Leadership Practices and Diversity in Higher Education: Transitional and Transformational Frameworks

Abstract

Executive Summary Diversity has deep roots in American society and a tenacious hold on its social fabric. Institutions of higher education have not been very responsive to the issues raised by rapidly growing diverse communities in the United States. The institutions' response to diversity is not unexpected given that higher education is relatively conservative about changing its institutional practices. In order to understand how higher education may respond to diversity issues we discuss two frameworks in this paper that focus on the association between leadership and diversity. Our purpose is to use the frameworks as heuristic tools for examining the type of leadership practices higher education can utilize in its response to diversity. By contrasting the two frameworks we show that how higher education responds to diversity depends on its decision to either transform or transition the organizational culture and institutional environment. ********** Diversity in higher education is sometimes treated like the family member or relative that is shielded from view or the presence of others in an effort to avoid embarrassment or unkind comments. Unfortunately, much like the family member or relative, diversity will not go away or disappear, especially in an emergent global environment. Ever since the Bakke decision in 1978, institutions of higher education have been reluctant to promote diversity as a necessary dimension toward building themselves into inclusive communities. The institutions' reluctance intensified following the Hopwood decision in 1998, that diversity is not a compelling reason for altering the institutional climate in higher education. The reluctance of higher education institutions to promote diversity can be attributed to the observation that diversity in higher education has an end in itself, rather than a means to a greater educational end, and because universities have failed to establish the fundamental link between diversity and their educational missions (Alger, 1997: 20). In the twenty years that lapsed between Bakke and Hopwood white Americans have become increasingly hostile toward diversity issues. In a recent national poll conducted by the Washington Post, the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University, researchers found that white Americans misperceive the socio-economic realities of African Americans, tending to hold unrealistically positive views of their progress. Moreover, these distorted views are linked to an unwillingness to support social policies and programs that create opportunities and provide support to minorities (Morin, 2001). If the social climate in American society is less supportive of initiatives that address diversity issues, how then can institutions of higher education respond to diversity? More importantly, how do leadership practices in higher education respond to diversity? Our purpose in this paper is to discuss and contrast two frameworks regarding the association between diversity and leadership in higher education. We examine the association by asking two questions: What types of leadership practices transition institutions of higher education to address diversity issues? What types of leadership practices transform institutions of higher education into an inclusive community for diversity issues? While we recognize that the term diversity is used in higher education to refer to multiple types of communities based on cultural, racial, ethnic or sexual identities, we limit our use of the term in this paper to minority (non-white) persons and their communities. We use the term leadership practices in this paper to identify actions at either the organizational or individual level that seek to determine goals and strategic planning within the organizational culture of higher education (see Ackoff & Pourdehnad, 2001; Schnebel, 2000). Diversity as a Concern Why is diversity important to higher education? …