Speaker: Dr. Edna Chun

Venue: Room 115, SEIS Building, BFSU

Time: 3:00–5:00 pm, April 27 (Friday)

About the Lecture

This seminar addresses the challenges of Asian Americans in the United States and the model minority myth. The model minority myth has created stereotypical expectations for Asian Americans due to their relative economic and professional success and resulted in their exclusion from consideration as an underrepresented group in higher education diversity hiring initiatives. Asian Americans have been less successful than other minorities in attaining leadership roles, and hold only 2.3 percent of presidential positions in higher education. The lack of recognition of the covert and overt discrimination faced by Asian Americans has led to the invisibility of their challenges, exacerbated by the absence of a cohesive public voice and collective consciousness. The seminar offers recommendations for change and for building awareness of the behavioral and structural barriers faced by Asian Americans in the United States.

About the Speaker

Edna B. Chun, D.M., is an educational leader and author with more than two decades of strategic human resource and diversity leadership experience in higher education in Florida, North Carolina and California. Her work and publications focus on talent practices that build organizational capacity. She advises leaders and boards on strategic diversity leadership and workforce development, culture change, organizational learning, total rewards strategy, and cultural competence. Dr. Chun’s publications include Diverse Administrators in Peril: The New Indentured Class in Higher Education (Paradigm, 2012), the first in-depth examination of the work experiences of minority, female, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender administrators, and Creating a Tipping Point: Strategic Human Resources in Higher Education (Jossey Bass, 2012), a research-based approach to the development of strategic HR talent management practices in higher education. The Department Chairs as Transformative Diversity Leaders: Building Inclusive Learning Environments in Higher Education (Stylus, 2015) is the first research-based resource on the academic department chair’s role in diversity transformation. Her newly published book, Leading a Diversity Culture Shift in Higher Education: Comprehensive Organizational Learning Strategies, focuses on concrete leadership strategies for cultural change (Routledge, 2018).