LEADERSHIP AND THE CHALLENGES OF DIVERSITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Leadership and the Challenges of Diversity in Higher Education

Daniel Dickson Boateng, PhD
Keiser University

Leadership is very instrumental in any organization. Without it, an institution could stand the highest propensity to crash. Like the snake whose head is severed, the rest of the reptile is only a rope.

There is no doubting that fact that in education, leadership makes a great difference (Wahlstrom, Louis, Leithwood, & Anderson, 2010). Ipso facto, without a leader, there is probably no surety of endorsing success or achievement in an organization. A leader leads the way into the path of success.

It is important to emphasize that in as much as the presence of leadership is of a priceless worth to any organization or an educational institution, the presence of untold hardships and challenges come in its wake. In his play, Henry IV, Part II, William Shakespeare writes, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” (line 1735).

In effect, leadership is not an easy task because it is confronted with myriads of challenges.
Rabinowitz (2016) asserted that leadership is beset with challenges both to the leader’s abilities and to the leader as a person.

Leaders constantly seek to achieve and bring changes; change brings along its trail, challenges, and no matter how good a leader maybe, he or she can’t stop the winds of challenges from blowing. One of the greatest challenges that confront leadership in higher education in America is diversity.

This discourse examines diversity as a great challenge that nags educational leadership in America’s higher education. Diversity Pant and Vijava (2015) defined diversity as the way in which people differ from each other. Pant and Vijava asserted that these differences among employees could arise due to their age, gender, race, ethnicity, personality, educational background, organizational function and tenure, etc. In effect, diversity means understanding that individuals are unique and are individually different.

Patrick and Kumar (2012) avowed that diversity is a composite of differences in people that make them impact how they see themselves and how they see and yoke with each other at work. By diversity, therefore, what comes up is a look at types of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. In the context of a higher educational institution, diversity may be considered as all those differences among students, faculty and staff which impact how every member of the college or university community views and perceives a fellow student, faculty or staff, and which affect their relationships as students or employees.

America and Diversity in Education
America is like a plate of salad beautifully prepared with several vegetables. There are people from all nations that make the population of America. Similarly, schools in America are populated with students, faculty and staff who are from all over the world. In effect, the population of America’s schools is diverse. Great Schools Staff (2016) noted that the United States is a culturally and ethnically a diverse nation and schools have become diverse too. The United States Census Bureau asserted that as the year 2100 approaches, the US minority population will climb to become the majority with non-Hispanic white falling into a forty percent category of the United States population.
The American Association of University Professors asserted that there is a dramatic transformation in relation to the composition of the population of America’s colleges and universities throughout the past generation, and there is none of its kind in the history of Western higher education. Gudeman, Alger, Moreno, Maruyama, Marina and Wilds (2000) assert that in the early 1960s, apart from students who attended historically black colleges and universities, only a relative few Americans of color enrolled in college in the United States. Presently, up to about one in ﬁve undergraduates at four-year schools is a minority. Gudeman et al. (2000) further discussed that many traditionally white colleges and universities that respect students’ concern began to recognize their inability to provide educational opportunities to African Americans in particular. They also became aware of the many judicial decisions in relation to equal educational opportunity. According to Gudeman et al.,the most inﬂuential issue that projected diversity in schools was the landmark of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education which led to the activation of the integration of many public-school systems. This was a kind of its own, a multicultural revolution which kicked off in large measure, making colleges and universities increase efforts to recruit as many minority students as possible. The discussion above makes it quite clear that the fever of diversity in American schools has since long been an established phenomenon because of the multi-ethnic background of the nation. Gebeloff, Tyson and Scheinkman(2016) also discussed the integration of people from other ethnic backgrounds. Gebeloff et al. pointed out that the enrollment of Hispanic and Asian American schools has increased by more than five million since the 1990s and that these increases occur not just in long-term immigration nidus, but in places as far flung in other states such as Marion County, Oregon Sevier County, Arkansas to Colfax County, Nebraska, and so on which consequently affect the population in schools. Here again, it establishes the fact that diversity is one underlining background to American Education.

Maxwell (2014) referred to the National Center of Education statistics in terms of looking at the different groups of people that make the face of America’s education. Maxwell discussed that there is a dramatic growth in the Latino population and a drop in the population of whites, and, to a lesser degree, by a gradual rise in the number of Asian-Americans. Maxwell, in pointing out the diverse nature of the students in the country’s schools, writes that the United States needs to vastly improve the educational outcomes for its diverse majority of American students because their success is inextricably linked with the well-being of the nation.

