The Meaning of Diversity Among the Professorateâ€A...

The Meaning of Diversity Among the Professorate—A Literature Review Different aspects of diversity in higher education are an ongoing topic of debate. In order for us to address the issue of diversity, we need to understand what diversity means. This paper reviews a study used at the University of Florida to assess their faculty’s meaning of diversity. It also looked at the faculty’s openness to diversity and the effect diversity has had on them. Researchers at Weber State University could use this, or a similar study, to gain an understanding of what diversity means to faculty at Weber State, as well as diversity’s impact. Literature Review Hon, Weigold, Chance (1999) conducted a study in an attempt to answer two questions: what†¦show more content†¦They collected data using a survey, which began with four open-ended questions. How has diversity affected your professional life? How will diversity affect you in the future? What concerns, hopes and fears do you have about diversity? What can the college do to address diversity issues and opportunities? They used those questions to make a self-administered questionnaire geared towards finding faculty’s beliefs and attitudes concerning diversity in several areas. Two demographic questions were also included, one dealing with status and one dealing with tenure. The findings of Hon et al. (1999) were that most of the faculty thought diversity had minimal if any affect. Most of the faculty responded that they did not believe diversity would have any impact on them in the future. The majority of faculty indicated concerns, instead of hopes, about diversity. Several of the concerns expressed were worries about political correctness and hiring to fill quotas. Most of the responses about the role of administration to address diversity issues were negative. The wording of the question elicited negative responses about administration in general. Future studies could benefit from rewording the question. However, the most important findings concerned the faculty’s preferred definition of diversity. Responses suggested that faculty had different opinions about what made up a diverse faculty on top of the standard race,