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In this chapter, the emerging education workforce management approach known as talent-centered education leadership (TCEL) is reviewed. The approach takes inspiration from progressive and cutting-edge talent management thinking and practices that emphasizes employers' intentional focus on humanizing and authentically engaging with their workforce. Pertinent to the theme of the book, the discussion then segues to the importance of diversity and inclusion as a precursor for these efforts and demonstrates how equity and organizational excellence are mutually compatible in the workplace. Relatedly, consideration is given to how traditional perceptions of “professionalism” can exacerbate inequity in the workplace. The chapter concludes by highlighting the seven core principles of TCEL to prepare school employers to embrace the future of education work.

Education policies in the United States reinforce social stratification by prioritizing and normalizing middle-class whiteness in schools (Leonardo, 2007; Picower, 2009). The teacher labor market has also become more feminized, making white middle-class women paragons of exemplary educators (Rury, 1989; Tolley & Beadie, 2006). These sociopolitical and historical factors continue to play out in the current U.S. education workforce where 80% teachers are white and 76% of teachers are female (Hussar et al., 2020). Meanwhile, student demographics are shifting with students of color comprising over 50% of the public student population (de Brey et al., 2019). Diversifying the educator pipeline is a well-documented strategy to improve educational outcomes for all students, specifically students of color, and to achieve greater equity and inclusion in public education. However, the retention and promotion of educators of color remains a critical and complex issue.

Thus, looking at the intersection of race and gender in the education workplace, the purpose of this chapter is to highlight the experiences and expertise of women K-12 educators of color to identify best practices for career development. Applying Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) and utilizing modified meta-synthesis methodology, the chapter highlights the experiences of Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Indigenous/Native American women K-12 principals and superintendents to (1) thematize and conceptualize how women of color define their work in education spaces through a PWT lens and (2) understand how PWT themes can illuminate ways to build more diverse and inclusive career pathways for women of color leaders.

Black Male faculty are severely underrepresented in public universities (Harper, 2010; Li & Koedel, 2017), especially in the department of engineering where they frequently have no representation at all (Nelson et al., 2010). The problem is often attributed (especially by employers) to a pipeline issue, suggesting a lack of a recruitment pool of Black male faculty. However, it is increasingly recognized that turnover and attrition may play a critical role in contributing to the lack of Black engineering faculty (Whittaker et al., 2015). This chapter reports results from a larger national survey of 1,161 engineering faculty at research intensive institutions, of which only 14 identified as Black males (further evidencing underrepresentation). We focus on the responses from the latter group, through a qualitative analysis of their responses to inquiries concerning barriers in their institution for tenure, research, funding, and teaching; diversity concerns; and sentiments regarding their job satisfaction and consideration for employment resignation. Issues identified by participants included feelings of isolation, exclusion and even discrimination at their workplace. Based on these concerns, we suggest talent centered education leadership (TCEL) as a guiding framework to help higher education employers improve the equity and inclusivity of their workspace by creating a more engaging environment for their Black male faculty. TCEL is a recently introduced inclusive talent management framework (Tran, 2022; Tran & Smith, 2020) that emphasizes humanizing the education workplace. Essential to that humanization is creating and maintaining a work environment where all employees feel a sense of belonging.

This chapter proposes a sustainable trajectory for leadership and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) organizational change in higher education. Leadership practices and strategies necessary to construct and implement change and cultivate diverse, equitable, and inclusive educational environments are deliberated, with particular emphasis on transformational leadership theories and practices. These types of organization development practices produce concrete transformation in institutions that have long-established, inert, and deeply entrenched cultures in which discriminatory or even racist practices have been deeply embedded and accepted over time. The complex dynamics of transformation in higher education, brought on, in part, by the rigidity of its organizational structure coupled with its history and foundation in racism and racist practices, makes achieving sustainable change difficult in higher education. Transformational change requires the creation of new mental models through meaning making and perspective sharing that allow individuals in higher education to think differently about how higher education institutions should operate given the rapid shifts in our society. Organizational change leaders must engage in deep, purposeful, and critical reflection and examination of the organization's culture to lay the groundwork for significant change. The chapter explores topics such as leading change through transformational leadership and the styles, practices, and capabilities associated with it, leadership development, strategic diversity leadership, and the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) as change leader in higher education. The internal and external environmental trends demanding substantive change in higher education continue to intensify over time. The demand for pervasive transformation in higher education is resounding, and institutional leaders must be open to and even drive new and innovative approaches to shifting its very core – its DNA, its culture – to meet those demands.

Technology is integral to contemporary life; where the digital transformation to virtual information accessibility impacts instruction, it alters the skills of learning and comprehension (Gonzalez-Patino & Esteban-Guitart, 2014; Lloyd, 2010). Although librarians/media specialists provide orientation, instruction, and research methods face-to-face and electronically, they recognize that digital learning instruction is not a linear process, and digital literacy (DL) is multi-disciplinary (Belshaw, 2012). Policy and public research findings indicate that higher education must be prepared to adapt to rapid changes in digital technology (Maybee, Bruce, Lupton, & Rebmann, 2017). Digital learning undergoes frequent transformations, with new disruptive innovation and research attempts at redefinition (Palfrey, 2015). Research often overlooks junior/community colleges. We are all learners and we need to understand the digital learning challenges that incorporating DL includes in the new digital ecology (Adams Becker et al., 2017). This study provides real faculty/librarian commentaries regarding the understanding needed to develop digital learning and contemporary digital library resources. The authors investigate faculties’ and librarians’ degree of DL perceptions with instruction at junior/community colleges. Survey data analysis uses the mean of digital self-efficacy of variables collected, revealing that participants surpassed Rogers’s (2003) chasm of 20% inclusion. Findings provided data to develop the Dimensions of Digital Learning rubric, a new evaluation tool that encourages faculty DL cross-training, librarians’ digital learning collaboration, and effective digital learning spaces.

The racial reckoning of 2020, alongside the collective trauma of the global Covid-19 pandemic, led to a proliferation of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) offerings within the US higher education system. At the same time, university social justice spaces found a reduction in their staffing, restriction of their work, and an increase of outsourced DEI contributions from non-justice focused locations. This research based, and semi-autobiographical chapter situated Buolamwini's work on coded bias, is grounded in the work of Spivak and Butler, and O'Neil's contributions on mathematical mismanagement. It charts the systematic dismantling of social justice efforts at one mid-sized regional public university as their work was replaced with invalidated and outsourced DEI efforts and gamed with numerical retention requirements, which did little to remedy the genuine inequity built within higher education systems. This chapter offers inferences regarding what those changes mean for inclusion efforts within higher education writ large, particularly with regard to students with marginalized identities (queer, trans, and BIPOC students) who face systemic oppression in the higher education system.

This chapter tackles the tension between equity and excellence that critics often highlight in opposition of diversity initiatives and efforts in the higher education employment setting. We present several arguments that respond to the assumptions undergirding these criticisms, by drawing on prior research to emphasize that equity and excellence are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, we present new evidence from a national sample of Black and Hispanic Engineering Faculty (BHEF) (n = 68) to argue that their racialized work experiences promote exclusive environments that serve to sustain their underrepresentation and marginalize their performance contributions. We conclude with a new direction for how to cultivate inclusive work environments in higher education.