Creating Allyship to Embrace Diversity and Combat Unconscious Bias: The Asian American Pacific Islander Representation Example for the Importance of Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education
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2021-04-28
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What can we as a university do to create an inclusive environment that represents our increasingly diverse population? How can we become Allies to create a more inclusive community? Asian Americans have been often dubbed the “Model Minority” which has created separatism and even animosity between several minority communities due to this assumption. This assumption is then damaging to the overall goal to make a more inclusive diverse community together. We will explore topics such as the Model Minority Myth, Allyship, and systematic and structural bias. This presentation will look at Asian Pacific Islander Americans as a representation that we will connect to other diversity concepts as a means to educate and embrace the increased diversification of our university. In order to understand the dilemma, we will explore issues with diversity for Asian Pacific Islanders as a representative, though not an exhaustive example, for the importance of diversity and inclusion in higher education as a whole. We will explore topics of structural and systematic racism such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Internment Camps in the West during World War II to recent blame of COVID-19 on Chinese people and even creating policy to that effect with COVID-19 called “China Virus” on a U.S. Government document (National Geographic, 2020). Purdue Global University’s student body is increasingly diverse as well with 60% of students over the age of 30 and 50% of students attending as one of the first in their family generation (Purdue Global Fast Facts, 2021). Purdue Global continues to diversify which mirrors the continued diversification of college students in the U.S. with enrollment in postsecondary education increasing from 35% to 41% between 2000 to 2016 and with the numbers in all ethnic/racial groups increasing as well (U.S. Census, 2016). In addition, as of 2018, there are 1.4 million Asian American university students attending higher education institutions ( US Census, 2018). Specific topics will include diaspora, representation, unconscious bias, allyship, awareness, inclusion and equity, racism, and the glass ceiling. We will open the discussion up for participants to share and suggest additional opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to create a more responsive inclusive campus here at Purdue Global University.
Purdue Global Fast Facts. (2020, December). Retrieved January 27, 2021, from https://www.purdueglobal.edu/about/fast-facts/
Bureau, U. (2019, June 04). More Than 76 Million Students Enrolled in U.S. Schools. Retrieved January 27, 2021, from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/school-enrollment.html
University, P. (2020). Diversity and Inclusion: Campus Population Overview. Retrieved January 27, 2021, from https://www.purdue.edu/diversity-inclusion/about-us/stats.html
Strochlic, N. (2020, September 02). America's long history of scapegoating its Asian citizens. Retrieved January 31, 2021, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/09/asian-american-racism-covid/
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Asian American Pacific Islander, Unconscious bias, Racial discrimination, Model minority, Diversity, Inclusion, Higher Education, Equity, History of racial bias, Racial stereotyping, Pandemic, Minorities in higher education