AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! So yesterday I went back to the school and spent pretty much all day there doing more Lunar New Year related activities. When I was in the library, I noticed more and more of these signs.  So I finally asked the librarian what this was all about.  She said that they don't advertise it well but if students find rips and scribbles or missing pages inside books or if the book was lost and they turn it in, they get 10,000 paper money.  20,000 paper money earns them a brand new book.  Okay, I get it but terrible idea in my opinion and they are not even properly explained to the children!

Undocumented Students + Financial Aid

Today's NYT ran a story on financial aid policies for undocumented college students. It sketches the current landscape as constantly changing –– as the Dream Act remains in limbo and DACA (deferred action) takes shape, options for funding really do vary widely. Some states offer in-state tuition options, and many private schools have come up with creative funding schemes from within their own walls.

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/nyregion/financial-aid-for-undocumented-students-no-longer-discussed-in-hushed-tones.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

• How might funding policies/decisions be connected to admissions decisions for institutions?
• How does type + size of an institution affect its stance/policy on undocumented students?
• What kinds of public questions and reactions might such policies spark?

The Unequal Opportunity Race: A Perspective on Affirmative Action in America

As I reflect on the class readings for this week, I was reminded of a video I'd viewed for a course a few semesters ago, entitled The Unequal Opportunity Race, that was published by the African American Policy Forum. The video provides an animation of a metaphor of life as a track and field event undertaken by people from several ethnic backgrounds. It is not representative of all cultural and ethnic groups accounted for in the United States. Through the animation, it highlights the disparities and obstacles faced by certain ethnic groups. The issues raised through the video mirror those discussed by Derrick Bell in the article "Diversity's Distractions", particularly regarding his quote from Professor Tarpley on how many African Americans have faced economic and systemic barriers occluding them from business opportunities (1). 

 Do you have any comments or reaction for this video, or any connections with the readings that you can make? I look forward to your commentary and thoughts.  

Sources: 
Bell, D. (2003). Diversity's distractions. Columbia Law Review, 103(6), 1622-1633.

The past two weeks, I've been visiting elementary schools to give lessons on Lunar New year to students from K-5.  I read stories, do crafts, play lunar new year games, and help out with the Lunar New Year Assembly.  Today during my school visit, I saw this hanging around in the library. I became angry. I remembered our class discussions on matters of diversity. I see this as a failed attempt at "diversity."  To a friend, I described this as, "they are criminalizing our babies. They are reinforcing what mainstream media puts other there about people of color." I wanted to post this up here and see what are your thoughts?

Women and Underrepresented Minorities in STEM Fields NOT Choosing Academia after Ph.D

An article posted by the Chronicle explained how consistently women and underrepresented minorities are not choosing to pursue the faculty route after receiving their Ph.D with about 43% less likely for underrepresented males and 54% underrepresented minority females.

The article only points to a hidden "something is going on" systematically for students not to pursue a Ph.D. route and cited a few examples of people wanting to pursue mentorship programs and other avenues instead of pursuing faculty positions. The article overall points to a gap in graduate school experiences as a reason for them not pursuing the faculty route and believed that the faculty route is about how comfortable peers feel about you and that discrimination will be highly involved.

My thoughts on this is that discrimination and how people talk to you influences your outlook at the future highly all throughout your professional career. I thought of our own Dean of Students "Dean Ballom" has only a master's degree instead of a Ph.D. I then asked myself have I ever seen/will I ever meet a Dean of Student's that is an asian male like myself with only a Master's degree and I have many doubts of discriminatory practices that would or would not allow me to pursue such positions with my degree. A belief in a unspoken ceiling of social/economic mobility. It is no different from academia either if the committee of people that are involved are not comfortable with your ideas or underrepresented, I have yet to meet many asian male student affairs professionals that are faculty positions not in stereotypical positions of faculty in engineering, business, student affairs positions in international student services, and cultural houses. I know some always exist as I see flyers of people but none that I myself interact with in my own world of student affairs on a daily basis. I often just hear that they don't pursue education instead as a major, but then thought of how asians are treated in education fields and then I wondered if anything will change in the future. I often feel like a silent voice among many, alway advocating, constantly having to explain myself why passive discrimination influences even our smallest recruitment efforts at the university and influences the entire asian community in general. When I attended ACPA last year, the number of the asian community of professionals were few claiming most go to NASPA but the discussions were a lot about the national discriminatory practices against asian people. I was surprised. It is as if people have to advocate for themselves by allying themselves with people who are racially like them to survive. I realized I am also deterred from pursuing academia as well because of the low number of people already involved and financial instability that I am not wanting to pursue on my own. It feels often like an uphill battle that is already hard enough with the number of years to pursue a Ph.D especially with a ceiling/quota/oppression of dominance that makes me never want to pursue academia. But maybe someday so that I may hope to further my education and help change the current reality of many professionals.

