Tracing Institutional Change: How Student Activism Concerning Diversity Facilitates Administrative Action

Over the past decade, increasingly more colleges and universities have had to address student-initiated demands following racist incidents that occur both locally and nationally. However, the demands to address unfair conditions on campus do not necessarily result in meaningful change. To better und...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of diversity in higher education 2024-08, Vol.17 (4), p.598-612
Main Authors: Havey, Nicholas Francis, Gogue, Demeturie Toso-Lafaele, Chang, Mitchell J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
College Students
Colleges
Diversity
Educational Administration
Human
Organizational Change
Social Media
Student Activism
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Summary:Over the past decade, increasingly more colleges and universities have had to address student-initiated demands following racist incidents that occur both locally and nationally. However, the demands to address unfair conditions on campus do not necessarily result in meaningful change. To better understand how student activism facilitates administrative actions that lead to change and the extent to which social media accentuates activism, we examined student-initiated efforts to increase "diversity" at Yale University. Our study combined more than 100 documents with 5 years of social media data to identify key patterns that significantly contributed toward facilitating institutional change. The findings show that to facilitate administrative actions, student activists grew their reach, reiterated their demands over time, and activated the individuals and groups peripheral to the original demands. Their combined efforts were accentuated by the use of social media, which served to make their activism even more consequential for mediating tangible and demonstrable change at the institutional level.
ISSN:1938-8926
1938-8934
DOI:10.1037/dhe0000446