The concept of" student effort" is foundational to such commonly used assessments of institutional effectiveness as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). However, the current measure of student effort omits intercultural effort, which is particularly salient to the academic success of students from underrepresented racial-ethnic groups. The engagement construct thus suffers from construct underrepresentation, and the validity of interpretations based on data from surveys of student engagement is questionable. We illustrate potential starting points for developing student effort measures that include intercultural effort as well as institutional efforts to reduce racial bias.