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Just-Filling-the-Pipeline/190253/?key=SD0gcw5uZnQWMXhnYDYUMzhSPHY%2BYxkhYyBPPS9wbl1WEQ%3D%3D==

Brown at 60: Great Progress , A Long Retreat and Uncertain Future

URL: http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/brown-at-60-great-progress-a-long-retreat-and-an-uncertain-future/Brown-at-60-051814.pdf

When we think of school desegregation and how it affects not only our K-12 school system , but access of higher education opportunities as well, I found the Brown at 60 article to be relevant to this question and concern. In reading Bell's and Cantor's articles for this week, I was quick to realize how it related to the Orfield and Frankenberg's Brown at 60 article. This article has reporting on how school segregation has had minimal change over the year since Brown v. Board of Education. There are also some statistical date findings that support the argument that school segregation is well alive in today's schools and affecting students from undeserved communities. 

In considering Affirmative Action and the topic of diversity in higher education, I was wondering how not addressing issues of school segregation and inequality can have a huge affect on students and their efforts to apply or qualify for higher education institutions.

In that case, how does Affirmative Action support students who are affected in their K-12 schooling? Then, how does diversity then be talked about or considered as an asset if students who could possible bring a different side/perspective of experiences be heard if they are not even present in higher education institutions? 

Proposed MAP Funding Limitations

A Republican senator from Mahomet proposed some additional restrictions on the Illinois MAP grant (aka Monetary Reward Program), which serves about 140,000 low-income students in the state of Illinois.  These restrictions include requiring recipients to staying and working in the state of Illinois for 5 years after graduation, lest they pay their once-free grant aid back in the form of a loan, and graduating within 4 years.

Hold up.

Low-income students receiving *full* MAP grants (and Pell) grants STILL won't be able to cover the full cost of a year's tuition at all of the state 4-year schools, much less make a dent in any of the private ones, so they're more likely to be working (probably a lot) and enrolling in fewer hours (even if they maintain full-time status), so they may have a harder time graduating in 4 years anyway, especially as the number of enrollment in community colleges and 4-years with low retention rates is higher among lower-income students.  But this is what Sen. Rose says about his package to reign in MAP funding: "I hope that its not too drastic or draconian. I hope it would serve as an incentive."

An incentive to do what?  How about leave the state instead?  The same students can easily get in-state residency and tuition in many of our neighboring Midwestern states.  Good bye, socioeconomic diversity in higher education in the state of Illinois.

....Okay, well at least the senator is proposing again to ban MAP aid from being used at for-profits.

http://www.sj-r.com/article/20150223/NEWS/150229794

The Professor is in: White Male in Black Studies

This is a Q&A article in the Chronicle about whether or not to disclose your race in cover letters when applying for certain professorial positions at a university. The author's answer is yes in regards to this man's concerns about being a white male professor in the African-American history, race and gender field of study. It is an interesting read about diversity at the professional level..

https://chroniclevitae.com/news/906-the-professor-is-in-white-male-in-black-studies

Fitting In On Campus: Challenges For First-Generation Students

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/02/16/385470288/fitting-in-on-campus-challenges-for-first-generation-students

The University of Michigan was a strange, terrifying place for first-generation college students Chris and Anna, who both grew up in blue-collar towns with parents and peers who didn't have a clue about their new college experiences, and who both struggled to find their footing, socially and academically, at the large institution.  Chris recounts how, on his first day on campus after a 9-hour drive from home, his father left him after an hour of unpacking because he couldn't afford the cost of a hotel for the night and drove home.  Anna describes having to "out herself" as a first-generation, low-income student when she didn't understand some of the experiences her peers were describing.

