PAGE TURNER
by Kelly McKinney and Tony W. Cawthon
With the number of recent events putting a focus on social change, most colleges and universities have responded with reaction statements. While these drafted statements were well intended and often eloquent or even inspiring, many of the follow-up movements towards change and activism fell short of the original statement, rendering it empty and merely performative. Performative action can also apply to institutional mission or diversity statements, which permeate all aspects of higher education, from student livelihood to teaching practices. In From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass), Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux explore this trend and attempt to teach the reader how to move past idealized thoughts to truly equitable practices and actions.
Written by higher education professionals, this book can help readers navigate their journey towards more equitable practices. The authors introduce the relevant terminology and define many of the buzz words and key terms higher education personnel frequently use and also provide space to reflect on realistic scenarios via various case studies. The book presents data gathered through assessment of select schools within the Association of American Colleges & Universities as well as an analysis of how different schools drew their conclusions. The data were carefully selected to include a wide variety of institutions with diverse student populations and to reflect the status of underserved populations both before and after changes had been implemented. The data are useful to anyone with a higher education background as the information branches out to all departments and provides insight on multiple institutions’ journeys to higher retention and success rates for their underserved students.
The first chapter sets the foundation by emphasizing that the journey toward equity begins within the individual: It is up to each one of us to determine how to define equity, decide if an institution values equity (and, if so, what examples exist to support that claim), and understand what motivates them to engage in the complex, difficult work of understanding the values and actions necessary to turn equity talk into equity walk.
The obstacles to achieving these goals – which include struggles within faculty, staff, student organizations, and outside forces – are presented in Chapter 2, while Chapter 3 challenges the reader to overcome those obstacles by utilizing and communicating with data. Higher education institutions consistently present data in aggregate formats, thus making it difficult to see inequities, but the authors offer excellent tools for communicating data that promote, rather than hide, equity, thus allowing campuses to better serve underrepresented populations and make sense of the causes of racial inequities.
Chapter 4 discusses how institutions align strategic priorities and build institutional capacity – which is achieved by clarifying language, discussing definitions of equity, and leveraging resources – and concludes with recommendations for sustaining equity. The final chapter focuses on equity-mindedness among what the authors call first-generation equity practitioners, referring to those who look at data and group students into a first-generation category, which can be used as an aversion tactic to avoid the difficult conversation that would come from disaggregating the data and getting to the specific underserved demographic.
Overall, this book provides valuable opportunities for reflection and application, and the information presented is relevant, applicable, and practical. For example, in a discussion of the top obstacles to more equitable practices the authors present the obstacle itself and then provide a breakdown of each one and suggestions on how to have conversations or take action to overcome them. In addition, they present multiple case studies that illustrate these obstacles, as well as potential curve balls and outside factors. Each case study is sufficiently open-ended to allow readers to easily apply it to their own institution, and each question is crafted to get a meaningful reflection from those just starting their journey as well as those already well versed in promoting and implementing campus equity.
On many campuses it falls to housing and residence life professionals to be leaders in diversity, equity, and inclusion work. This book would serve as valuable material for a staff book club to discuss and reflect on topics like how to define equity, identify equity outcomes in campus housing systems, and become equity-mindedness practitioners. Given the range of knowledge and the varying paths that housing staff have taken in their individual journeys towards equity, this book allows each staff member to apply the content to their own journey while also learning from each other. It serves as an important foundational resource for curriculum development, staff training, and ongoing professional development.
Kelly McKinney is a graduate community director at Clemson University in South Carolina. Tony Cawthon, Ph.D., is the director of graduate studies for the Clemson University College of Education. "Page Turner" is a recurring column that pairs Cawthon with a graduate student or professional colleague as they review books and scholarship of interest to campus housing and student affairs.
