This scholarly collection represents one of several diversity initiatives undertaken at a four-year, comprehensive public university on the United States-Mexican border where, in 1998, people of color became the majority of the state’s population. Though, in other states, populations may not be as ethnically diverse, almost every college and university seems to be struggling with issues of recruitment, retention, and pedagogy for students who are quite different from those enrolled in earlier periods in our history. Unfortunately, there are faculty, staff, and administrators who oppose various diversity initiatives because they believe in continuing educational practices of the past, because they are offended by “political correctness,” or because they think that the pedagogical practices suggested in this volume, and elsewhere, “dumb down the curriculum” or will fail to enhance student development.

Not surprisingly, the editors and authors of this volume have a very different point of departure. They assume that diversity accrues benefits for all students and that a discussion of appropriate pedagogical practices for learners in higher education enriches theory and research and promotes the scholarship of teaching. The contributors’ assumptions are supported by the considerable evidence from the scholarly literature.
Patricia Gurin, in testimony on behalf of the University of Michigan’s admissions policy, reviewed an extensive literature in demonstrating the importance of diversity to a campus (www.umich.edu/~urVadmissions/legal/expert/theor.html). In this effort, she conducted the most comprehensive and original empirical analysis of existing data on racial and ethnic diversity in higher education. Her work confirms that campus diversity directly affects immediate student learning as well as the ways students conduct themselves in post-college life. Gurin classified campus diversity into three categories: structural, classroom, and informal interactional. Structural diversity refers primarily to the racial and ethnic composition of the student body. Classroom diversity focuses on “the incorporation of knowledge about diverse groups into the curriculum.” Informal, interactional diversity, on the other hand, refers “to the opportunity to interact with students from diverse backgrounds in the broad campus environment.”

Given the concerns of this volume, the most relevant of Gurin’s findings pertains to the effect of diversity upon learning outcomes. Her research indicates that students “who had experienced the most diversity in classroom settings and in informal interactions with peers showed the greatest engagement in active thinking processes and growth in intellectual and academic skills.” Her analyses revealed a consistent positive relationship between student learning in college, classroom diversity, and informal interactional diversity. The results were consistent across racially and ethnically different student populations, but were “especially impressive” for White students. The White students “with the most experience with diversity during college” exhibited
the greatest growth in active thinking processes as indicated by increased scores on a measure of complex thinking and social/historical thinking, growth in motivation in terms of drive to achieve, intellectual self-confidence, goals for creating original work, the highest post-graduate aspirations, and the greatest growth in student values placed on their intellectual and academic skills (Gurin, 2001, pp. 1 & 2).

Gurin’s case for the educational benefits of diversity is supported by the findings of the first comprehensive investigation of the attitudes toward and experiences with racial and ethnic diversity at Research I universities (Maruyama & Moreno, 2000). In this faculty survey, sixty-nine percent responded that their universities value racial and ethnic diversity. Ninety-one percent believed that “neither the quality of students nor the intellectual standards of class discussions suffer from diversity.” Faculty also indicated that ethnic and racial diversity enables “all students to achieve the essential goals of a college education.” One-third to one-half of the faculty identified the positive benefits of diversity in the classroom (Maruyama & Moreno, pp. 13-16).

These findings by Gurin and Maruyama and Moreno underscore the importance of racial and ethnic diversity in enhancing learning and encouraging democratic outcomes and values. However, Patricia King www.acpa.nche.edu/seniorscholars/trends/trends.html, another researcher, argues that many questions have not been answered, including “What practices work well and poorly in regard to student subgroups that differ by factors such as age, gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, preferred learning styles, and learning or physical disability? What experiences are distinctive for these subgroups that affect students’ educational success?”

The literature on diversity and student retention offers preliminary answers to these questions. Regarding the distinctive experiences of Latino and African American students, at least two researchers have found various forms of alienation and marginalization in institutions of higher education (Feagin, Vera & Iman, 1996; Gonzalez, 2001). These experiences shape student participation and success on campuses. In the face of such obstacles, some students demonstrate their capability to develop strategies to succeed academically as well as to transform their campuses. Unfortunately, many others give up and drop out.

To promote optimal learning by these, and all, current students, scholars have suggested specific principles to guide institutional policy and practices. Rendon and Garza (1996), for example, have called for a culturally diverse, learning-centered institutional restructuring (pp. 289-308). In terms of the classroom, they have urged faculty to
• focus on active learning,
• validate students’ capability for learning,
• identify students’ learning needs,
• establish clear learning expectations,
• use teaching practices identified as successful (collaborative learning, learning communities, community-based service learning), and
• employ multiple means of assessment.

