How Minority Students Experience College: Implications for Planning and Policy

"I feel like they act like they're so diverse and multicultural.This is not a representation of how it is for people who go here.""I know of several occasions, if it weren't for several faculty of color, I don't know how I would have made it from one day to the next." -- from student interviewsHave three decades of integration and multicultural initiatives in higher education delivered a better education to all students? Are majority and minority students reaping similar benefits, specifically in predominantly white colleges? Do we know what a multicultural campus should look like, and how to design one that is welcoming to all students and promotes a learning environment?Through a unique qualitative study involving seven colleges and universities considered national models of commitment to diversity, this book presents the views and voices of minority students on what has been achieved and what remains to be done. The direct quotations that form the core of this book give voice to Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and bi-racial students. They offer in their own words their perceptions of their campus cultures and practices, the tensions they encounter and what works for them.Rather than elaborating or recommending specific models or solutions, this book aims to provide insights that will enable the reader better to understand and articulate the issues that need to be addressed to achieve a well-adapted multicultural campus.Presidents, academic affairs professionals, student affairs personnel and faculty concerned with equity and diversity will find this book helpful and enlightening.

Lemuel W. Watson is Associate Professor of Higher Education, Clemson University. Melvin Cleveland Terrell is Vice President Emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. From 1988 to 2008, Dr. Melvin Cleveland Terrell served as Vice President for Student Affairs at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, Illinois, where he remains Professor of Counselor Education. Doris J. Wright is Associate Professor of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Kansas State University at Manhattan. Fred A. Bonner II is professor and endowed chair of educational leadership and counseling in the Whitlowe R. Green College of Education at Prairie View A&M University. He also serves as the founding executive director and chief scientist of the Minority Achievement Creativity and High Ability (MACH-III) Center. His research foci illuminate the experiences of academically gifted African American males across the P–20 pipeline, diverse faculty in academe, and diverse populations in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). He is coeditor of two books with Stylus Publishing, Building on Resilience: Models and Frameworks of Black Male Success Across the P–20 Pipeline (2014) and Diverse Millennials Students in College: Implications for Faculty and Student Affairs (2011). Bonner is currently developing a theoretical framework, mascusectionality, that will explore the engagements of Black men. Michael J. Cuyjet is a Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville, where he has been teaching and mentoring students in the College Student Personnel program since 1993. Prior to that, he served more than 20 years as a student affairs practitioner and an affiliate/adjunct assistant professor at Northern Illinois University and at the University of Maryland - College Park. During his 17 years at UofL he has also served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Acting Associate Provost for Student Life and