, and problem solve. America needs leaders and workforces that are nimble, adaptive, and open to new ideas to solve todays challenges and complex problems. With rapid demographic change in the coming decades, and with student bodies, workforces, consumers, and electorates continuing to become more diverse more rapidly, the need to get this diversity and inclusion question right is a moral and business imperative.

According to the Pew Research Centers 2015 demography-related findings, by 2055, the U.S. will not have a single racial or ethnic majority. Much of this change has been (and will be) driven by immigration. Nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S. in the past 50 years, mostly from Latin America and Asia. Today, a near-record 14% of the countrys population is foreign born compared with just 5% in 1965. Over the next five decades, the majority of U.S. population growth is projected to be linked to new Asian and Hispanic immigration (Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S. | Pew Research Center, n.d.)

The diversity debate remains unresolved, with implications beyond higher education. With former University of Missouri president Tim Wolfes resignation (Belkin et. al 2015), and as diversity debates are activated on campuses across the country, administrative leadership continue to be stumped by how to create truly inclusive campuses. Unresolved diversity issues in higher education have implications well beyond our college campuses. It is no wonder that diversity issues have been stuck at a standstill in corporate America, politics, and media. America and our leaders have been ill-prepared by our educational experiences to manage diversity, much less powerfully leverage it. Research shows relationship between students and the college environment is both reciprocal and dynamic: "JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. A racially diverse classroom tends to offer distinctive benefits (Lehman, 2004). The student success rate for Historically Black Colleges and Universities for African American students is the empowering, family-like environment that boasts small classes, close faculty-student relationships, and life with fewer racial microaggressions: "In this chapter, we provide both a historical and a contemporary backdrop on diversity at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In par-ticular, we provide evidence to dispel these five pervasive myths related to diversity and HBCUs: 1. HBCUs serve only Black students. 2. HBCUs have only Black faculty. 3. HBCUs do not have lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students or centers. 4. HBCUs have only Christian students. 5. HBCUs are unable to advance our nation' s higher education goals. We then present unanswered questions and opportunities for new research in the area of diversity that we hope future scholars will tackle. Because HBCUs are \" historically Black, \" many people assume that these institutions have served only Black students throughout their history and continue to serve only Black students today. However, at many HBCUs throughout the nation the first students were White. Often, the founders of HBCUs were Whites who had served in the Northern army and worked with the federal government' s Freedmen' s Bureau. In other situations, these White founders were missionaries who went south after the Civil War to educate the formerly enslaved Black population. Because they were serving in leadership roles at many of the American Missionary Association' s Black colleges, Whites also sent their children to these institutions. In particular...