Date Approved

5-10-2022

Embargo Period

5-3-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ed.D. Doctor of Education

Department

Educational Services and Leadership

College

College of Education

Advisor

Monica Reid Kerrigan, Ed.D.

Committee Member 1

Sarah Ferguson, Ph.D.

Committee Member 2

Bette M. Simmons, Ed.D.

Keywords

accountability, Critical Race Theory, diversity, equity, IPEDS, Strategic Plan

Subject(s)

Diversity in the workplace; Universities and colleges--Evaluation

Disciplines

Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Higher Education

Abstract

This study utilized transformative sequential explanatory mixed methods to analyze diversity characteristics and capabilities in higher education institutions. Faced with environmental pressure, colleges and universities that aspire to become diversity-competent institutions have the potential to understand diversity accountability (evidence building for all) with a critical race theoretical framework. A critical comparative analysis of diversity-competent and peer institutions provided the opportunity challenged past and current ways of understanding diversity by acknowledging the centrality of racism in higher education institutions. This study analyzed data drawn from the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award recipients to illustrate a way of assessing diversity characteristics among institutions of higher education that receive recognition for their equity and inclusion efforts. Moreover, to draw inferences about the characteristics effect of diversity-competent institutions, propensity score matching was used to assign the HEED award group and their IPEDS peer institutions. The study examined 180 institutions using logistic regression analysis of comparative diversity variables. The qualitative findings reinforced how institutions abandoned language that fostered racial equitable policies and practices by broadening the definition of diversity and the illusion of inclusion.

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