Diversity Leadership and Inclusion in Academia

I have been blogging extensively on issues of the importance of diversity leadership, inclusive of its need in law firms, boardrooms, workplaces, MIT conversations, etc. So far, I demonstrated with extensive examples the excellence in diversity and inclusion. My blog today discusses the importance of diversity leadership and inclusion in academia. Most importantly, diversity and inclusion in academia call for the recruitment of a diverse faculty of race, gender, disability, sexuality, ethnicity and language. However, diversity and inclusion mean more than the recruitment of under-represented minorities. With a diverse faculty, meritocracy should be central to hiring practices and certainly not nepotism. This particular report on diversity in academia that I comment on comes from Boston University informing us that minority groups of African American, Aboriginals (American Indians), Asians and Hispanics remain under-represented in academia. Although Boston University is working toward diversity and leadership in academia, the report did not evidence the diversity and leadership of contract teaching faculty, adjunct faculty and teaching assistants, three very important faculty groups in any university.

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Dr. Marilyn J