The Changing Landscape
Over the past few years, there have been various demographic shifts taking place on college campuses throughout the U.S. (Baggerly, Tan, Pichotta, & Warner, 2017; Sanchez, Deflorio, Wiest, & Olkonomidoy, 2018). As a result, the community is going toward an inclusive group of learners that seek educational opportunities without limits. According to Sanchez, Deflorio, Wiest, and Olkonomidoy, 45% of college students are a mixed multicultural group of individuals (2018). The demographics consist of students who represent male and females from a diverse population of Asians, Blacks, Latinas, and Whites (Baggerly et al., 2017). In addition to different ethnic backgrounds, gender is another critical component. Sanchez et al. (2018) reported that 20% of the student populations are male students, and the remaining 80% are women. Yet, the faculty population continues to struggle with ensuring the faculty population represents the student population (Baggerly, et al., 2017). Although diversity continues to be a topic of concern, the rate of enrollment increases (Flores, Park, & Baker, 2017).
Enrollment consists of men and women from different ethnic backgrounds that seek degrees to advance their career as well as salaries in the global marketplace (McFarland, Hussar, Wang, Zhang, Wang, Rathbun, 2018). Although the objectives of students are to accomplish these goals, Dorimé (2018) reported that minority students do not graduate. Instead, cultural differences of college student populations create challenges (Dorimé, 2018). Therefore, Baggerly, et al., (2017) suggested that faculty and staff representation of the student body is necessary to overcome these challenges. Therefore, scholars note the importance of examining culture, race, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religion and English language learners as it relates to diversity and inclusion within the higher education community (Baggerly, et al., 2018; McFarland, et al., 2018; Greenhouse et al., 2018; Rockenbach et al., 2014; Owens, Doyle and Matz, 2018).