As mentioned earlier in this discourse, diversity in American education does not relate only to students but also faculty and staff that form a composite of the population of the people that make education in the country. The American Federation Teachers (2010) pointed out that the cross section of the people in the country that make faculty in education, in all levels of education, is the total of people of all ethnic backgrounds — Asians, African Americans, Latinos, Africans etc. The American Federation of Teachers asserted that the diversity of student population in the country is also represented among faculty. Thusly, the Federation argues that“faculty members from racial and ethnic minority groups have extended the breadth of scholarship in traditional disciplines and lead in developing new areas of study” (American Federation of Teachers, 2010). Taylor, Apprey, Hill, McGrann, and Wang(2010) postulated that America’s faculty in higher education levels are made of professorates who come from a multi-cultural backgrounds and thus establish the diverse role models for the nation’s changing demographics.

Another important point that establishes the diversity of faculty in American education is the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2008) which reported that under 20 percent of the nation’s professoriate is made up of persons of color— blacks/African Americans (5.6 percent), Hispanic/Latinos (3.5 percent), Asian Americans (9.1 percent), and American Indians (1.4 percent). This is another indication that America’s education has a platform that’s made up of diversity and it is an excellent picture of diversity painted. The U.S. Census Bureau recorded that minority groups constitute roughly one-third of the U.S. population (Census Bureau 2009). The record here presented by the census bureau shows the presence of diversity in the nation; thus, that education in America has a platform of diversity is an established truism.

Challenges of Diversity

“The diversity of a university’s faculty, staff, and students influences its strength,productivity and intellectual personality” (Fine and Handelsman, 2010). Fine and Handelsman argued that benefits of diversity out-weigh any challenges that comes along its trail. They further mentioned that diversity of experience, age, physical ability, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, and many other attributes are a source of enhancing the richness of the environment of teaching and research in as much as education is concern.

Despite the argument that diversity is a very excellent attribute of success not only in the field of education, but in various fields of endeavor, diversity can also be a very excellent platform of serious challenges and confrontations for many leaders in educational leadership.

The Challenge of Gender Biases

It is not a new thing in the society to hear that people representing a gender type have been treated unfairly. This is one area where leaders of educational institutions come face to face with trouble dealing with such issues. The issue of gender discrimination presents itself, even in the face of the success of diversity, as an inevitable phenomenon to deal with. Sheridan and Winchell (2006) observed that studies have shown that faculty members that are women and minority are considerably very dissatisfied with many aspects of their jobs in relation to their male faculty members. The areas according to Sheridan and Winchell range from teaching and committee assignments, involvement in decision making, professional relationship in terms of dealing with their colleagues, promotion and tenure, inequities in salary and overall job satisfaction.

According to Taylor, Apprey, Hill, McGrann, and Wang (2010), women in the professoriate have made important advances on college and university faculties in recent years. Their presence in faculty lags far behind in numerous disciplines than that of men, with reference to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (excluding the biological sciences). Taylor et al. asserted that in some disciplines like electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and physics, women make up fewer than ten percent of the professoriate among the top fifty research universities. Taylor et al. avowed that women of color occupy worse situations as college and university faculties. This has been a lingering challenge in higher education; women are relegated to the background, why? They are part of a diverse faculty, and their being part of the faculty as individuals has calculated their woes of being relegated to the background.

Nelson (2007) also observed in his findings after a study that only three hundred women held positions as faculty members in top fifty research universities. Nelson also observed that when the biological, social, behavioral, and economic sciences were taken out from the mix, fewer than one hundred women remained. In effect, women are not allowed enough positions as faculty in higher educational institution. If diversity has to do with all being inclusive in America, then the issue of women being relegated to the background could be bile to assertions that diversity is a platform form success, thus educational leadership has a challenge to deal with.

O’Rourke (2008) pointed out as she discussed the problem of diversity in relation to women scholars in academe. She asserted that women suffer in relation to too much loads of student service and advising related directly to their visibility.

O’Rourke mentioned that such women faculty members reported that the extra service they did is expected only for them, as underrepresented scholars, meanwhile their own academic interests in respect of studying important social, political and economic issues involving race and gender are most of the time devalued during faculty promotion processes.

Furthermore, Salter and Persuad (2003) noted that some colleges have women who are in the minority and fall among the male majority; such group of women feel unwelcome and discriminated against. The authors observed that women in minority experience sexist language, and disparaging views against women. In classes where such students face these problems, Salter and Persuad asserted that they face differential treatment from professors.

In the classroom, where teachers serve as leaders over their own students, the challenge of diversity surfaces many a time. In the course of my teaching in college, I have come face to face with the challenge of dealing with a few classes in which I had students who will not participate in class because they are the minority in the class. In an English 101 class for fall 2015, I had six male students and two female students. Class sessions were dominated in participation by the males. The two ladies in the class never talked, and never answered any questions asked. Besides, they refused to do presentations in class. This situation goes congruent with the assertion of Salter and Persaud (2003) that women who are in the minority feel unwelcome in the environment where they are enshrouded by the majority. This is a big diversity problem that is not probably faced by only women in college, but also faced by men who fall in the same situation. Teachers face this great challenge in diversity as leaders in the classroom.

