Browsing by Subject "Organizational Assimilation"

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    Race Rituals in Higher Education
    (2024-07) Vue, Sylvia
    In the last few decades, the push for a more diverse student population has become commonplace across college campuses in the United States. With the demands of growing a more diverse student population, institutions have made widespread changes in policy over the years (Gist-Mackey, Wiley, & Erba, 2017). This dissertation examines the phenomena of organizational race rituals (RR) in higher education during the onboarding process, focusing specifically on “race” and “diversity” in organizational communication and assimilation practices as a commitment to diversity and inclusion and its impact on students of color's (SOC) experiences. Onboarding serves to produce, reproduce, maintain, and reinforce norms and values of an organization and provide its participants with a transition from an outsider to insider (Bauer et al., 2007; Bauer, 2010; Watkins, 2016; Chillakuri, 2020). As one of the first steppingstones, onboarding is a vital process where most organizations invest a considerable amount of time and money to recruit new talent or students (Graybill et al., 2013). Many institutionalized practices such as orientation, annual events, onboarding, and the like are often ritualized into organizational culture. As someone who is a student of color, has had the privilege to be a diversity worker, and has participated in the performance of race rituals I am curious and motivated to critically engage in race rituals. I dig deeper into these assimilation and onboarding processes to gain a more holistic picture of the impact that DEI events have on students of color’s experiences. I use autoethnography along with Critical Race Theory and counter-storytelling as a foundation to share the perspectives of my personal experiences, SOC, and staff of color on race rituals and its impact on SOC experiences in predominantly white institutions. The question I ask is “how is race ritualized in Higher Education?” and through my interviews, I was able to identify three main themes 1) Racial Identities as symbol, 2) (Mis)Representation, and 3) Navigating Difference & Educating White People. Data analysis showed that RR functioned to reinscribe racial identities while at the same time also serving as symbols in RR that often represent something other than its literal meaning. Symbols communicate messages of diversity, equity, and inclusion that are spoken, written, and performed. RR also misrepresents POC on campus as the onboarding events examined in my study often are intentional about who is invited to RR and reflect a specific racial identity for incoming students. On the other end there is importance and value in having racial representation on campus as echoed by many of the students and staff interviewed. Lastly, RR can provide tools and support for student’s short term on how to navigate PWI, but a lot remains on student motivation to seek out long term support on campus. RR like the Gopher Equity Project were mentioned by students and staff as mostly helpful for educating white people on how to interact with POC to create a more inclusive campus climate. This was also reflected in the data that was collected and presented on the GEP outcomes that were collected through the university. In recognizing the different layers of RR within higher education organizations, the student and staff counter stories allow us to gain another perspective on how RR can serve to support as it often appears in the forefront yet behind the scenes communication of racialized identities are continually being reinscribed, reinforced, and maintained. This study has valuable contributions to the field of organizational communication and extends to other fields because it incorporates important aspects of the lived experiences of SOC to DEI work, research, and challenges current ways of producing knowledge. The counter stories shed light on important aspects of DEI that are often overlooked such as the underlying implications of who benefits from DEI, what the work is or isn’t doing, and much more. RR, whether intentional or unintentional, communicates different meanings, values, and impacts for people and organizations alike, and we must look at all the layers to see what we are simply checking off and what can grow towards systemic change.