Eugene Fujimoto, Ph.D. September 15, 2010

1. Racial Achievement Gaps in Higher Education: A case study of influences in internal decision making Eugene Fujimoto, Ph.D. September 15, 2010

2. Purpose of study Contextualize efforts to close gaps • Leadership & campus culture • Structure & systems • Decision making process

3. Research questions • What are campus-based factors that influence the decisions made in attempting to close racial achievement gaps? • What does a campus-based process reveal about obstacles that may inhibit colleges and universities from closing achievement gaps? • What do administrative decisions that support or hinder the closing of racial achievement gaps tell us about creating the necessary conditions?

4. Theoretical framework • Critical theory • Critical race theory/ critical management studies • Organizational theory/ organizational change

5. Research Method • Multi-site case study (3 campuses) • Qualitative focus • Interviews (N = 30) • Focus groups (3) • Document analysis • Participant-observers (4)

6. Participating Institutions

7. Who was interviewed? • Presidents • Provosts/Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs • Vice Presidents of Student Affairs • Academic Deans • Faculty leadership (faculty senate chairs, present and past) • Equity team members (focus group)

8. FINDINGS: Influences in decision making Institutional Culture & Context EQUITY Leadership & making of meaning Decisionmaking Cul of evidence Education & Whiteness as property rights Faculty involvement

9. Finding #1: Leadership Administrative leadership influence • Color blind approach: Denying difference; other priorities take precedence; dominant narrative • Administrative commitment without multidimensional strategy: Stagnation, confusion, discouragement. • Explicit, clear commitment to diversity and equity: Administrators and limited faculty engagement; extensive remediation efforts.

10. Organizational sensemaking(Jeong & Brower, 2008)

11. Finding #2: Education & Whiteness as Property rights • CRT and sensemaking analysis • “Society is based on property rights and not human rights” (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; p. 58) • Race as a ‘floating signifier’; Whiteness as ‘signifier’ of privilege through property ownership • Property ownership value laden, conflictual and political

12. Education & Whiteness: Property rights • “Expectation” of a right to higher education. • Policies/practices: Who is admitted, Who succeeds, Who is hired, What knowledge, skills and abilities determine success, All remain largely exclusionary • .

13. Education & Whiteness: Property rights Policies & practices codify White, middle class values to maintain higher education as property that is raced and classed

14. Binary of expectations: Academic preparedness Normative (race) (class) Academically unprepared (Students of color; working class; poor) Academically prepared (White students; middle & upper class) Exceptions: Whites; middle & upper class Honorary status: Students of color; working class; poor; Non-normative

15. Finding #3: Faculty involvement & leadership • Faculty involvement at very low level • Faculty seen as most important & most difficult group • Administrative leadership can be highly influential

16. Faculty leadership

17. Implications • How leadership makes meaning of achievement gaps has large effect on campus efforts • Deconstruct the binary of student preparedness - underpreparedness • Leaders need authentic interaction with students of color and low income students

18. Implications • Multidimensional strategy is crucial • Develop strategic and structural ways for faculty collaboration on achievement gaps • Transformative leadership rooted in democratic principles & emancipatory theory is a necessity

19. To close the achievement gap we must make transformative change to avoid “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” (Martin Luther King Jr., 1963)

20. Questions/Comments