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those who fall behind or drop out tend to be students from underrepresented groups on their college campus. For these students especially, campaigns of inclusive excellence seem essential. Considering that education is considered one of the great equalizers for social inequality, retaining and increasing success rates of students who have traditionally been marginalized can have great implications for the fabric of US society. Unfortunately, though, enacting inclusive excellence requires much more than simply putting a program into place. As Williams argues, “if we peel away the shell of any organization, we find a culture that is defined by a set of values, practices, systems, traditions, and behaviors that govern reality within the organization. To achieve deep and lasting change, we must unfreeze, move, and refreeze this culture in a way that is more consistent with our diversity goals” (2007, p.9). Whether an institution is seeking to increase representation, make current students more comfortable in their roles at the university, convince the campus that diversity is beneficial to all, or include multiple viewpoints in lecture, in order for these goals to be successful, administrations, faculty, and students will often have to work at changing the campus culture so that the inclusiveness actively trickles down and becomes a way of life. Simply put, in order for any inclusiveness measure to be effective, it has to be embraced at the student level.
METHODS Data for this analysis was collected through an online survey. The survey was designed by a
class of college students learning about quantitative methods of sociological inquiry and reflected interests that the students had in campus attitudes towards diversity and politics. The survey questions were designed to determine if students’ own demographic profiles were related to their attitudes towards diversity and inclusive excellence. Questions included demographic questions about the race and ethnicity of the respondent; the respondent’s sexual orientation, income, political ideology, gender; and whether or not the respondent belonged to any multicultural organizations on campus. Students were
In order for any inclusiveness measure to be effective, it has to be embraced at the student level.
recruited via an email asking them to respond to the online survey. Only current University of Denver students were asked to take the survey, which means the results are only generalizable to DU students. Overall, 226 respondents completed the survey. The majority of students who took the survey identified as White and female, which is consistent with the DU student body, which is currently 54% female and 85% White. One of my variables of interest was race. While the race and ethnicity category was originally a 6-category variable, we collapsed it into a dual category—Whites (n=152) and Non-Whites (n=74)—given the small number of respondents in the categories other than White. VOLUME 2
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