When Words Do Not Matter: Identifying Actions to Effect Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Academy

Abstract

It is time to move past the words—the well-crafted statements circulated by groups and organizations across the academy, the scholarly writing as displacement, the formal and informal critiques—as if they had some recognizable impact. Each of these rhetorical moves can be valuable in helping to effect larger cultural and structural shifts. Yet, alone, a variety of evidence suggests that these forms of communication fail at effecting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Therefore, through our varied areas of research and lived work experiences, we focus attention toward actions as sites of power and potential: (a) in faculty emotional labor and work (McLeod), (b) at various levels of university administration and structural change (Ashcraft and Allen), (c) in the time-based practices associated with the ways we teach and mentor graduate students (Ballard), and (d) in our corpus of scholarship (Ganesh and Zoller).