Diversity's Promise for Higher Education: Making It Work

Daryl G. Smith’s career has been devoted to studying and fostering diversity in higher education. She has witnessed and encouraged the evolution of diversity from an issue addressed sporadically on college campuses to an imperative if institutions want to succeed. In Diversity's Promise for Higher Education, she analyzes how diversity is practiced today and offers new recommendations for effecting lasting and meaningful change.

Smith argues that in the next generation of work on diversity, student population mix and performance will no longer be acceptable indicators of an institution's diversity effectiveness. To become more relevant to society, the nation, and the world while remaining true to their core mission, institutions must begin to see diversity, like technology, as central to teaching and research. She proposes a set of practices that will help colleges and universities embrace diversity as a tool for institutional success.

This thoughtful volume draws on 40 years of diversity studies. It offers both researchers and administrators an innovative approach to developing and instituting effective and sustainable diversity strategies.

Daryl G. Smith is a professor of education and psychology at Claremont Graduate University and author or coauthor of a number of books and articles, including Achieving Faculty Diversity: Debunking the Myths; Making a Real Difference with Diversity: A Guide to Institutional Change; Assessing Diversity on College and University Campuses; The Challenge of Diversity: Involvement or Alienation in the Academy?; and A Diversity Research Agenda: What More Do We Need to Know?