Ethnic and Racial Administrative Diversity: Understanding Work Life Realities and Experiences in Higher Education (review)

In the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling of the Grutter v. Bollinger case, diversity research in higher education was recognized for its contributions in demonstrating that ethnic and racial diversity among students, faculty, and staff greatly benefits student learning. Since that time, higher education scholars have continued to investigate aspects of diversity and its impact with respect to students and faculty. However, diversity among the administrative and executive ranks has received less attention in the literature and in practice.

If diversity is, in fact, a compelling interest for society, then higher education leaders and researchers alike need a better understanding about the ways in which diversity is achieved and experienced among the administrative ranks within colleges and universities. How diverse are the ranks and what can institutions do to improve the structural diversity of their administration? What challenges do people of color face in entering and advancing in administration? What are their experiences and what coping strategies do they employ?

In Ethnic and Racial Administrative Diversity: Understanding Work Life Realities and Experiences in Higher Education, Jerlando Jackson and Elizabeth O'Callaghan address these important questions by presenting an analysis of relevant literature and two national datasets from 1999. While college and university leaders articulate the need to increase racial and ethnic diversity among administrators, stating the need is often easier than pursuing and achieving change. The authors provide a thoughtful discussion that goes beyond the traditional theoretical frameworks and anecdotal information that are so often relied upon but do not yield desirable results.

The book consists of five chapters. In Chapter 1, the introduction and overview, the authors outline the growing concern for the lack of people of color in senior-level positions which both results from and perpetuates a lack of a commitment to ethnic and racial diversity. They highlight empirical studies and news articles that speak to the difficulty in hiring and retaining people of color in administrative higher education posts, particularly at predominantly White institutions. Jackson and O'Callaghan then introduce two relatively new concepts to justify the importance of workforce diversity in higher education: representative bureaucracy and retention. They describe these concepts in detail to underscore their relevance to higher and postsecondary education. The remainder of the introduction briefly describes the literature review underlying the book and overviews the subsequent chapters.

Chapter 2, "Status of Ethnic and Racial Diversity in College and University Administration," begins with a description of what constitutes the administrative workforce examined in the book, including both academic affairs leaders and student affairs practitioners. With the unit of analysis defined, the authors present sixteen tables detailing the distributions of the aforementioned groups by race/ethnicity and demographic, career/ job, and institutional variables. Drawing upon two 1999 datasets, the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) and a study by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), the authors make comparisons for both student and academic affairs personnel by race/ ethnicity. Although the data are relatively dated, the authors indicated that, based on more recent trend analysis, the 1999 datasets reflect today's demographic trends.

The chapter concludes with several notable observations. First, people of color enter administrative positions earlier in their careers than their White counterparts, which has a negative correlation with their attaining such senior-level positions as provost or dean. Second, women of color hold more student affairs positions than White men or men of color. Finally, institutional type and geographic location correlate with the likelihood that people of color will hold administrative positions at a particular college or university. Although the analysis is primarily descriptive statistics, it is very instructive and fills a disturbing void in the literature.

In Chapter 3, the authors articulate the barriers that frequently face people of color as they pursue careers in administration. Jackson and O'Callaghan suggest that...