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Abstract

This paper is an exploratory study concerning the perceptions of 16 diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officers at nine Protestant evangelical Christian universities and six Catholic universities. Among these 16 DEI officers, 15 are people of color. 13 possess Ph.D. degrees and hold the highest administrative positions at their institutions. They are often required to address justice issues in their diversity initiatives if they don’t want to reproduce systematic institutional injustices in historically white-dominated Christian universities. They are working across multiple boundaries (i.e., boundary spanners) for institutional-level diversity changes. They all voice motivations to make institutional changes and 11 DEI officers treat justice as a religious or vocational calling. These DEI officers use their Christian faith to frame their struggles and sustain their long-term institutional changes for a better future. They perceive the following challenges in Christian higher education: the denial of the existence of race issues on campus; the resistance of their fellow staff and faculty members; meager financial resources; being threatened by board members and alumni; and the difficult quest for campus-wide support.

DEI officers with fewer than five years of experience in managing diversity tend to focus on generating more revenue from different kinds of students and developing many hidden activities to serve a particular group of students that may challenge the dominant identities at their institutions. More experienced DEI officers, those who choose to work in institutions that are really committed to diversity, intentionally cultivate institutionalized relational and healing spaces. They show signs of being sensitive to broader social, political, and economic conditions that shape stakeholders’ receptivity to their diversity initiatives. They leverage the history, routines, and/or rhythms of their institutions when proposing or implementing institutional changes. DEI officers are in better suit to exemplify healing space and to develop institutional justice when the institutions have already started some social justice programs and the key administrators are deeply committed to racial justice without showing fear of being rejected by the governance board.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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