The two students are actually friends who met through a support group for first-generation college students.  Anna says without the group, she might have dropped out after her freshman year, like many other students whom she knows actually did, but that she also could have used more support.  Jennifer Engle, a policy expert for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, says that institutions ought to provide more support so that students like Chris and Anna don't have to "out" themselves.  Engle recommends supports like financial aid (which we all know institutions might be strapped to provide) as well as mentoring for these students.

This brings up again the increasing diversity of current college campuses and highlights yet again that some aspects of diversity are not visible.  Scholars might be looking for traits like "first-generation" and "low-income" and understand the implications of what these mean without putting them into practice, and student or academic affairs practitioners might see students like Chris and Anna every day but might not know that they may need an extra hand.  It seems nearly a Catch-22 in which the students themselves might know that they need help but not where to turn, and that practitioners might be looking for those students, but not know who they are.  But it's a good thing that programs or organizations are out there to catch some of these students and provide the support that they need.

Emotional Insecurity of Incoming College Freshmen

http://chronicle.com/article/College-Freshmen-Seek/151645?cid=megamenu

This past Thursday marked the release of the annual Freshman Survey conducted by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program which is a part of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. The report was generated from responses from 153,015 first-time, full-time freshmen at 227 undergraduate institutions during registration, orientation, or the first few weeks of class.

The survey examined the student’s openness to diversity and experiences with people from different backgrounds. “More than half of black students (57%) but less than a third of white students (29%) considered it important to help promote racial understanding.” This finding is important to consider in relation to our reading from Denison which discusses campus climate. Denison defines climate as a “psychological climate of members, social psychological set of conditions, and objective and structural set of conditions.”  It is fair to say that the dramatic changes in student desires and competencies will influence the climate of everyone’s campus experience.

Some highlights include the very important “desire to be financially well off”, which has increased from 44% in 1974 to 82% in 2014. Another dramatic development is the “desire to develop a meaningful philosophy of life” has decreased from 65% to 45% over the past 40 years. Aside from changes in values and desires, data also suggested that students’ emotional insecurity is at an all-time high. In response to this insecurity students are now emphasizing their desire to attend institutions that highlight social activities. These changes in student’s social competencies could be partially correlated with the increase of social media and online communication among students entering college.    

School Shootings at UNC Chapell Hill - Religious Diversity

Hello everyone,

This morning CNN produced an article about 3 students from UNC Chapell Hill who got shot in the head by a man allegedly over a parking space but police are investigating if this was more a hate crime itself. The shooter is cooperating with police. There are allegations of comments online that has been surfacing and spreading about how the shooter being atheist said something around the lines of "when it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I". This has not yet been verified by cnn and other news sources.

But I believe how the media covered it and speaking with colleagues about even the potential of such a threat causing raising for conversation. Many times, the details of such events are unexplainable unless such hate is explicitly given. I believe that religious hate with diversity is another area where universities often ignore. But I hope these conversations will shed light to students safety, inclusion efforts at the university. How should universities respond? 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/us/chapel-hill-shooting/index.html 

Dean Choi

"Chief Diversity Officer: A Qualitative Study"

During last week's class, my group discussed about the existence of different offices on our campus that address topics in diversity. Ideally, you would think every department would be included?  This post looks at the institutional policy proposed at several institutions to oversee topics of diversity: "The Chief Diversity Officer."

The article here discusses different models of the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO). The CDO "is an executive level diversity administrator who directly reports to president and/or provost, and manages, integrates, and coordinates campus diversity efforts (Williams & Wade-Golden, 2007)."

This multiple-case study explored the experiences of three CDO's at predominantly white public research institutions in the midwest (Leon, 2014).  The three participants were purposefully selected to represent the three CDO models explored in this study: 1) Collaborative Officer CDO Model; 2) Unit Based CDO Model; and 3) Portfolio Divisional CDO Model. Twenty five administrators were also interviewed for this study.

