When Fanta Aw’s position at American University expanded from vice president for campus life to vice president for campus life and inclusive excellence last March, she was in a good place to carry out her new duties: at the cabinet level, with a deep familiarity of the culture of her campus.
American’s president, Sylvia M. Burwell, had recently released the administration’s plan for “inclusive excellence,” aimed at infusing principles of diversity and equity throughout university operations. The release of the plan came after a trying time on campus, during which the university struggled with how to respond to incidents like the hanging of Confederate flags and nooses on its campus.
In her latest role, Aw says, she has been able to “work with all of the other cabinet members who would have responsibility for carrying out aspects of the plan.”
The term “inclusive excellence” shows up in many colleges’ descriptions of what they stand for. But only a handful have a vice president with a job title containing the term. A person with that title seems to have more expansive duties than a chief diversity officer does.
Archie W. Ervin, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and vice president for institute diversity at Georgia Institute of Technology, describes the difference between the older and newer terms this way: “Diversity is about being invited to the dance. Inclusion is being allowed to dance.”
Put another way, he says, diversity can be achieved through enrollment and hiring, while inclusive excellence is determined by how well all groups perform after arriving on campus. An inclusive-excellence administrator, he says, is responsible for tracking the success of the diverse group of students and faculty and staff members on a campus.
The concept gained currency in 2005, when the Association of American Colleges and Universities published “Toward a Model of Inclusive Excellence and Change in Postsecondary Institutions,” a paper it had commissioned from three scholars as part of its Making Excellence Inclusive effort. The authors, Damon A. Williams, Joseph B. Berger, and Shederick A. McClendon, offered a framework for organizational change that has since been widely endorsed.
Inclusive excellence, the paper says, focuses on students’ intellectual and social development, embraces the cultural differences that students bring to the classroom, and provides a welcoming community that draws on the college’s own diversity in the service of student and organizational learning.
Aashir Nasim, chief diversity officer and vice president for inclusive excellence at Virginia Commonwealth University, said in an email that being a “chief diversity officer” versus a “vice president for inclusive excellence” is not an “apples to oranges” comparison, “but there certainly is a Granny Smith to Fuji difference.”
The person in charge of inclusive excellence at an institution may be held accountable for the retention and graduation rates of diverse students, retention of diverse faculty and staff members, and the integration of the principle into teaching, research, and classroom climate.
Fanta Aw describes her new role as that of a conductor. “Having this position does not mean that all things related to diversity, equity, and inclusion rest with me,” she says. “For any institution, in order to be successful in this work, it is really important that there be distributed responsibility.”
While having the position at the cabinet level does signal its value to the university, the status does not represent an automatic fix. “Anyone who has had a literal seat at the table during board meetings or presidential cabinet meeting understands that it is rare for comment or critique at this level to result in meaningful and significant institutional shifts,” Nasim says.
The real work, he says, is done by the committees, task forces, and working groups whose ideas are presented to the cabinet and Board of Trustees for approval.
Colleges that employ administrators with “inclusive excellence” in their titles vary in how they treat the role. The University of Texas at San Antonio announced last spring that it would hire a founding vice president for inclusive excellence; its president, Taylor Eighmy, said the decision responded to community input and the results of a survey of faculty and staff diversity.
Hamline University hired its first associate vice president for inclusive excellence this year, and Regis College did the same last year. Hamline’s new hire, David L. Everett, will report directly to the president.
Several other colleges have a “vice provost for inclusive excellence,” a title that emphasizes the role’s connection to the faculty. The exact title and level of the position should fit the culture of the institution, Aw says. “I don’t believe that one size fits all.”
Julia Piper is an editorial associate who compiles Gazette and writes this Hiring Trends column. Email her at julia.piper@chronicle.com.
