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The Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) role is an executive-level role in an organization providing leadership and support for the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) outcomes in people, programs, and policies. Historically, the predecessor roles of CDOs led compliance and EEO initiatives, while today, many of these roles focus instead on strategic priorities, campus climate, and organizational visioning (Wells, 2021). While versions of CDOs have existed in various forms in higher education for decades, they often encounter challenges and struggles related to myriad dynamics on campus. The term 鈥淐hief Diversity Officer鈥� is a broad title designated for the most senior administrator focused on leading the institution鈥檚 equity and justice efforts.

Key Challenges for Chief Diversity Officers in Higher Education

CDOs face several barriers to success from conception to implementation. Institutions may create roles in response to national or campus incidents and fail to fully identify the scope and boundaries of the position (Parker, 2019). Shawn Washington (2019) found that the key challenges that CDOs must address in their roles include: a) an institutional lack of clarity about the expectations of the position; b) few or no resources or staffing to support the various needs placed on them; and c) explicit and implicit institutional resistance to the role and responsibilities they are tasked with addressing. CDOs may be hired with broad expectations to improve campus climate, support disproportionately impacted populations, build capacity on the executive leadership team, build relationships with constituents on and off campus, and meet the ever-expanding compliance needs of a campus (Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013). Jennifer Wells (2021) stated that these positions could vary in reporting structure, responsibilities, authority, and tasks as CDO roles are crafted in the context of the campus they serve. Connectedly, Wells discussed the difficulties CDOs encounter when they do not report directly to the Chief Executive Officer.

Additionally, few Chief Diversity Officers are given the staffing and resources needed to be successful long-term in their roles in light of the leadership and support expectations placed upon CDOs (Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013). The expectation that a single person or small office will be able to be the Diversity Superhero (Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013) can lead to individuals feeling tokenized, unsupported, and burnt out and may lead to turnover, according to Dickenson (2022; Lemons & Medina, 2022).

Chief Diversity Officers must be leaders of diversity and champions on their campuses while also serving as collaborators, relational leaders, more than crisis managers, and JEDI knowledge experts (Parker, 2020). This executive-level professional must set the vision and tone for the campus community supported by institutional diversity plans and C-Suite colleagues who take this work seriously, do their work, and point toward accountability and action (Wells, 2021; Washington, 2019; Parker, 2019).