Ph.D., Antioch University, 2020, Leadership and Change

The purpose of this research study is to share scholarly data that may assist in the recognition and cultural understanding of LatinX Chief DOs in higher education institutions. This multi-phase, qualitative study critically considers the participants' sociopolitical, psychological, and, cultural situated-ness as equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) leaders in higher education institutions (HEIs). Despite the psychological stressors, the participants described how and why they are energized by their commitment to creating change as social justice campeonas (champions). This study explains why LatinX DOs leading EDI institutional change in the 21st century, places them in precarious sociopolitical circumstances. Cultural values are identified by the research study participants as foundational to their identity, sources of motivation, tenacity, and, strength for leading EDI, institutional change. An interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) methodology is applied to this study describing, interpreting, contextualizing, and gaining in-depth insights into specific concepts of the phenomena; of “being” LatinX DOs in HEIs leading EDI. Eight participants were identified through a purposive process. Referred to here as “co-researchers,” they engaged as experts of their own interpretations, and as narrators of their own stories. This study included non-Westernized epistemological and ontological perspectives. A hermeneutic, subjective-reflective process of interpretation explored the co-researcher's social, contextual, and cultural truths—the wholeness of their experiences. The co-researchers engaged in a multi-phase, qualitative study which included individual interviews, and, two facilitated focus groups held over multiple days. The co-researchers developed a co-constructed, collective narrative highlighting the urgency to interrupt and change oppressive patterns and behaviors in themselves, in their respective institutions, and, the communities to which they belong. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lize Booysen DBL (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Holloway PhD (Committee Member); Angelo Gomez JD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Hispanic Americans; Multicultural Education; Womens Studies