Managing Diversity Flashpoints in Higher Education (ACE Praeger Series on Higher Education)

160 Pages·2007·0.71 MB·English

by  Joseph E. Garcia

MANAGING DIVERSITY
FLASHPOINTS IN
HIGHER EDUCATION

MANAGING DIVERSITY
FLASHPOINTS IN
HIGHER EDUCATION
Joseph E. Garcia and Karen J. Hoelscher
AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION
PRAEGER
Series on Higher Education
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Garcia,JosephE.
Managing diversity flashpoints in higher education / Joseph E. Garcia and Karen J.
Hoelscher.
p.cm.—(ACE/Praegerseriesonhighereducation)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978–0–275–98980–4(alk.paper)
1.Education,Higher—UnitedStates.2.Sociallearning—UnitedStates.
3.Socialization—UnitedStates.4.Groupidentity—UnitedStates.
I.Hoelscher,KarenJ.II.Title.
LA227.4.G372008
3780.017—dc22 2007038555
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationDataisavailable.
Copyright(cid:2)C 2008byJosephE.GarciaandKarenJ.Hoelscher
Allrightsreserved.Noportionofthisbookmaybe
reproduced,byanyprocessortechnique,withoutthe
expresswrittenconsentofthepublisher.
LibraryofCongressCatalogCardNumber:2007038555
ISBN-13:978–0–275–98980–4
Firstpublishedin2008
PraegerPublishers,88PostRoadWest,Westport,CT06881
AnimprintofGreenwoodPublishingGroup,Inc.
www.praeger.com
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Thepaperusedinthisbookcomplieswiththe
PermanentPaperStandardissuedbytheNational
InformationStandardsOrganization(Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Chapter1. Introduction 1
Chapter2. DiversityTrends:ImplicationsforCampuses 11
Chapter3. Diversity-FriendlyCampusClimates 21
Chapter4. Learning 33
Chapter5. Communication 43
Chapter6. UnderstandingDiversityFlashpointSituations 55
Chapter7. GoingLocal 71
Chapter8. AnticipatingFutureChallenges 83
Appendices WorkshopMaterials 105
AppendixA TemplateforaProfessionalDevelopmentWorkshopfor
FacultyandStaff 105
AppendixB WorkshopGoals 107
AppendixC DiversityFlashpointForm 111
AppendixD GroupLeaderNotesforSupportingSmallGroup
Discussion 113
vi Contents
AppendixE Handout1—DiversityFlashpointsResearchFoundations,
Methods,Results,andImplicationsforPracticeand
Policy 114
AppendixF Handout2—GuidelinesforSmallGroupDiscussionof
DiversityFlashpointSituationsandSomeGroundRules
forDiscussion 116
AppendixG Handout3—FeedbackForm,DiversityFlashpoints
ProfessionalDevelopmentWorkshop 117
AppendixH CollectionofTwenty-FourDiversityFlashpoint
Vignettes 118
Index 147
PREFACE
O
ur writing partnership grew out of a shared belief: faculty and
staff can influence campus climate beyond teaching in a class-
room or overseeing office tasks. Neither faculty nor staff tend
to be trained in recognizing and responding to difficult interpersonal
situations involving student-identity differences. To address these defi-
cits, we wrote this book to share our research on how identity, privi-
lege, and interpersonal skills impact the human spirit and our ability to
learn, and to lay out specific steps that we can take to improve the
learning environment.
The challenges of diversity in higher education affect us all. Even as
definitions of diversity abound and the legacy of ‘‘isms’’ (e.g., racism,
sexism, etc.) remain, questions of equity, fairness, and equality continue
to be debated in society. At the same time, concerns about demo-
graphic changes, national and global security, global competitiveness,
and social justice attract the attention of people around the globe.
Our work does not pretend to solve these larger societal questions.
Rather, we take to heart the saying, think globally and act locally. We
wrote this book to enable campus leaders to broaden their understand-
ing of how small acts of courage create institutions where respect for
individual identities encourages learning and educational achievement
for all.
We offer a strategy for addressing difficult situations, which we label
‘‘diversity flashpoints,’’ for faculty and staff, as well as institutional
viii Preface
leaders. We acknowledge the importance of context as well as content
in providing an approach that uses locally based data to reveal and
address the flashpoints that most affect learning.
This book stems from the support of many people. We extend our
appreciation to our interviewees, who shared the flashpoint incidents
that you, your students, or a colleague may have experienced at your
university. We thank our Western Washington University colleagues
who encouraged us to move forward with the work: Sonia Arevalo-
Hayes, David Brunnemer, Nancy Corbin, Patricia Fabiano, Ted Pratt,
Peter Rosenberg, Michael Vendiola, and Carmen Werder. Thanks to
Stan Wakefield, who matched us with Praeger-ACE, and to our editor
