Diversity Officers Research Articles

EntryPoint! places students with disabilities on STEM tracks

In the 10 weeks that Rose Buchmann worked at The Mayo Clinic this summer, the college junior got a chance to try out new lab techniques and learn more about what a full-time career in science looks like. The internship, arranged by AAAS's EntryPoint! program, also gave Buchmann a chance to make lasting connections with the people she hopes will be her future colleagues. ![Figure][1] Rose Buchmann PHOTO: ANGELA MOUREAU “It was good to meet people in my field and people related to what I'll actually be doing in my career,” said Buchmann, who is studying biomedical engineering at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. “Having an opportunity to get an internship like this, it really gets your name out there and you get to network a little bit.” Buchmann is one of 27 students who worked as 2015 EntryPoint! interns at places like NASA, Georgia Tech, and Johns Hopkins University. Launched in 1996, the historic AAAS program has recruited students with disabilities who are studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to work in industry, universities, and government agencies. As EntryPoint! approaches its 20th anniversary, it stands as a singularly successful career launching pad. There are more than 580 alumni in the program, “and out of that number, we know that over 80% are now working in STEM fields,” said Laureen Summers, the program's coordinator. Other programs such as the federal Workforce Recruitment Program help college students with disabilities enter the workforce, but Summers said that EntryPoint! is the only such program to focus on STEM jobs. The program is planning a luncheon and panel at the 2016 AAAS Annual Meeting to celebrate its two decades' of work, coinciding with new efforts to bring together alumni who can act as mentors to the new cohorts of EntryPoint! applicants. Buchmann has vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that weakens connective tissues and major blood vessels. She said that the Mayo Clinic's Office of Diversity was very supportive of her throughout her internship. “It was great for me to meet everyone and do the research, but it wasn't just the work that I liked,” she recalled. “Just getting out and having something productive to do with your summer is so much fun.” [1]: pending:yes

Cluster-randomized trial of a physician/pharmacist collaborative model to improve blood pressure control.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate if a physician/pharmacist collaborative model would be implemented as determined by improved blood pressure (BP) control in primary care medical offices with diverse geographic and patient characteristics and whether long-term BP control could be sustained. Prospective, cluster-randomized trial of 32 primary care offices stratified and randomized to control, 9-month intervention (brief), and 24-month intervention (sustained). We enrolled 625 subjects with uncontrolled hypertension; 54% from racial/ethnic minority groups and 50% with diabetes mellitus or chronic kidney disease. The primary outcome of BP control at 9 months was 43% in intervention offices (n=401) compared with 34% in the control group (n=224; adjusted odds ratio, 1.57 [95% confidence interval, 0.99-2.50]; P=0.059). The adjusted difference in mean systolic/diastolic BP between the intervention and control groups for all subjects at 9 months was -6.1/-2.9 mm Hg (P=0.002 and P=0.005, respectively), and it was -6.4/-2.9 mm Hg (P=0.009 and P=0.044, respectively) in subjects from racial or ethnic minorities. BP control and mean BP were significantly improved in subjects from racial minorities in intervention offices at 18 and 24 months (P=0.048 to P<0.001) compared with the control group. Although the results of the primary outcome (BP control) were negative, the key secondary end point (mean BP) was significantly improved in the intervention group. Thus, the findings for secondary end points suggest that team-based care using clinical pharmacists was implemented in diverse primary care offices and BP was reduced in subjects from racial minority groups. URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00935077.

Make universal design a campuswide priority

Forging successful partnerships with faculty, teaching services and diversity offices on campus is essential to creating a universally designed educational experience for the students your unit serves. That was the challenge Frederic Fovet faced when he was hired by McGill University several years ago.

