Diversity's Promise for Higher Education: Making It Work

Building sustainable diversity in higher education isn’t just the right thing to do―it is an imperative for institutional excellence and for a pluralistic society that works.

Daryl G. Smith has devoted her career 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 a reality of the modern university experience. In Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education, Smith brings together scholarly and field research relevant to the next generation of diversity work. The book argues that achieving excellence in a diverse society requires increasing the institutional capacity for diversity while simultaneously working to understand how diversity is tied to better leadership, positive change, research in virtually every field, student success, accountability, and more equitable hiring practices.

To become more relevant to society, the nation, and the world while remaining true to their core missions, colleges and universities must continue to see diversity―like technology―as central, not parallel, to their work. In Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education, Smith proposes a set of clear and realistic practices that will help colleges and universities locate diversity as a strategic imperative and pursue diversity efforts that are inclusive of the varied―and growing―issues apparent on campuses without losing focus on the critical unfinished business of the past.

In this edition, which is aimed at administrators, faculty, researchers, and students of higher education, Smith emphasizes a transdisciplinary approach to the topic of diversity, drawing on an updated list of sources from a wealth of literatures and fields. The tables have been refreshed to include data on faculty diversity over a twenty-year period and the book includes new information about gender identity, stereotype threat, student success, the growing role of chief diversity officers, the international emergence of diversity issues, faculty hiring, and implicit bias.

Daryl G. Smith is a senior research fellow and professor emerita of education and psychology at Claremont Graduate University. She is the coauthor of Making a Real Difference with Diversity: A Guide to Institutional Change and the editor of Diversity in Higher Education: Emerging Perspectives on Institutional Transformation.