As a student of color, it is empowering to see your identity reflected within the faculty and staff around you. Diversity not only integrates different identities together but it provides a diversity of thought and perspective. It is crucial to have diverse professors, advisors, and faculty available to marginalized students because it allows them to build connections in predominately white spaces. It builds a sense of belonging among students where they feel seen and heard in spaces that often don’t consider their existence. This will improve student retention rates among marginalized students because they feel like they are being represented.
Representation also matters in the context of the material students consume. Diversity also needs to be reflected in the authors students read, diagrams, lecture pictures, and within the course material. It is important to uplift marginalized voices and provide multiple perspectives and narratives to fully expand the material to be representative and inclusive.
Educator, Steven Mintz, a professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin reflects on representation in the classroom.
“Equity requires more than doing everything in our power to help all our students succeed academically. It also demands that we revise our curriculum to incorporate a far broader range of perspectives.
A good starting point is to change the way we teach the U.S. history survey, not simply by embracing active learning but by viewing the past from multiple vantage points that reflect the society’s diversity and by tackling head-on the issues that preoccupy our students: racism, sexism, nativism, conquest, and environmental despoilation.” (Steven Mintz).