Are cultural centers ethnic enclaves of segregation, or safe havens that provide minority students with social support that promotes persistence and retention?Though Black cultural centers boast a 40-year history, there is much misinformation about them and the ethnic counterparts to which they gave rise. Moreover, little is known about their historical roots, current status, and future prospects. The literature has largely ignored the various culture center models, and the role that such centers play in the experiences of college students. This book fills a significant void in the research on ethnic minority cultural centers, offers the historic background to their establishment and development, considers the circumstances that led to their creation, examines the roles they play on campus, explores their impact on retention and campus climate, and provides guidelines for their management in the light of current issues and future directions.In the first part of this volume, the contributors provide perspectives on culture centers from the point of view of various racial/ethnic identity groups, Latina/o, Asian, American Indian, and African American. Part II offers theoretical perspectives that frame the role of culture centers from the point of view of critical race theory, student development theory, and a social justice framework. Part III focuses specifically on administrative and practice-oriented themes, addressing such issues as the relative merits of full- and part-time staff, of race/ethnic specific as opposed to multicultural centers, relations with the outside community, and integration with academic and student affairs to support the mission of the institution. For administrators and student affairs educators who are unfamiliar with these facilities, and want to support an increasingly diverse student body, this book situates such centers within the overall strategy of improving campus climate, and makes the case for sustaining them. Where none as yet exist, this book offers a rationale and blueprint for creating such centers. For leaders of culture centers this book constitutes a valuable tool for assessing their viability, improving their performance, and ensuring their future relevance – all considerations of increased importance when budgets and resources are strained. This book also provides a foundation for researchers interested in further investigating the role of these centers in higher education.

"This book fills a significant void in the research on ethnic minority cultural centers, offers the historic background to their establishment and development, considers the circumstances that led to their creation, examines the roles they play on campus, explores their impact on retention and campus climate, and provides guidelines for their management in the light of current issues and future directions"--Provided by publisher.

A compilation of essays presenting the conditions and promises of the university for African American faculty and students that is enhanced by the development of Black culture centers in the university community.

Frustrated with the flood of news articles and opinion pieces that were skeptical of minority students' "imagined" campus microaggressions, Micere Keels, a professor of comparative human development, set out to provide a detailed account of how racial-ethnic identity structures Black and Latinx students' college transition experiences. Tracking a cohort of more than five hundred Black and Latinx students since they enrolled at five historically white colleges and universities in the fall of 2013 Campus Counterspaces finds that these students were not asking to be protected from new ideas. Instead, they relished exposure to new ideas, wanted to be intellectually challenged, and wanted to grow. However, Keels argues, they were asking for access to counterspaces—safe spaces that enable radical growth. They wanted counterspaces where they could go beyond basic conversations about whether racism and discrimination still exist. They wanted time in counterspaces with likeminded others where they could simultaneously validate and challenge stereotypical representations of their marginalized identities and develop new counter narratives of those identities. In this critique of how universities have responded to the challenges these students face, Keels offers a way forward that goes beyond making diversity statements to taking diversity actions.

Written by the director and staff of the first, and one of the largest, teaching centers in American higher education – the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) – this book offers a unique perspective on the strategies for making a teaching center integral to an institution’s educational mission. It presents a comprehensive vision for running a wide range of related programs, and provides faculty developers elsewhere with ideas and material to prompt reflection on the management and practices of their centers – whatever their size – and on how best to create a culture of teaching on their campuses. Given that only about a fifth of all U.S. postsecondary institutions have a teaching center, this book also offers a wealth of ideas and models for those administrators who are considering the development of new centers on their campuses.Topics covered include:• The role of the director, budgetary strategies, and operational principles• Strategies for using evaluation to enhance and grow a teaching center• Relationships with center constituencies: faculty, provost, deans, and department chairs• Engagement with curricular reform and assessment• Strengthening diversity through faculty development• Engaging faculty in effective use of instructional technology• Using student feedback for instructional improvement• Using action research to improve teaching and learning• Incorporating role play and theatre in faculty development• Developing graduate students as consultants• Preparing future faculty for teaching• The challenges of faculty development at a research universityIn the concluding chapter, to provide additional context about the issues that teaching centers face today, twenty experienced center directors who operate in similar environments share their main challenges, and the strategies they have developed to overcome them through innovative programming and careful management of their resources. Their contributions fall into four broad categories: institutional-level challenges, engaging faculty and students and supporting engaged pedagogy, discipline-specific programming, and programming to address specific instructor career stages.