The researcher discussed that the literature on the topic overwhelmingly discuss the individual experiences of the CDO's (Leon, 2014). The study found that the success of the CDO in their position goes beyond personal traits, such as rank, supporting staff, reporting structure, and resources. Leon ends the article by stating that institutions need to reflect on their own resources, organization, as well as their diversity needs and goals in developing a CDO model. 

So back to my group conversations:

As far as UIUC is concerned, I know that OMSA and OIIR exist as two pivotal campus resources in terms of addressing topics related to diversity.  The discussion primarily based around the cultural houses (under OIIR): the lack of collaboration between the cultural houses and the cultural houses as a hubs and enclaves of groups of students from similar cultures to develop their own identity. Concerns were also brought up about the lack of cooperation and collaboration between OMSA and OIIR.

Q1: Have you been in contact with the Chief Diversity Officer position?  What are your thoughts on this institutional policy to address diversity in higher education?

Q2: Some would argue that CDO's are a band aid solution to a larger discussion that need to occur within higher ed administrators in terms of their institutions.  Do you agree? Disagree? Why/Why not?

References:

Leon, R. A. (2014). The Chief Diversity Officer: An examination of CDO models and strategies. Journal of      Diversity in Higher Education, 7(2), 77-91.

Williams, D. A., & Wade-Golden, K. (2007). The chief diversity officer: A primer for college and    university presidents. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.

Women of Color in STEM: Double Jeopardy

It may just be our conversation last week sparked something related to STEM for me, but I have been on a STEM kick this week. Having been a STEM student it does hit close to home.

The"Like A Girl" commercial during the Super Bowl definitely added to the women not being given the confidence needed to really pursue dreams they may have, maybe even into STEM fields. That's probably a different topic than what I intended this post to be, but it was worth mentioning.

While we recently talked a bit about STEM and women I found this research to be interesting in taking it a step deeper. This report came out in January, but I originally found the first blog post regarding the racial/gender bias combo on Mashable (http://mashable.com/2015/01/26/women-of-color-stem-research/).

The full report/research can be found in here - http://www.uchastings.edu/news/articles/2015/01/double-jeopardy-report.pdf.

I haven't made it all the way through the research yet, but even through the executive summary there are some great points.

• All of the women reported some pattern of gender bias. 
• They note four patterns: Prove-it Again, The Tightrope, The Maternal Wall, and Tug of War. We can likely understand what is behind these patterns just from the names themselves. 
• A new approach for organizational change is introduced called the Metrics-Based Bias Interrupters 
• There is a bright light that they mention briefly, but provides hope for women in STEM. Some of the women interviewed felt that the bias they experienced actually gave them support to overcome challenges they may face. 

And a few questions: 

How can we help to support women in STEM from our respective areas (housing, advising, etc)? 

How or what can be done to continue to empower women through high school to continue to follow STEM pathways? 

Why is there not support? Is it all historical or are there other factor? 

If women of color are far less supported could programs be developed on our campus particularly to help support? And what would those look like. 

With the need for more people in general to be in the STEM field I hope we can overcome some of this bias before America falls much farther behind. 

Upward Social and Income Mobility

Hello everyone,

I was on some social media site and came across this article. I know it is not inside higher ed but it did strike my interest as it talked about upward mobility perceptions amongst people and how often people both believe way more in how much it is possible for people to get out of poverty with social mobility and possibly downplaying the income inequalities of class as a result. The author points to a study by two professors from University of Illinois Michael Kraus as the main professor. I believe the study points to explaining that people are so ingrained in their belief that just because something is possible for them or they know that "one guy" who made it from all the way from the bottom of the income class to the top 20% of income of people that it almost blinds them to the truth in that there is a system of monopoly dominance in our culture. The top 1% controls over about half of our world's wealth. We have been cultured to believe in hard work producing more results in mobility but the study only points to the fact that hard work doesn't necessarily suggest mobility at all. I was reading a Forbes article that said the top 85 richest people own more as much as 65 times half of the poorest people in the world - 3.5 billion people.

http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/02/americans-think-upward-mobility-is-far-more-common-than-it-really-is/385086/

Sincerely,
Dean Choi