Students and faculty in higher education increasingly reflect more diverse backgrounds, but this diversity remains rare in many leadership roles. In Leading from the Margins, Mary Dana Hinton celebrates the unique strengths of marginalized individuals, inviting them to embrace their leadership potential and make a difference. Drawing from Hinton's…

The homogeneous nature of senior leadership in U.S. colleges and universities and the absence of diverse perspectives in decision making is cause for concern. The nation's college student population has become increasingly diverse, with Black, Latinx, Asian and Pacific Islander (API), and Indigenous groups making up 45% of 4-year college…

In this article, we examine the units of the central administrations of Chinese universities to ascertain to what extent they reflect Chinese structural and cultural characteristics or global templates, seen through certain administrative units in the US model of excellence for universities. We describe and analyze the main features of the Chinese…

Professional standards of practice for Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) urge them to enhance institutional functions while leveraging education to build institutional capacity, but CDOs experience varying outcomes in their work. The current literature is limited with respect to how CDOs facilitate diversity learning and development experiences for…

Organizational culture acts as the mortar that connects the bricks. Every institution has its own unique culture which has been adopted and shared by all employees over the years. As establishment stories, ways of doing business, and communication styles change, culture also adopts itself to these in a way that is specific to that organization.…

Advancing diversity efforts in higher education has long been a complicated, nearly impossible political terrain for senior leaders to navigate (Kezar, 2007). Though still politically fraught, institutional and organizational investments reflect the growing institutional responsibility and accountability around DEI work (Havey et al., 2022;…

The Kentucky Community and Technical Colleges System (KCTCS) began hiring diversity officers throughout the system in the mid-2000s. These highest-ranking diversity officers (HRDO) on each campus led their college's efforts to comply with the statewide diversity policy. A phenomenological approach was used to discover how former HRDOs in KCTCS…

This article employs critical race theory (CRT) to explore what student activist counter-narratives reveal about the logics of institutional diversity work and the ways this work reinforces racist configurations of power and exclusion in higher education. In 2014, student activism erupted in a series of critical incidents on university campuses…

The paper aimed at exploring intercultural communication as a means to promote inclusivity in diverse organisations. The study adopted a case study design with qualitative data. A semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions was utilised as the main data collection tool from a sample of ten purposively selected professionals from the…

Institutions of higher education continue to grapple with how to most effectively meet their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) priorities. Colleges and universities have turned to Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) as the institutional leaders to champion to provide leadership for creating more diverse, equitable and inclusive experiences and…

As of our most recent census data, racialized people comprise 22.3% of the Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 2016). Canadian universities have espoused commitments to diversity and inclusion but there has long been a gap between the rhetoric and practice. Research has demonstrated that under-representation is a problem at all levels of…

Through analysis of the strategic ambitions of China's top universities, this article studies the relationship between governance structures at the system level and strategic institutional adaptations. In China, some top universities are governed directly by the national authorities while others have regional affiliations. By analyzing the…

This study examines the motivations, definitions of success, and elements that contribute to their self-defined success among BIPOC DEI leaders in two-year predominantly White institutions (PWIs) in the Midwest. Using a critical phenomenological approach, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews and analyzed job descriptions and resumes/CVs.…

Universities, specifically their colleges of business, stress within courses, through events, and across their public persona the significance of gender diversity practices as a means to treat women fairly, provide them with equal opportunities, and to create an even playing field. The emphasis of this topic stresses that gender diversity is of…

Proponents of social justice and equity in higher education declare a need to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices into curricula, student support services, hiring practices and professional development, as well as system-wide mechanisms for students, faculty, and staff of color to better care for and retain an increasingly…