Chapter 14: Senior Diversity Coordinators: Organizational Strategies for Human Capital Development in Higher Education

Public higher education systems in the United States represent some of the most comprehensive higher education ecosystems in the world (Heckman, 1993). This chapter explores the role of the senior diversity coordinators as an opportunity to rethink how efforts to address diversity and equity can be implemented using a human capital development framework, given the changing landscape of higher education as it responds to national and state policies focusing on accountability as it relates to workforce development and career-readiness.

This chapter explores the role of senior diversity coordinators in state systems of public higher education, who are charged with working with system and campus leadership to fulfill these broad missions. The overarching issue is the exploration of the opportunity to rethink how efforts to address diversity and equity can be implemented using a human capital framework. The commitment of public higher education institutions and systems to search for the truth requires an approach that fully engages all aspects of human capital to solve complex issues, including workforce development and career-readiness, that our state, national, and global community face in a twenty-first century global community.