The Challenge of Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation issues are a very big problem that leaders of educational institution are confronted with in recent time. It is important to note that by diversity, one of things that comes with the package is that any environment of diversity in America today can never rule out sexual orientation; gays and lesbians, as well as bisexuals form part of the society. Unfortunately, there seem to be a struggle everywhere, as members of society suffer the negative ambience of fully accepting those of different sexual orientation apart from the straight orientation.
People of the LGBT community face problems in higher education. This is a big challenge because most students or faculty who identify with the LGBT community face discrimination and other issues which make them feel unwelcome. There are many a people who have resigned or declined being part of a college or university because of the negative experience in the community. Harper and Schneider (2003) avowed that Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people continue to experience various forms of oppression and discrimination in North America and throughout the world, despite the social, legal, and political advances that have been launched in an attempt to grant LGBTpeople basic human rights. This is a challenge that educational leadership in higher education have to contend with in so far as education and diversity is concerned

Rankin(2003) added that studies have showed that students who get tagged as minority because of their sexual orientation, for example, being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, feel unwelcome and isolated. On many occasions many of such students fall off their objective of achieving the
goal of their academic endeavors. Rankin’s assertion holds t
rue in relation to a student in my class. Other students in class did not interact freely with him because he was gay. He had no friend; before the semester went to an end, he dropped the course. When asked why he dropped the course, his answer was that he could not stand the way other members of the class related to him (Dubois S, Personal Communication, October 7, 2015). As a professor, this was a big challenge, one difficulty to deal despite educating students to respect each other irrespective of ethnic, sexual, or religious background.

“Gays and Lesbians have a very big challenge, in fact a very complicated situation, other members of faculty are cold towards you, they do not respond even when you say hi, nobody relates to you properly. They make you feel you are not human, and this makes work here very difficult. Sometimes I feel like just leaving the teaching field” (Godfred W, personal communication, December 3, 2015). This is a clear indication of the ongoing challenge that leaders face in relation to diversity. In a case like this, it gets very complicated to handle, and this problem might linger for a while as leaders might only just look on. Some of these problems continue to become convoluted to dealt with; they probably might continue to be part of society’s response until things change culturally in the course of time.

The Challenge of Unconscious Biases in Diversity
One of the most nagging problems that seems to lie unseen in the background of the diversity of many higher educational institutions is unconscious bias and assumptions and leaders are confronted with them. Assumptions and unconscious biases are human instincts and are almost as inevitable as any human idiosyncrasy. Thusly, they will continue to linger about every human institution like a higher institution.

Selection of faculty during recruitment is one area where leaders are confronted with the challenge of bias and assumption due to diversity. Leaders often delegate subordinates and department heads to be in charge of selection and recruitment. In a diverse institution, there is always the highest tendency for those in charge of selection to be influenced by candidates of their own kind. For example, it could be so unconscious for any who is selecting two candidates who qualify to naturally pick the one of his or her own kind of ethnicity.

In academia, studies have shown that there are biases in the selection process of faculty. In a study, Steinpreis, Anders, and Ritzeke (1999) observed that female and male psychologists in academia were more than likely to select a man career researcher than a woman who is also equally qualified. This is clear indication of how bias operates unconsciously and naturally in all categories of people. Here, the psychologists, with respect to whatever orientation they might have experienced, or whatever may have set off their personal evaluations of male and female researchers, seem buried in their minds, thusly, influencing them over declining all criteria used in selection. Considering this, in the back of their minds, they find only males as the appropriate candidates to select for the research job, in spite of having qualified females. A look at this situation shows that faculty that would take charge of research in this department of psychology will only be males. It also means that the presence of females in this team might lead on to complicated issues. If there was no diversity in question, if there were only females present, then there would not be the question of discriminating against women or being bias against women who would equally fill positions as candidates.

Babcock (2006) has argued there is a hidden bias that can leave employers very susceptible to changing their demographics, Babcock avowed that organizations that pave way for biases to crawl into their selection and recruitment processes, and thus, are bound not to properly hire, engage, train, or motivate workers, leave the organization a great competitive disadvantage. Diversity is the background to all these problems discussed here.

Moss-Racusin et al (2012) identified bias in a study in relation to who could be selected for a laboratory manager position. Faculty Members rated male applicants more competent in relation to equally qualified females; besides, higher starting pay was slated for males than for females who were equally qualified for the position.