Cultural resource centers have been an ongoing and integral component to creating a more welcoming campus climate for Students of Color since its establishment in the 1960s. While the racial dynamics may have changed, many of the challenges Students of Color faced on predominantly White campuses have not. Interestingly, cultural resource centers as safe spaces and advocacy spaces have evolved and expanded their missions beyond their traditional student populations. This study utilizes the Multi-contextual Model of Diverse Learning Environments (MMDLE) and organizational behavior theories to understand how cultural resource centers shape and are shaped by their current campus climates. Through an embedded case study design combining survey data, interviews, and document analyses, this study identifies the missions and organizational structures of cultural resource centers, as well as its interactions with the climate. Major findings include centers converging around an educational mission for a broad population with variations by center type in their areas of emphases. A categorization of institutional models emerged from the study resulting in the Taxonomy of Cultural Resource Centers in Higher Education, serving as a basic model to consider of multicultural, intercultural, and race-specific centers. The case studies revealed the importance of understanding institutional models within their context and the interplay of climate dimensions that serve to either support or hinder their ability to meet their missions. Cultural resource centers have evolved from serving their traditional populations yet the organizational structures to support their missions have not necessarily evolved with them. The case studies indicated a variety of approaches including institutions looking at the cultural resource centers in isolation and those that tried to fit the cultural resource centers within an organizational structure to support campus diversity efforts. The organizational behaviors of the institutions reflected the institutional context and approach to overall diversity efforts as well as highlighted the interplay between the dimensions of the climate. Strategizing for the future within conflicting notions of valuing diversity and rendering race invisible thus needs to take into account the evolving cultural resource centers as sites of expertise, education, and empowerment.

This book explores the central role community colleges play in American social justice. The United States has long-standing social and cultural structures that perpetuate inequality along race, ethnicity, and income lines. The primary role of American community colleges is to disrupt these structures on behalf of the students we serve. In this sense, community colleges are called to play a subversive role in contemporary society, but it is a good kind of subversion. Social Justice and Community College Education makes four very important contributions to this conversation: First, the book helps us quantify and understand the size and dimension of the equity gaps in higher education by tracking ten specific student groups from historically underserved communities. Second, the book summarizes best practices research and literature with regard to pedagogy, services, programs, and leadership in community colleges, presenting practical strategies for implementation. Third, through a national survey of community college personnel, the book covers significant new territory in the discussion of work we need to do collaboratively as community colleges. Fourth, this book captures the unique and special mission of American community colleges. Our work is the work of social justice, and we carry this work out in society at a greater volume, with greater intentionality, and through greater expertise than any other sector of higher education. In this arena, community colleges should lead.

CHOICE 2015 Outstanding Academic TitleWhat do women academics classify as challenging, inequitable, or “hostile” work environments and experiences? How do these vary by women’s race/ethnicity, rank, sexual orientation, or other social locations?How do academic cultures and organizational structures work independently and in tandem to foster or challenge such work climates?What actions can institutions and individuals–independently and collectively–take toward equity in the academy?Despite tremendous progress toward gender equality and equity in institutions of higher education, deep patterns of discrimination against women in the academy persist. From the “chilly climate” to the “old boys’ club,” women academics must navigate structures and cultures that continue to marginalize, penalize, and undermine their success.This book is a “tool kit” for advancing greater gender equality and equity in higher education. It presents the latest research on issues of concern to them, and to anyone interested in a more equitable academy. It documents the challenging, sometimes hostile experiences of women academics through feminist analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, including narratives from women of different races and ethnicities across disciplines, ranks, and university types. The contributors’ research draws upon the experiences of women academics including those with under-examined identities such as lesbian, feminist, married or unmarried, and contingent faculty. And, it offers new perspectives on persistent issues such as family policies, pay and promotion inequalities, and disproportionate service burdens. The editors provide case studies of women who have encountered antagonistic workplaces, and offer action steps, best practices, and more than 100 online resources for individuals navigating similar situations. Beyond women in academe, this book is for their allies and for administrators interested in changing the climates, cultures, and policies that allow gender inequality to exist on their campuses, and to researchers/scholars investigating these phenomena. It aims to disrupt complacency amongst those who claim that things are “better” or “good enough” and to provide readers with strategies and resources to counter barriers created by culture, climate, or institutional structures.

Written by the director and staff of the first, and one of the largest, teaching centers in American higher education - the University of Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) - this book offers a unique perspective on the strategies for making a teaching center integral to an institution's educational mission. It presents a comprehensive vision for running a wide range of related programs, and provides faculty developers elsewhere with ideas and material to prompt reflection on the management and practices of their centers - whatever their size - and on how best to create a culture of teaching on their campuses. Given that only about a fifth of all U.S. postsecondary institutions have a teaching center, this book also offers a wealth of ideas and models for those administrators who are considering the development of new centers on their campuses.Topics covered include:• The role of the director, budgetary strategies, and operational principles• Strategies for using evaluation to enhance and grow a teaching center• Relationships with center constituencies: faculty, provost, deans, and department chairs• Engagement with curricular reform and assessment• Strengthening diversity through faculty development• Engaging faculty in effective use of instructional technology• Using student feedback for instructional improvement• Using action research to improve teaching and learning• Incorporating role play and theatre in faculty development• Developing graduate students as consultants• Preparing future faculty for teaching• The challenges of faculty development at a research universityIn the concluding chapter, to provide additional context about the issues that teaching centers face today, twenty experienced center directors who operate in similar environments share their main challenges, and the strategies they have developed to overcome them through innovative programming and careful management of their resources. Their contributions fall into four broad categories: institutional-level challenges, engaging faculty and students and supporting engaged pedagogy, discipline-specific programming, and programming to address specific instructor career stages.

This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.