College student departure has proven to be a complex puzzle, as noted by Braxton and Mundy (2001). Taking as their point of departure the notion that the reduction of this problem requires “possible solutions derived from the theory and research of several theoretical approaches,” Braxton and Mundy offer recommendations for institutional practice. They recommend the practices urged by Rendon and Garza. Those practices and others are discussed in this volume.
The use of these practices can serve as measures of the degree to which student engagement is occurring on a campus.

Creating such outcomes can be challenging for institutions, where student-faculty ratios are high, and the academic culture tends to reward research over instruction. Nevertheless, even some large Doctoral/Research universities have become concerned with such learning outcomes as shown by their participation in a national study seeking to measure student participation in these kinds of recommended instructional activities (National Survey on Student Engagement 2001).

The reliance on the pedagogical practices suggested by Rendon and Garza has been identified as being among the conditions that are necessary for maximizing the benefits of a racially and ethnically diverse classroom. These conditions were cited by faculty participants in an in-depth, qualitative, multiple case study of the multi-racial/multi-ethnic classrooms at the University of Maryland, College Park (Marin, 2000). At this campus, faculty and students concurred that racial and ethnic diversity in the classroom accrued concrete educational benefits. Indeed, they argued that “multi-racial/multi-ethnic classrooms enhance pedagogy and the opportunity to achieve particular educational goals in ways that cannot be replicated by other means” (Marin, 2000). The study participants noted that certain additional conditions were necessary, however. These included
• faculty preparation for teaching in a diverse classroom,
• a learner-centered faculty (and institutional) philosophy, and
• interactive teaching approaches.

Thus, in order to promote optimal student interaction and prevent the loss of significant educational opportunities, institutions of higher education need to offer training to faculty ” in how to maximize the educational possibilities of racially and ethnically diverse classes” (Marin, p. 79).

At the campus on which the contributors to this volume teach, we are gaining opportunities to promote structural diversity, at the very least. During the 1990s, our campus, like many others throughout the United States, experienced demographic changes which dramatically altered the composition of its student body, particularly its undergraduate population. In the Fall 1993, for example, the undergraduate population broke down as following: Whites (54.62%); Hispanics and Mexican Americans (15.13%); Filipinos (5.66%); African Americans (5.37%); North Asians (4.67%); Southeast Asians (3.12%); American Indians (.9%), and Pacific Islanders (.55%). In the Spring of 2001, in contrast, the undergraduate population reflected the following characteristics in terms of ethnic and racial origin: Whites (45%); Mexican Americans and other Hispanics (19.7%); African Americans (4.5%); North Asians (3.6%); American Indians (.8%), Pacific Islanders (. 6%), and Southeast Asians (3.2%). This domestic structural diversity was augmented by international students from eighty different nations and complemented, and complicated, by diversity among dimensions such as gender, age, disability, and sexual orientation.

The growing structural diversity has expressed itself in student life on campus. Already-established student clubs and organizations such as the Movimiento Estudantil Chicano de Azlan (MeChA) and the Black Student Union have experienced membership growth. New organizations such as Samahan, the Filipino student organization, the Association of Chicana Activists (ACHA) and the Lesbian and Gap Student Union have addressed a wide variety to issues on the campus.

At the level of student governance, the growth in structural diversity translated into a shift in the leadership of Associated Students. In 1993, students of color gained control of the majority of top positions in the organization. Once in office, they initiated transformation in membership of the appointed student government boards. From these positions, the new majority mounted challenges to practices and traditions which they considered culturally insensitive and oppressive, including the university’s use of the “Aztecs” as a nickname and the accompanying indigenous mascot, “Monty” Montezuma. The latter stance provoked an ongoing controversy and exposed the existence of deep fissures among students, faculty, staff, and, especially, alumni, often based on ethnicity.

As has been the case in other post-secondary as well as K-12 institutions, the transformation in the undergraduate population has not been paralleled at the faculty level. In spite of sincere efforts to diversify the faculty, instructor ranks have remained largely White, and many of the faculty of color who have been hired are international, educated in elite overseas institutions, thus making their living and learning experiences considerably different from those of the first-generation domestic students. The university confronts student-faculty color and social class gaps. These gaps may be closed with increasing faculty retirements and new recruitments, but for the foreseeable future, they remain a major feature of university life—and a major challenge. To compound the issue, the campus continues to experience considerable difficulty retaining African American and Latino students at a time when Latinos are well on their way to becoming the majority of the student population, a second challenge for the university and its role in the region.