Susan Slesinger, who has supported our work throughout. Thanks to
our parents, Walt and Roberta Carlson and Eladio and Blanche Garcia,
who provided the DNA and the nurturing that led us to a clear focus
on improving interpersonal communication across differences. Finally,
special appreciation goes to our mates, Chuck Hoelscher and Karen
Copetas, for their infinite and loving support while we toiled away on
this project.
We dedicate this book to future generations, including Elena and
Tony Hoelscher, Emanuel and Angel Martinez, and Yamil, Carina, and
Jeshua Linder.
1
CHAPTER
Introduction
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the
whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own con-
scienceusuallyrecognizealsothevoiceofjustice.
AlexanderSolzhenitsyn,1967(Labedz,1970)
W
hen Solzhenitsyn spoke about justice, he had in mind the
experience of life in a Gulag in Siberia. While the Gulag
experience is far removed from the typical experience of
university students, staff, and faculty in America, his comment on the
voice of conscience holds true for all of us in our day-to-day interac-
tions with others. In this book, we offer an informed strategy for being
more thoughtful about how we express our voices of conscience to pro-
ductively promote justice in higher education. We begin our discussion
with a set of stories that turn out to be unusually common in higher
education:
(cid:129) A student angrily points out during one of your lectures that she is
concerned about the coverage of typical developmental patterns of
NativeAmerican preschoolers;
(cid:129) Two staff members, in the presence of students speaking a language
other than English, make a pointed comment that everyone should be
speakingEnglish on campus;and
(cid:129) You overhear two students talking as you walk into class about some-
one‘‘acting sogay’’ orreferring tosomething as ‘‘so retarded.’’
This book is about addressing situations in higher education that
faculty, administrators, staff, and students encounter—situations that
2 ManagingDiversityFlashpointsinHigherEducation
threaten our collective sense of justice and community. These stories
come from our own experience and represent a much larger set of
experiences that occur frequently on campuses across the nation. The
stories are about difficult situations that have the potential to spiral
out of control and interfere with teaching, learning, and scholarship.
They are not stories about intentionally racist or sexist people, but
about collisions between individuals who experience and view the
world in different ways. We call these stories diversity flashpoint inci-
dents, which we formally define as difficult interpersonal situations
that arise out of identity differences, and have the potential to become
explosive.
Diversity flashpoint incidents are situations we encounter that have
the potential to become destructive both to immediate participants and
to bystanders. A diversity flashpoint incident results in the feeling that
there has been a broken connection among those working together on
the shared task of teaching and learning. Troubling to most is that the
broken connection relates to membership in a group and brings up the
presence of an ‘‘ism’’ (e.g., racism, sexism, etc.) that challenges open
communication and learning. The way in which we address these diffi-
cult interpersonal situations can lead to outcomes that range from pain
and suffering to more positive feelings of self-worth and enhanced
learning.
Successfully managing a flashpoint situation requires knowledge,
skill, and compassion. In addition to the challenges associated with dif-
ficult interpersonal situations among people who have common identi-
ties, situations where people have different social identities are both
subtle and obvious in their complexity. The ability to anticipate, think
about, and proactively manage such situations is a daunting task for
many people, including professional educators. Many professionals in
higher education have participated in some form of staff development
for increasing sensitivity to or raising awareness of diversity issues.
However, few of us have had the opportunity to develop skills that go
beyond learning about others who are different, or being sensitive to
the needs of people who are different from us. Acquiring such skills
would enable us to behave in ways that are more mindful of the oppor-
tunities associated with difference.
In this chapter we offer a rationale for and an approach to develop-
ing skills for effectively managing difficult interpersonal incidents. We
believe this approach can assist academic leaders in transforming their
institutions into places where faculty and staff can become more effec-
tive in accomplishing their academic mission.