A participatory systems approach to understanding climate adaptation needs

Abstract Emerging literature on climate adaptation suggests the need for effective ways of engaging or activating communities and supporting community roles, coupled with whole-of-system approaches to understanding climate change and adaptation needs. We have developed and evaluated a participatory approach to elicit community and stakeholder understanding of climate change adaptation needs, and connect diverse community members and local office bearers towards potential action. The approach was trialed in a series of connected social-ecological systems along a transect from a rural area to the coast and islands of ecologically sensitive Moreton Bay in Queensland, Australia. We conducted ‘climate roundtables’ in each of three areas along the transect, then a fourth roundtable reviewed and extended the results to the region as a whole. Influence diagrams produced through the process show how each climate variable forecast to affect this region (heat, storm, flood, sea-level rise, fire, drought) affects the natural environment, infrastructure, economic and social behaviour patterns, and psychosocial responses, and how sets of people, species and ecosystems are affected, and act, differentially. The participatory process proved effective as a way of building local empathy, a local knowledge base and empowering participants to join towards future climate adaptation action. Key principles are highlighted to assist in adapting the process for use elsewhere.

Rethinking the Structure of Student Recruitment and Efforts to Increase Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Doctoral Education

While researchers, institutional leaders, and policymakers have made significant progress towards increasing undergraduate student diversity in the United States, diversity in graduate education has been less often studied and a more challenging goal on which to make progress. This qualitative study explores the roles and work of graduate diversity officers (GDOs) in student recruitment activities with a focus on how race and issues of diversity manifest and influence this process. Interviews with fourteen GDOs at 11 different research universities in the United States highlight the phases in the graduate recruitment process, the manner in which diversity is considered at each stage, and GDOs’ perceptions of their ability to shape this process. Findings suggest that GDOs are important institutional agents in diversification efforts; however, faculty engagement and broad institutional commitment are required to increase diversity in graduate education due to GDOs’ often limited involvement in the admissions stage of the recruitment process, where race becomes the most salient in decision making.

National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education standards of professional practice for chief diversity officers.

National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education standards of professional practice for chief diversity officers.

Questioning impact: interconnection between extra-organizational resources and agency of equality and diversity officers

This paper examines the change agency of equality and diversity (E&D) officers with a specific emphasis on the role of extra-organizational influences and resources. The paper is informed by qualitative material collected through interviews with E&D officers from 20 higher education institutions in the UK. The paper offers an evidence-based analysis of the utility of extra-organizational mechanisms and intervention programmes for organizational E&D agenda and for the agentic influence of E&D officers. The paper contributes to both academic literature and policy-making. We present original empirical insights into the change agency of E&D officers by exploring the impact of extra-organizational bodies as potential mechanisms for support and influence. At the policy level, the paper provides evidence on the value of extra-organizational resources and tools that are produced by policy bodies in promoting progressive E&D agendas in organizations.

The Chief Diversity Officer: An examination of CDO models and strategies.

The Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) position has emerged as an executive-level role that provides strategic guidance for diversity planning and implementation efforts. The growing number of CDO appointments has raised the expectations regarding the contributions of this officer. Williams and Wade-Golden (2007) identified three CDO models or archetypes of vertical authority (i.e., collaborative officer, unit-based, and portfolio divisional) that serve as templates for colleges and universities to design the CDO role. In higher education, these models range from simple one-person office configurations to more developed multiunit reporting structures. Drawing upon this structural framework, the researcher conducted a qualitative examination of three CDOs representing each of the three organizational models. Using a multisite case study methodology, the researcher interviewed three CDOs and 25 administrators working in three large public research institutions in the Midwest region of the United States. This study explored two central questions: (a) What strategies are used by each CDO to develop, manage, and maximize diversity resources? and (b) Can the CDO configuration facilitate or constrain the work of the CDO? This study's findings reveal that all CDOs included in this study were engaged with a number of tasks to fulfill their role. However, their configuration does impact how these diversity leaders carry out their work. This article highlights the collaborative nature of the CDO position and key considerations when comparing and contrasting CDO models at large institutions.

The chief diversity officer: An examination of CDO models and strategies.

The chief diversity officer: An examination of CDO models and strategies.

Chief diversity officers and the wonderful world of academe.

Chief diversity officers and the wonderful world of academe.

