The “Changing” Institutional Environment? Austin A. Ashe UMass Boston

Goals of Presentation Talk about what kinds of institutions we need to aspire to create to meet the talents, expectations and needs of a diverse community Talk about cultural contexts and how they might affect undergraduate students, graduate students and college faculty and staff.

Students Staff Faculty Norms Resources We are here Students What makes up an institutional environment? Staff Faculty Norms Resources

Do Institutions do a great job at creating/sustaining an positive institutional environment? Yes, Then why yes? No, Then why no?

But we’re increasing enrollment of “diverse” students, hiring chief diversity officers, establishing committees, etc. What else could we do?

Here are some things we can do… Ed Hall Suggests As a community, pay attention to cultural contexts. Ed T. Hall – a way of knowing that can be deeply characterized by a culture that has been imprinted upon you from birth. Our cultural contexts provide us (and those in our cultural groups) ways of setting norms, expectations of behavior, and perception of the world around us. Important Why – Good and bad responses Govern why we interact or choose NOT to interact

Why is this Important? From Ibarra Text: “He (Hall) notes that when "people of different cultures interact, each uses different criteria to interpret the other's behavior, and each may easily misinterpret the relationship, the activity, or the emotions involved" (1974, 2). Until they learn otherwise, such individuals assume they share a "correct" interpretation of reality from within their respective worldviews, whether or not they really know how things work.” (Ibarra, 2000 p. 49) Pedro

Ibarra’s continuation of Hall’s Contextual Framework What is the: Hi --------------------- Lo theory? It’s not the hairstyle popularized by Christopher Reid from everyone’s favorite 90’s hip-hop group: Kid n Play

Why can’t some people do what is just expected of them? These ways of knowing are engrained into us, and the people we work with. That would be asking a lot of anyone that is not of the dominant culture. It’s not socially just. As we’ve read diversity, cultural capital, and socially just environments are things that are beneficial to environments. Brodio Persistent Gap between culture and academic achievement. Family Structures are Changing Population in general is changing More diverse student bodies

We need to change the way we look at our institutional environments An architecture of full participation thus results from a long-term yet urgent ―campaign‖ animated by a shared vision, guided by institutional mindfulness, and sustained by an ongoing collaboration among leaders at many levels of the institution and community. The process of building this architecture will better equip higher education institutions to make good on their stated commitments to diversity, publicly engaged scholarship, and student success. (Sturn, Eatman, Saltmarsh, and Bush, 2011)

We are here How will we change our institutional environments?