Diversity practices adopted in higher education leadership in the Southeastern United States

Abstract

In the study of exploring diversity practices adopted in higher education leadership in a Southeastern United States, the methodology will be qualitative phenomenological descriptive, with semi-structure interview to guide the research. The study will employ purposive sampling technique, to select faculty members, possessing rich knowledge, by virtue of their experience with the phenomenon of interest, and willing to participate in the study. This is to provide detail information, in-depth, and in-breadth of diversity practices adopted in higher education leadership, at the University of West Florida. Adhering to no specific number of participants upon reaching saturation the data collection will end. To secure confidentiality, and security of participants, Internal Review Board approval will be sorted before data collection. The analysis will proceed by exploring each interview on audio tape. This will involve transcribing and cleaning the data, doing minor editing, formatting, and general tidying up of the data, precisely, familiarizing and memoing emergent patterns, for coding; continuous comparison will lead to tentative categories that will then be compared to each other. This process will assist to create the emerging themes, to critically reflect, and review the process to ensure rigor, and the credibility of the procedure, and trustworthiness of the findings. Additionally, the study will employ triangulation of interviews and documents, using member checking, inter-coder agreement, rich and thick descriptions of the data, reviewing and resolving disconfirming evidence. The final data will be presented in tables, and graphs.Graduate Research PresentationFaculty Mentor, Dr. Wisdom Mensa