Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, Volume 19, Numbers 2 and 3

Institutions of higher education have been wrestling, with various and uneven results, with ways to create more diverse faculty, staff, and student populations. The research literature and positive anecdotal reports on all of the benefits of creating more diverse environments and the positive impact for the academy and society in the ever-changing landscape of a more global world underscore why efforts to change the face of all institu- tions of learning seems clear. Yet the struggle continues. One reason for the mixed results lies in the fact that while diversifying the populations on our campuses is a noble goal, to do so without changing simultaneously the climate that these diverse populations encounter is counterproductive. In fact, such short-sighted efforts are detrimental to those whose identity, cultural experiences, and learning styles are different from those of the predominantly traditional populations that administer, teach, and learn on traditional campuses. In other words, the failure has been to focus on the quantitative aspects of diversity while overlooking and ignoring the qualitative aspects of inclusion--separating the two (like theory and research) as if there is no relationship between them.