Like fire to water: building bridging collaborations between Disability service providers and course instructors to create user friendly and resource efficient UDL implementation material

This study presents a post-secondary campus` experience with systematic and global promotion of Universal Design for Learning. It analyzes data collected over a 24 months period, relating to course instructors’ responses to the framework, through the lens of the initial hypothesis that successes and failures in adoption might be explained by the existence of variables that act as facilitators or stressors in the eyes of the participants. It is argued that identifying these variables allows campuses to map winning conditions for the rapid adoption of UDL by course instructors, irrespective of institutional context and resources. Importantly the study highlights that the full identification of these factors requires the involvement and collaboration of not simply the disability service provider, but also the Teaching and Learning support unit and the equity and diversity office. The study argues that such a collaboration model is transferable to other institutions.

Comment from the Field

The most recent installment of a biennial series exploring current trends in disability studies, Composing Disability: Diagnosis, Interrupted, was held at George Washington University (GWU) on April 3-4, 2014.1 This event was a team effort organized by Joseph Fisher, Wade Fletcher, and other staff members at GWU's Disability Support Services along with faculty in the Department of English (Robert McRuer, David Mitchell) and the University Writing Program (Abby Wilkerson); it was co-sponsored by GWU's Office of Disability Support Services, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. The conference took as its launching point the May 2013 publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Through keynotes, panel conversations, and performances, this event considered the interplay between the diagnostic work performed by the medical industry and the experiences of disabled people. These critical approaches to the DSM-5 confronted many of the problems the manual creates, but it also explored the potential of disability to radically reconfigure notions of community. Most importantly, it provided a venue for participants to consider how we all negotiate our varied relationships to institutional structures (from the corporate university to legal, educational, and medical professions).Diagnosis, Interrupted was an energetic, multi-site affair. In addition to keynotes and panels addressing a range of historical and cultural contexts (medieval to contemporary), it featured a diverse array of events: a reading by graphic novel author Ellen Forney, a one-on-one interview (Ann Cvetkovich with Wilkerson as interlocutor), a group poetry reading, and presentations by student presenters (undergraduate and graduate). The goal of community building began long before the event via its Facebook page, a dynamic blog on tumblr, and vigorous live tweeting of the proceedings as they transpired.2The event opened with a keynote by Katie Rose Guest Pryal: Authority Lost: The DSM-5's Fall from Legal Grace. Pryal examined the rhetorical of the DSM and its pervasive impact across all aspects of the legal profession. In a revealing analysis of mental illness disclosure statements on state bar applications, Pryal discussed how DSM-inflected psychiatric questions (for instance, asking if an applicant has ever been diagnosed with bipolar disorder) enact a gatekeeping that determines who has the rhetorical power to enter the courtroom in the first place. While such exclusionary uses of the DSM are deeply problematic, it remains a valuable mechanism for gaining access to treatment, insurance, and other benefits. Pryal's keynote vividly revealed ambivalence toward the DSM's outsized impact in contemporary culture: it is at once exclusionary and enabling, clarifying, and stigmatizing.The next session, Crazy Sex: Pathology, Alternative Sexualities, and Non-Normative Desires, explored flows of communal affect, sexuality, and the possibilities of radical crip community. Leslie Freeman spoke of losses and longings in crip communities and translating grief into art, and she reflected on how queerness and disability shape her identity as an outspoken femme, activist, and performance artist. Her talk movingly morphed into an impromptu elegy for those the crip community has recently lost. Freeman noted that she was working with Lisa Bufano on a dance at the time of her death and spoke about the creative process of making dance with an absent partner. She also remembered Christopher Bell and his role in Freeman's own entry into queer/crip community. Bethany Stevens opened with a prospect of world-transformation in Orgasmic Freedom: Gripping Sex and Speaking Shame. She observed how feelings of shame often associate themselves with disability, and contemporary culture still assumes heterosexual norms and phallocentrizes its thinking about sexuality. …

Graduate student dissonance: Graduate students of color in a U. S. research university.

Author(s): Levin, JS; Jaeger, AJ; Haley, KJ | Abstract: This qualitative investigation examined the experiences of a population of graduate students - graduate students of color - in a U. S. research university (a) to indicate reasons for their dilemmas, ambiguities, and decisions about choosing an academic career, and (b) to identify the practices of one research university's graduate programs that have considerable influence upon graduate students' decisions about pursuing an academic career. For graduate students of color, professional and social identity alignment is a significant condition for decisions about academic career choices, and the institution's norms and behavioral patterns have considerable influence on graduate students' experiences and career choices. © 2013 National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education.

