Practical solutions for improving higher education opportunities for disadvantaged students Too many disadvantaged college students in America do not complete their coursework or receive any college credential, while others earn degrees or certificates with little labor market value. Large numbers of these students also struggle to pay for college, and some incur debts that they have difficulty repaying. The authors provide a new review of the causes of these problems and offer promising policy solutions. The circumstances affecting disadvantaged students stem both from issues on the individual side, such as weak academic preparation and financial pressures, and from institutional failures. Low-income students disproportionately attend schools that are underfunded and have weak performance incentives, contributing to unsatisfactory outcomes for many students. Some solutions, including better financial aid or academic supports, target individual students. Other solutions, such as stronger linkages between coursework and the labor market and more structured paths through the curriculum, are aimed at institutional reforms. All students, and particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, also need better and varied pathways both to college and directly to the job market, beginning in high school. We can improve college outcomes, but must also acknowledge that we must make hard choices and face difficult tradeoffs in the process. While no single policy is guaranteed to greatly improve college and career outcomes, implementing a number of evidence-based policies and programs together has the potential to improve these outcomes substantially.

Building sustainable diversity in higher education isn't just the right thing to do—it is an imperative for institutional excellence and for a pluralistic society that works. *Updated Edition* Daryl G. Smith has devoted her career to studying and fostering diversity in higher education. In Diversity's Promise for Higher Education, Smith brings together research from a wide variety of fields to propose a set of clear and realistic practices that will help colleges and universities locate diversity as a strategic imperative and pursue diversity efforts that are inclusive of the varied—and growing—issues apparent on campuses without losing focus on the critical unfinished business of the past. To become more relevant to society, the nation, and the world, while remaining true to their core missions, colleges and universities must continue to see diversity—like technology—as central, not parallel, to their work. Indeed, looking at the relatively slow progress for change in many areas, Smith suggests that seeing diversity as an imperative for an institution's individual mission, and not just as a value, is the necessary lever for real institutional change. Furthermore, achieving excellence in a diverse society requires increasing institutional capacity for diversity—working to understand how diversity is tied to better leadership, positive change, research in virtually every field, student success, accountability, and more equitable hiring practices. In this edition, which is aimed at administrators, faculty, researchers, and students of higher education, Smith emphasizes a transdisciplinary approach to the topic of diversity, drawing on an updated list of sources from a wealth of literatures and fields. The tables and figures have been refreshed to include data on faculty diversity over a twenty-year period, and the book includes new information about • gender identity, • embedded bias, • student success, • the growing role of chief diversity officers, • the international emergence of diversity issues, • faculty hiring, • and important metrics for monitoring progress. Drawing on forty years of diversity studies, this third edition also • includes more examples of how diversity is core to institutional excellence, academic achievement, and leadership development; • updates issues of language; • examines the current climate of race-based campus protest; • addresses the complexity of identity—and explains how to attend to the growing kinds of identities relevant to diversity, equity, and inclusion while not overshadowing the unfinished business of race, class, and gender.

The demography of America is changing and it is showing up on college campuses as an increasingly diverse student body. Universities typically handle changes within the academic tradition of courses or programs, but to prepare students to live and work in an increasingly diverse world something else is needed. This little book was created to serve this need. Five stories told by recent college graduates from public universities to highlight the learning about diversity in college from the students themselves. The stories are curated to key social science phenomena in diversity, such as implicit bias or stereotype threat. They are set in a context of experiential learning from the students themselves and are informed by advances the social neuroscience of unconscious decision-making. The goal is to highlight the ways these factors can complement the ongoing diversity course work and other university programming. While the project was led by a professor with serious university administrative history, the storytellers and other organizers are all authors, making this little a book a unique contribution that is written about students by those students themselves. The first chapter sets the stage by introducing at the lay level with social neuroscience principles that drive diversity issues in society and in the college-age population. The first story chapter is written by a Latino former student who explores the experience of being taught by a largely non-diverse faculty. The second chapter represents the struggle of a female student to overcome self-handicapping and enter the sciences in the field of medicine. The third chapter explores growing up Dominican in a large metropolitan area, going to a small-city university, and finding necessary group support in an established diversity program. The fourth chapter discusses in-group/out-group issues from a student who move from a small-town Jewish population to achieve student leadership in a large diverse university. The final story chapter looks at being an immigrant and non-native speaker, but making it in college overcoming stereotype threat. The final chapter is our collective recommendations of what a university or college can do with this student-rich perspective to more deeply educate about the fundamental issues of living in a diverse world.

For courses in Diversity and Human Relations. This text takes students through a five-step learning process that teaches them how to manage diversity. It broadens their viewpoints, beliefs, and attitudes; promotes an understanding of widely varying and equally valid worldviews; and prepares future leaders to effectively collaborate with the diverse groups they will encounter in the work and market places.

Today, no institution can ignore the need for deep conversations about race and ethnicity. But colleges and universities face a unique set of challenges as they explore these topics. Diversity Matters offers leaders a roadmap as they think through how their campuses can serve all students well. Five Key Sections Campus Case Studies: Transforming Institutions with a Commitment to Diversity Why We Stayed: Lessons in Resiliency and Leadership from Long-Term CCCU Diversity Professionals Voices of Our Friends: Speaking for Themselves Curricular/Cocurricular Initiatives to Enhance Diversity Awareness and Action Autoethnographies: Emerging Leaders and Career Stages Each chapter in Diversity Matters includes important discussion questions for administration, faculty, and staff.