According to Trix and Psenka (2003), the presence of a heavy unconscious bias and gender schema exist in higher education. Trix and Psenka mentioned that an examination of letters of recommendation were done in relation to new jobs for promotion and for tenure; unfortunately, the examination revealed gender bias. The revelation showed that females were about two and a half times more likely than men to be given short letters of assurance. The letters that were given were twice as likely to contain “doubt raisers”, for example, faint praise,negative language, or irrelevancies, and the propensity to include references to personal life. Trix and Psenka observed that attention to training and teaching became common in letters allotted to women. Meanwhile, research, skills and abilities, and career attracted more attention in letters for men. Those in charge of examining the recommendation unconsciously injected stereotype into the process with emphasis on gender when the letters were being written (Trix & Psenka, 2003).

The Challenge of Assumptions in Diversity

Many times, there have been assumptions in the face of diversity. Biernat, Melvin, and Thomas (1991) mentioned that there is a common social assumption in higher education setting. Biernat et al. asserted that evaluators often over-estimate in their doings in the higher education level. This has become a challenge that leaders find difficult to navigate about. There are complicated problems emanating from diversity and are difficult to control. For example, in a study in which evaluators were shown photographs, the heights of males they saw in the photos were over-estimated. In an environment of diversity, such as the higher education setting, these are inevitable. The results of this study by Monica et al. indicate the natural presence of assumption in individuals due to diverse cultural orientations, which naturally affect, and influence assigned officers in their doings.

Biernat and Melvin (1994) also found the presence of assumption in a study they conducted. Evaluators were asked to rate the quality of verbal skills as indicated by vocabulary definitions. The study found that when they were told that African Americans were the providers of the definitions, evaluators gave a low score in relation to White Americans. As mentioned earlier, these are problems that beset educational leadership, and are very complicated to handle.

The Challenge of Racism in Diversity.

Racism is another very serious challenge in diversity; higher education levels face the problem of racism, among faculty and among students. Studies have shown that minority faculty in higher education often face exclusion, isolation, alienation and racism at schools where one ethnicity compose the majority. This is a challenge because it kills motivation in not only students but in staff and faculty (Rankin, 2003). The issue of racism comes as a result of diversity. Among different groups of people all coming from different ethnic backgrounds, there are some who feel themselves more respectable than others, and this is a human disposition which is inevitable.

According to the American Federation of Teachers(2010), the representation of racially and ethnically underrepresented groups in the ranks of college and university faculty is not proportional because it is lower compared to general population or with the demographics of the undergraduate and graduate student populations who are the composition of the training pool for higher education. Here is the challenge that confronts the leader of education, Power is delegated to subordinates to go about recruitment. At the end of the day some are underrepresented. That is how diversity comes along with its own challenges that leaders have to deal with every day.

The consequence of being underrepresented is one that creates unpleasant situations and demoralizes faculty. It is important to note that if faculty gets demoralized, it becomes directly linked to the student; consequently, it leads to the inability to reach set objectives — a challenge created here by the presence of diversity. Some of the problems that come in relation to diversity is attrition of faculty. The American Federation of Teachers (2010) mention that it has been reported on occasions that attrition has become of higher rates among racially and ethnically underrepresented faculty members in higher education. This is a very acute situation that confronts leadership in education. There seem to be no place to hold in solving problems such as this because it comes from the breath of diversity. Both the minority and the majority are those that make diversity, and if diversity is a virtue as may be argued, then the majority’s relegating of the minority to the background is not a good attribute enough to harness the good found in diversity.

Jose (2006) mentioned notably that the Association of American Colleges and Universities conducted a study in 2006 in which the efforts of 27 colleges and universities were examined to enhance faculty racial and ethnic diversity between 2000 and 2004. Findings suggested that despite the relative success in recruiting ethnic and racial minority faculty, there was still a lack of substantial advancement in relation to minority faculty. McCormick (1998) discussed the effect of discrimination against the minority in higher education which normally leads to impediments in the progress of the underrepresented even when, as faculty, they are given job interviews—they continue to face obstacles. A typical example is when some members of the screening team consider graduates who came from historically black colleges and universities as inferior candidates, in spite of excellent academic records. (McCormick, 1998). According to McCormick, the study concluded that potential candidates were most usually eliminated based on what graduate school candidates attended, and the bias, that the highest-ranked candidates most often came from elite graduate institutions.

Conclusion

Diversity is a very great asset to the development of higher educational levels. Unfortunately, it is the nest that breeds many challenges for educational leadership. Diversity poses more threat to the development of education than its advantages. By virtue of the presence of people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, there is also the presence of different cultural orientation which consequently leads to different ways of behavior of all people in an institution.

Diversity leads to assumptions, racism, unconscious biases, discrimination, underrepresentation of minority, and many a time, its consequences lead to faculty attrition. These negative attributes, all coming from the breath of diversity, make the latter look more of a threat to institutions in America like a higher educational institution than it being an advantage. The problems of diversity are human idiosyncrasies and are simply inevitable. In effect, like the poor, they shall always be in a diverse environment.

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