Celebrating our diversity: creating an inclusive climate in a US university

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide insight and reflections on the experience of initiating a diversity effort from the perspective of members of a university change team. The process, challenges, and recommendations for institutions that may embark on a formal initiative towards becoming a more inclusive and equitable community are discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe multicultural organizational development (MCOD) model is operationalized at this university. MCOD is a long‐term, complex, organizational change process that aims at reducing oppression that exists in institutions through a fundamental transformation of the culture.FindingsBased on the findings of the assessment, the results indicate that the university climate is trending in a positive direction. However, a gap exists between where the university aspires to be, as a multicultural campus, and the stage it is currently in with respect to four social identity areas: race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.Practical implicationsRecommendations for helping with a successful implementation of an organizational change initiative and assisting institutions to navigate through the process more effectively are provided.Social implicationsThis paper provides an approachable, data‐driven, evidence‐based process for colleges and universities to consider to implement and measure their diversity efforts.Originality/valueThis paper draws from the unique experience of members of a change team and the utilization of the MCOD model in a faith‐based university setting, and highlights the process and the challenges that many institutions still face while implementing a diversity change effort.

Revisiting feminist activism at managerial universities

“…Paradoxical and fragmented processes towards gender equality take place, and this promotion-oriented management of gender equality even has the potential to divert attention from gender and other forms of inequality (e.g. migration background, age, disability, class) in the evaluation of procedures and the management of individuals (Newman and Ashworth, 2003;Gavino et al, 2010).…”

Inclusion in the workplace: an integrative literature review

“…Several efforts have been paid to enrich the conceptualization of inclusion to tackle the polarization of inclusion versus exclusion, emphasizing the influence of power, politics and historical effects on inclusion. Via a case study, Gavino et al (2010) demonstrated a long-term, complex organizational change process in a university effort to build an inclusive climate. Later efforts have been influenced by critical perspectives (Adamson et al , 2021) and produced several concepts capturing the processual and relativistic nature of inclusion, such as partial inclusion (Dawson, 2006), hybrid inclusion (Dobusch, 2014), peripheral inclusion (Rennstam and Sullivan, 2018) and privation of inclusion (Asey, 2022), suggesting there is a range or levels of inclusion, and that individuals can feel both included and excluded, simultaneously.…”

Moving beyond the rhetoric on faculty diversity in higher education: an interview with diversity expert Dr Bailey Jackson

“…The impetus for this interview was initiated by a conversation with my dear friend Dr Bailey Jackson. In a recent visit, we reflected on the work with the MCOD model that brought us together many years ago (Gavino et al, 2010) and the ongoing lack of traction on faculty diversity initiatives. Dr Jackson pointed out that implementing interventions at various levels of the institution may appear as plausible solutions to dilemmas such as faculty diversity, but are ineffective and do not sustain the changes necessaryas it is at the institutional or system level that change needs to occur.…”