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Representation in Leadership

“A couple of participants discussed the need for more midwives of color in leadership positions and the need to have their leadership supported by white women."                                   - Yamasaki McLaughlin, 2012, p. 46

Why Needed?
Strategies
Why Needed?

  • “Research shows that campus leadership, including a diverse faculty, plays an important role in achieving inclusive institutions. For example, faculty members’ curricular decisions and pedagogy, including their individual interactions with students, can foster inclusive climates. Also, students report that it is important for them to see themselves reflected in the faculty and curriculum to which they are exposed to create a sense of belonging and inclusiveness (see pages 37-38).” (USDE 2016, p. 2-3)
     

  • “People of color are often underrepresented among institutions’ leadership: in 2013–14, seven times as many faculty were white as were either black or Hispanic (see appendix C for statistics on faculty).” (USDE 2016, p. 37)
     

  • “Having faculty members from underrepresented groups on campus can provide students another opportunity for frequent and quality interactions, which have been found beneficial for students’ development and outcomes, including better student recruitment and retention strategies, increased interracial interactions, and improved teaching and learning practices.” (Taylor, Milem & Coleman, 2016, p.25)
     

  • “Students are painfully aware when there is discrepancy in diversity between the faculty and student bodies on their campus, and failure to actively and publicly pursue a more diverse faculty sends a message of insincere commitment to diversity. In this way, faculty diversity initiatives are not only important in their own right . . . but they also serve to enhance the perceived climate for diversity.” (Taylor, Milem & Coleman, 2016, p.25)
     

  • “Promoting diversity and inclusiveness across all levels of the institution, including the institution’s administration and faculty, can be an important way to achieve a diverse and inclusive campus climate.” (USDE 2016, p. 37)

Strategies for Promoting Change

  • "Racial justice leadership needs to express this commitment through concrete planning and, to make it a reality, through practice in terms of diverse staffing, inclusive policies, and power in making curriculum decisions. It is also important to understand how an organization’s commitment to racial justice is reflected or inhibited in the structure of the institution and in relation to other institutions.” (Leadership and Race: How to Develop and Support Leadership that Contributes to Racial Justice, 2010)
     

  • “Institutional leadership that focuses on diversity and inclusion, such as a chief diversity officer assigned the duties of overseeing the development and implementation of the institution’s commitments to diversity, can spearhead these efforts. These administration and faculty challenges are not insignificant." (USDE 2016, p. 37​)
     

  • “Institutions may wish to consider how historical and current policies and practices may serve as barriers to diversity goals.” (USDE 2016, p. 37​)
     

  • “They could also consider various parts of the pipeline, including how they may expand the hiring pool for administrators and faculty, as well as programs that support and retain diverse administrators and faculty.”  (USDE 2016, p. 37​)
     

  • Principles and Best Practices for Faculty Mentoring (UC Berkeley)
     

  • "A new line of research has focused on faculty “cluster hiring” (hiring faculty into multiple departments or colleges around interdisciplinary research topics, often with a complementary aim to increase faculty diversity along race, ethnicity, gender, perspective, ideology, and methodology) and found that the practice can increase faculty diversity and cultivate a more inclusive campus climate. Successful institutions in the study made diversity benefits explicit in the goals and dedicated resources and infrastructure to support the clusters." (Taylor, Milem & Coleman, 2016, p.25)

“It is helpful to see diversity as a tool to help us get to racial justice, rather than an end in itself. A recent survey illustrates that a large number of leadership programs place a strong emphasis on diversity but more could be done to stress issues of structural racism and white privilege.”  

 

- Leadership and Race: How to Develop and Support Leadership that Contributes to Racial Justice, 2010

“One midwife expressed a desire to partner with a larger organization with the resources to create an online midwifery school, but she also wanted to keep the leadership in order to recruit and retain black women.”  

 

- Yamasaki McLaughlin p. 46

Resources
Additional Resources

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