The increase in structural diversity underscores the importance of the university’s commitment to its students. The campus continues to support three separate ethnic studies departments: Africana Studies, Chicana and Chicano Studies, and American Indian Studies. In addition, it has established an Office of Diversity and Equity (DOE), which monitors and encourages diversity in university recruitment and employment and serves as a vehicle for campus sponsorship of diversity-oriented programming such as lectures, films series, and workshops. This office joined the Center for Teaching and Learning in sponsoring this volume and celebrating its contributors.

The university also continues to require all undergraduates to complete two “diversity” courses as part of their undergraduate degree requirements (see Venable & Hohm, this volume). It has created its first Latino Advisory Committee and has begun to write a strategic plan for addressing the diversity concerns of Chicanos and Latinos. Recently, the university president formulated a ground-breaking “Compact for Success,” an agreement with a local school district with a large Latino enrollment. This agreement furthers teacher-faculty interactions in the various institutions involved, increases students’ college preparedness---and guarantees admission to the students who meet the campus admission requirements.

The growth of structural diversity in the undergraduate population has also offered new opportunities for the classroom. The chapters in this anthology document and analyze innovative, creative, resourceful, thoughtful, and replicable responses to the instructional opportunities arising from structural diversity. Discussed here are efforts to enhance the relevance of curricula and pedagogy through multi-cultural education, the use of portfolios to encourage students to evaluate and analyze their experiences with diversity, experiential learning alternatives, such as a “cultural plunge,” and community-based service learning---as well as collaborative and group activities in the classroom.

Many of the volume’s authors are themselves diverse, representing various racial and ethnic groups and variety in gender, sexual orientation, and academic ranks. They speak of their experiences as diverse students, and in one case, as new, diverse instructors. Fully as important, they demonstrate that classroom approaches that address diversity should not be confined to one discipline or college; they can be reflected in any subject matter from business to mathematics to social work. According to Gurin, “for new learning to occur, institutions of higher education have to make appropriate uses of structural diversity” (p. 1). The chapters of this anthology argue for such uses. At a time when structural diversity continues to grow in colleges and universities in North America, their insights are timely. Together, they advance our understanding of effective instructional practices in this new academic world.

Isidro D. Ortiz, Chicano/a Studies
San Diego State University

References
Braxton, J.M. & Mundy, M.E. (2001). Powerful Institutional Levers to Reduce College Student Departure. Journal of College Student Retention, 3, 91-118.
Expert Report of Patricia Gurin. Retrieved June 4, 2001, from http://www.umich.edu/-urVadmissions/legal/expert/theor.html.
Feagin, J.R., Vera, H. & Imani, N. (1996). The Agony of Education: Black Students at White Colleges and Universities. New York: Routledge.
González, K.P. (2001). Toward a Theory of Minority Student Participation in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities. Journal of College Student Retention, 2, 69-91.
King, P. (2000). Improving Access and Educational Success for Diverse Students: Steady Progress but Enduring Problems. In C.S. Johnson & H.E. Cheatham (Eds.), Higher Education Trends for the Next Century: A Research Agenda for Student Success. Retrieved November 28, 2000, from http://www.acpa.nche.edu/seniro/scholars/trends/trends.html.
Marin, P. (2000). The Educational Possibility of Multi-Racial/Multi-Ethnic College Classrooms. In Does Diversity Make a Difference? Three Research Studies on Diversity in College Classrooms. Retrieved November 2, 2002, from http://www.acenet.edu/program/omhe/diversity-report.pdf.
Maruyama, G. & Moreno, J.F. (2000). University Faculty Views About the Value of Diversity on Campus and in the Classroom. In Does Diversity Make a Difference: Three Research Studies on Diversity in College Classrooms. Retrieved November 2, 2002, from http://www.acenet.edu/program/omhe/diversity-report.pdf.
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Rendon, L.I. & Garza, H. (1996). Closing the Gap Between Two- and Four-Year Institutions. In L. Rendon and R.O. Hope (Eds.), Educating a New Majority: Transforming America’s System for Diversity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
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