EFFORT: A new host–network cooperated framework for efficient and effective bot malware detection

Bots are still a serious threat to Internet security. Although a lot of approaches have been proposed to detect bots at host or network level, they still have shortcomings. Host-level approaches can detect bots with high accuracy. However they usually pose too much overhead on the host. While network-level approaches can detect bots with less overhead, they have problems in detecting bots with encrypted, evasive communication C&C channels. In this paper, we propose EFFORT, a new host–network cooperated detection framework attempting to overcome shortcomings of both approaches while still keeping both advantages, i.e., effectiveness and efficiency. Based on intrinsic characteristics of bots, we propose a multi-module approach to correlate information from different host- and network-level aspects and design a multi-layered architecture to efficiently coordinate modules to perform heavy monitoring only when necessary. We have implemented our proposed system and evaluated on real-world benign and malicious programs running on several diverse real-life office and home machines for several days. The final results show that our system can detect all 17 real-world bots (e.g., Waledac, Storm) with low false positives (0.68%) and with minimal overhead. We believe EFFORT raises a higher bar and this host–network cooperated design represents a timely effort and a right direction in the malware battle.

Occupying the Academy: Just How Important Is Diversity Work in Higher Education? ed. by Christine Clark, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner, and Mark Brimhall-Vargas (review)

Reviewed by: Occupying the Academy: Just How Important Is Diversity Work in Higher Education? ed. by Christine Clark, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner, and Mark Brimhall-Vargas Blanca E. Vega (bio) Christine Clark, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner, and Mark Brimhall-Vargas, (Eds.). Occupying the Academy: Just How Important Is Diversity Work in Higher Education? New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. 253 pp. Cloth: $70.00. ISBN 978-1-4422-1272-5. Diversity work in education is the latest chapter in a long history of the struggle for social justice. Occupying the Academy: Just How Important Is Diversity Work in Higher Education?, edited by Christine Clark, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner, and Mark Brimhall-Vargas, addresses the permanence of racism as manifested in higher education. The collected narratives and case studies presented in this book provide testimony about how racism evolves in an era that many people call "postracial," symbolized by the election of our nation's first Black president, Barack Obama. However, the case studies in this book also suggest that diversity workers, for all their best intentions, should name their work for what they are actually doing: race work. The authors divide the book's narratives into three areas: those from chief diversity officers, midlevel administrators, and faculty. The editors charged contributing authors to adhere to several guidelines: They must (a) understand multicultural organizational model concepts, (b) employ Critical Race Theory (CRT) and variations of CRT as conceptual frameworks for understanding diversity work, and (c) provide counter narratives as case studies for analyses. Despite the use of these frameworks that center race in research, however, "diversity" seemed to replace the word "race." Diversity work is the umbrella term for all work done in the name of social justice. Race work centers racial justice as a core value. In the foreword, Sonia Nieto makes this relationship apparent, but this focus does not remain clear throughout the book. Each case occurs at a public higher education institution, and all the narratives employ the same pseudonym, Acme, using, as a rationale, the fact that these stories can occur at many public institutions. There are a few exceptions: none of the cases occurred at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and none (for reasons they do not explain) were situated in the "Pacific Northwest, Alaska, or Hawai'i" (p. 195). Despite these limitations, the editors argue that these stories are more common than we believe and must be written and published to record the ongoing history of racism in higher education. To understand diversity workers, the editors provide a brief historical background of the role of the chief diversity officer (CDO) in their introduction. The role of CDOs was shaped by private corporations to explain why these roles are often created without much power: "It is important to note that many Fortune 500 companies that signed the amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan's recent bid to protect affirmative action practices (Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003; Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003) have driven the emergence of the CDO position in the private sector and public higher education alike" (p. 2). The editors describe the complexities of diversity workers, particularly those who identify as people of color. Diversity workers of color often find themselves caught between two competing interests—demonstrating a united front with their colleagues, or speaking for their identity group (p. 3). The CDO is caught in contradictory roles. On the one hand, the existence of the CDO symbolizes an institution's seriousness about diversity work; but on the other, they bear the very real responsibility for diversity work, causing authors to ask: "Who is ultimately responsible for the success of institutionalized effort?" (p.89) Three themes prevail throughout the book: (a) difficulties with accomplishing diversity work in the postracial era, (b) understanding diversity knowledge, and asking (c) for whom is diversity work performed? First, all of the narratives demonstrate how difficult diversity work has become in the postracial era. The editors "thought it would get better" (p. xvii), an attitude that was clearly expressed in Case 1 (p. 26). This case reveals the difficulties of diversity work from the perspective of a White, female CDO. It also explores the impact of presidents with different understandings...

