The Misrepresented Minority

While Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are growing faster than any other racial group in the U.S., they are all but invisible in higher education, and generally ignored in the research literature, and thus greatly misrepresented and misunderstood.

This book presents disaggregated data to unmask important academic achievement and other disparities within the population, and offers new insights that promote more authentic understandings of the realities masked by the designation of AAPI. In offering new perspectives, conceptual frameworks, and empirical research by seasoned and emerging scholars, this book both makes a significant contribution to the emerging knowledge base on AAPIs, and identifies new directions for future scholarship on this population.

Its overarching purpose is to provide policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in higher education with the information they need to serve an increasingly important segment of their student populations.

In dispelling such misconceptions as that Asian Americans are not really racial minorities, the book opens up the complexity of the racial and ethnic minorities within this group, and identifies the unique challenges that require the attention of anyone in higher education concerned with student access and success, as well as the pipeline to the professoriate.

Samuel D. Museus is Assistant Professor of Educational Administration at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His scholarship is focused on college success among underserved student populations. Specifically, his current research is aimed at understanding the role of institutional environments in minority college student adjustment, engagement, and persistence. He has produced over 100 journal articles, bookchapters, and national conference presentations focused on understanding the institutional factors that shape the experiences and outcomes of racial/ethnic minority students. These include peer-reviewed articles accepted in The Review of HigherEducation, Teachers College Record, the Journal of College Student Development, and the Journal of College Student Retention. His books include Using Qualitative Methods in Institutional Assessment (2007 with Shaun R. Harper) Conducting Research on Asian Americans in Higher Education (2009), Racial and Ethnic Minority Students' Success in STEM Education (2011 with Robert T. Palmer, Ryan J. Davis, and Dina C. Maramba), UsingMixed Methods to Study Intersectionality in Higher Education (Forthcoming, 2011 with Kimberly A. Griffin), and Creating Campus Cultures: Fostering Success among Racially Diverse Student Populations (Forthcoming, 2012 with Uma M. Jayakumar).

Dina C. Maramba is an associate professor of higher education at Claremont Graduate University’s School of Educational Studies. She was previously an assistant and associate professor of student affairs administration and affiliate faculty of Asian and Asian American studies at the State University of New York (SUNY), Binghamton.

Maramba’s research interests include access and success of underserved college student populations; Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders and Filipina/o Americans in higher education; equity, diversity, and social justice issues in higher education; the impact of college environments on students; and minority serving institutions. Her teaching areas have included foundations of student affairs in higher education, university diversity, access and retention in higher education, and Asian Pacific Americans in higher education.

Maramba has worked more than 10 years as a practitioner and administrator in programs designed to increase the number of underrepresented students in higher education. Previously, she served as director of the Student Support Services TRIO program at the University of California, San Diego; as a resident director at both Colorado State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara; and as a coordinator of Upward Bound at Colorado State University.

Robert T. Teranishi is Associate Professor of Higher Education at New York University, co-director for the Institute for Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings, and a faculty affiliate with The Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy. Teranishi's research is broadly focused on race, ethnicity, and the stratification of college opportunity. He has provided congressional testimony regarding the Higher Education Reauthorization Act and No Child Left Behind, informed state policy decisions related to selective college admissions, and his research has been solicited to inform U.S. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and school desegregation. Teranishi was recently appointed by Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan to the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission, and was named one of the nation's top "up-and-coming" leaders by Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Teranishi is also the recipient of the Daniel E. Griffiths Research Award and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award from NYU. His work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Walmart Foundation, WT Grant, USA Funds, ETS, and the College Board. Prior to his position at New York University, Teranishi was a National Institute for Mental Health postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute. He received his B.A. from the University of California Santa Cruz in Sociology and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California Los Angeles in Higher Education and Organizational Change.