Creating Campus Cultures: Fostering Success among Racially Diverse Student Populations by Samuel D. Museus and Uma M. Jayakumar (review)

Ten years after William Smith, Philip Altbach, and Kofi Lomotey (2002) published The Racial Crisis in American Higher Education: Continuing Challenges for the Twenty-first Century, Samuel D. Museus and Uma M. Jayaukumar have moved the discussion of race and culture forward by leading a discussion of how to practically minimize racial and cultural challenges on college and university campuses. In Creating Campus Cultures: Fostering Success among Racially Diverse Student Populations, Museus and Jayaukumar provide much-needed resources for diversity advocates committed to enacting strategies that address a host of pervasive historical, social, student, faculty and administrative racial and cultural challenges highlighted in Smith, Altbach and Lomotey's work. In the spirit of acknowledging the social justice commitment of critical race theory, a discussion of the transition between these two works is warranted to examine the ways in which the "crisis" has been considered.

Creating Campus Cultures facilitates a discussion highlighting an evolution of research; moving from presenting racial issues and challenges (Smith, Altbach, & Lomotey) to enacting solutions that foster diversity and strengthen insitutional capacity to serve marginalized constituents (Museus & Jayakumar). In fact, the foreword of Museus and Jayakuamar's work, written by race scholar Shaun Harper, aptly notes, "At this point, especially with the publication of this new book, there is a great deal that is known about the conditions, policies, and practices necessary for achieving racial equity in higher education" (p. x).

This review highlights connections between these texts, and makes explicit observations about Museus and Jayakumar's intention to support diversity advocates in the construction of safe spaces conducive to learning (and thriving) in environments that are prone to marginalizing racially diverse students. In many ways Museus and Jayakumar advance Smith, Altbach, and Lomotey's vision through historical, structural, psychological, and behavioral concepts that are actualized by way of strategies, programming, and interactions through diversity advocacy.

In 10 chapters, Museus and Jayakumar elicit perspectives from numerous emerging and seasoned race scholars to excavate the contemporary notion of institutional culture. For example, Chapter 1 offers several suggestions about the authenticity of culture and what this may mean in a variety of contexts. As a notable feature, the chapter encourages the reader to inquire about authenticity and the many ways it can be created, managed, and sustained through multiple intersections on his or her own campus.

Chapter 2 follows with similar qualities and with the use of story-telling and counterstory-telling to depict belief systems about racist institutional norms. Together, both chapters sketch conversations about racial ideology and the challenges associated with cross-ethnic difference described by Bowman and Smith (2002, p. 103). This discussion includes what Bowman and Smith assert to be the "cultural pathology stereotypes and conservative policy values [that] may increasingly operate to undermine the racial climate and sense of community on campus" (p. 105). Museus and Jayakumar's work familiarizes the reader with the behavior associated with this pathology and how it impedes the cultivation of supportive campus cultures.

The book flows from discussing notions of culture and the intersectionality of race and climate to a broad discussion of strategies for fostering and managing inquiry related to equity and student success. Effective support of marginalized sudents involves asking questions that demystify their experience.

Chapters 3 and 4 provide guidance for looking deeper into institutional "best practice" approaches and their intentionality in addressing underrepresented groups. These chapters suggest that more data about marginalized student issues are not necessarily accurate data. Finding new paradigms focused on critiquing racialized theories (Smith, Altbach, & Lomotey, 2002) must be a priority in creating campus cultures.

Chapters 5 and 6 focus on culture and the academic experience. Like the rest of the book, there is an active and participatory tone encouraging the reader to examine specific challenges related to creating culture within his or her interactions on campus. For example, the authors...