Leadership in Support of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Increasingly, postsecondary institutions within North America are being criticized because the composition of their faculty and staff does not reflect the composition of their undergraduate and graduate students. That criticism focuses not only on the perennial issues of representation of women within academe but also on representation with respect to gender, sexual orientation, Indigenous status, race and ethnicity, (dis)ability, and the intersection of these multiple variables. In addition, postsecondary institutions are becoming increasingly aware that changing the representation of faculty and staff is meaningless if they do not also ensure that the organization’s culture is committed to principles and practices of inclusion. At the same time, postsecondary institutions struggle to ensure that academic freedom and freedom [Page 941]of speech are respected even though some views ...