Examining the Role of Graduate Colleges in Advancing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

• In Event: Power in Graduate Education: Actors, Relations, and Accountability in the System

Abstract

This presentation will explore how graduate students, educators, and administrators can exercise power to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within and beyond graduate education. We will share background, findings, and implications from two qualitative studies of graduate education at public, predominantly White institutions (PPWIs). We will foreground the meaning graduate students and graduate college administrators make of EDI-related experiences in relation to the institutional and structural constraints shaping these experiences. We will also explore the agency students and administrators enact against these constraints to advance EDI at their institutions. Our approach is consistent with a critical constructivist stance (Kincheloe, 2005) since we emphasize how individuals in graduate education contexts can make meaning in ways that lead to transformative action in their departments, colleges, and institutions.

First, we will share findings from a study exploring how graduate students were socialized to EDI in their disciplines and fields (Authors, 2019). Faculty, staff, and students in academic departments rarely discussed EDI beyond highlighting the need for increased compositional diversity. Consequently, multiple participants with minoritized identities felt marginalized, tokenized, and overtly targeted in their departments. To enhance their learning and find support, many students enacted agency by engaging in EDI-related mentoring programs and courses sponsored by their institution’s graduate college. This study demonstrated the need for academic departments to enhance opportunities for students to learn about EDI in their disciplines, and for further research on the role of graduate colleges in advancing EDI (Authors, 2019).

In one of few studies examining the role of graduate colleges, Griffin, Muñiz, and Espinoza (2012) explored the work of graduate diversity officers (GDOs) who led recruitment and retention efforts aimed at enhancing compositional diversity. They found GDOs’ work was negatively affected by institutional location/community context, campus climate, graduate admissions structures, varied support from senior leadership and faculty, and lack of funding. Subsequently, Griffin, Muñiz, and Smith (2015) examined GDOs’ efforts to retain racially minoritized students through building individual relationships, helping students build relationships with faculty, and creating opportunities to cultivate supportive communities. Beyond these important findings, the potential role of graduate colleges in advancing EDI has been underexplored.

Accordingly, we will conclude by discussing emergent findings from an externally funded study that explores the potential role of graduate colleges in advancing EDI at PPWIs in a post-affirmative action policy state context. This study is guided by Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar, and Arellano’s (2012) Multicontextual Model of Diverse Learning Environments (DLE model) to understand how graduate colleges are situated within multiple environmental domains (i.e., socio-historical, policy, community, institutional) that influence their potential to advance or detract from EDI. Accordingly, we will consider ways in which students, faculty members, and administrators in academic departments and graduate colleges can advance EDI through curricular and co-curricular environments, practices, and processes that affect minoritized graduate students’ success. We will also explore how institutional actors can advance EDI in graduate education despite external policy constraints. Finally, we will highlight opportunities for collaboration and reciprocal accountability among graduate colleges, academic departments, and other stakeholders.

Authors

• Rosemary J. Perez, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Claire Kathleen Robbins, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University