Emerging Trend: The Chief Diversity Officer Phenomenon within Higher Education

Given that this study touched on the sensitive topic of diversity, very little research exist on the subject of chief diversity officers (CDOs), this research investigated the emergence of the CDO position within higher education. This qualitative study examined seven CDOs and their institutions in order to assess the impact these leaders are having on the campus culture at their institutions multicultural educators. The CDOs at the institutions differed in how they ascended to that role, their titles, who they reported to, and areas of responsibilities. Some cited near perfect harmony among members of the campus community around diversity issues, while others had met with challenges. Additionally, the CDOs did experience some success with collaboration on diversity initiatives.Keywords: diversity, chief diversity officer, higher institutionsINTRODUCTIONA growing trend on campuses nationwide appears to be the hiring of chief diversity officers (CDO). This development in achieving diversity outcomes has yielded a professional association, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE), that is dedicated to serving as the preeminent voice for diversity officers in higher education (NADOHE, 2009, p. 1). Incorporated in 2006, NADOHE boasts well over 90 members and close to 150 institutions (NADOHE, 2009). Gose (2006) noted that elite universities, such Harvard, Texas AM therefore, a CDO, let alone any new diversity policy, is unnecessary. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of seven CDOs on the campus culture at their respective institutions.For those who hold the title CDO, a presumption exists by some within the institution that the CDO should be the sole authority for building a campus culture that embraces diversity. This can sometimes lead to an overload for the CDO and have unintended consequences. Rosser and Javinar (2003) concluded that there is a correlation between how a student affairs professional views their job responsibilities and their job satisfaction. Already, those who work in diversityrelated positions on college campuses, typically at the director, assistant director, and coordinator levels, acknowledge they are the go-to individuals when it comes to diversity. As a result, other colleagues not in diversity-related positions take on the persona that they are free from having to focus too much attention to diversity. This situation has caused some within diversity and multicultural affairs positions to feel alienated from colleagues who demonstrate little or no interest in diversity, but who pass multicultural responsibilities to the diversity person.Although the hiring of CDOs might provide one avenue to promote diversity on college campuses, it is uncertain how effective they will be in implementing diversity initiatives. …

Women Veterans: ‘Invisible Warriors’ on Your Campus

Women Veterans: ‘Invisible Warriors’ on Your Campus

Chief Diversity Officer and the Diversity Office

Six universities and colleges were analyzed in this research to assist Robert Morris University in finding a structure for its chief diversity officer and diversity office. Those universities and colleges were chosen because of their already established diversity-related departments. Among other observations, title XI was explored in regards to who is responsible for its coordination. After thoroughly examining those institutions, the RMU potential CDO job description was shared and recommendations were offered.

The Influence of Campus Racial Climate on Diversity in Graduate Education

Persistent disparities in doctoral degree completion have led many institutions to hire graduate diversity officers (GDOs) to increase the presence of underrepresented minorities in graduate programs. This qualitative study of 14 GDOs considers how the dimensions of campus racial climate (CRC) influence the ability of GDOs to carry out this work. Findings suggest CRC can be applied to understanding institutional processes that affect diversity, and that internal and external climate-related forces affect the GDO’s recruitment and retention efforts. Thus, universities must go beyond demonstrating institutional commitment by creating GDO positions and attending to CRC to increase graduate diversity.

G. Rumay Alexander, EdD, RN

G. Rumay Alexander, EdD, RN, is a clinical professor and director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing. We are delighted that she granted this interview for Nurse Leader.