After three decades immersed in higher education, I have identified and experienced four systemic challenges and opportunities. I believe we are responsible for addressing these to enhance and leverage the diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice of our work and to facilitate the student experience equitably and justly.

  1.  Systemic Fragmentation: Fundamentally, information and access to the opportunities we promote and facilitate for the success of our students and alums lack integration. Unfortunately, this phenomenon often fragments the student experience, sometimes making it feel more like a scavenger hunt than a continuum of experiences, connections and resources for their integrated and successful personal, academic and career development.
  2. Systemic Inequity: Concerningly, this lack of integration often provides traditional students with the advantage of navigating a higher education system they understand and which has been designed for them, but leaves most underrepresented and first-generation students behind to decipher a system neither designed nor explicitly or punctually explained to them.
  3. Systemic Homogeneity: Importantly, we must remember that a critical charge of our field is the preparation of a key sector of the next generation of leaders. With this in mind, we must consider how commonly homogenous are our organizational, national and international decision-making tables. Research and intuition clarify how our human problem-solving and innovation strength stems from the diversity of our backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, ideas and skills.
  4. Systemic Disengagement: The development of the next generation of leaders cannot be delegated to only one or a collection of university departments, areas or even institutions. As one of our most important societal endeavors for the future of our existence, our success depends on the intentional and facilitated engagement of the broader community across all stakeholder groups and across all areas of our ecosystem within and beyond higher education.

Read the full article about challenges in higher education by Daniel Pascoe Aguilar at Forbes.