Recruitment and Retention of Faculty and Students of Color in Higher Education

Increasingly higher education institutions are comprised of people of various nationalities, ethnicities, races, and religious affiliations. Hence, there is a need to support and create a safe environment where higher education is accessible to all and free from bias. Unfortunately, many Western educational cultures tend to operate within a White system that creates a space where the needs of minority students and staff are not prioritized due to system barriers, limited cultural support, and inadequate visibility and representation of people of color, leading to issues of recruitment and retention. (Capitalised letter “W” in Whiteness, is to problematise and emphasise the term used. Naming the term up is to challenge and unsettle the invisibility of Whiteness.) While this chapter is mostly focused on an American institutional context, it aims to examine some of the issues that have directly led to systematic challenges and provide strategies to ensure the success of students and faculty of color within academic communities.