As noted on the main page, there has been a notable upswing in scholarly attention to issues of diversity within higher education. Prompted by the leveling off, or outright reversal, of material gains in post-secondary learning for historically marginalized and underrepresented communities, this increased scrutiny unpacks the very notion of “diversity” as such, critically examining the assumptions guiding scholarship, policy, and practice and the ways in which structural forces inflect, and are reflected by, the university. The City University of New York (CUNY) is an important site for these processes and conversations, as its mission to educate a wide intersection of New Yorkers has been battered in recent years by challenges from, on the one hand, public disinvestment, economic contraction, and stiffening neoliberal policy, and, on the other, a rise in securitization, including an enhanced school-to-prison pipeline and racial-profiling apparatus. This series seeks to highlight some of this work on critical diversities and/in the academy, both at CUNY and within the region, by hosting talks and colloquia by and between scholars of various ranks. This series, in turn, will not only contribute to community-building among CUNY academics but also to cross-institutional, coalitional practice.

Series purpose: To share scholarly and practical approaches to creating diversity and to build community among such scholar-practitioners within CUNY and across regional institutions. Projected outcomes: An enhanced, distinctly critical understanding of multiple and intersectional diversities within higher education and how they are linked to structural forces; a set of models for and discussions of critical-diversities work; a growing network of scholar-practitioners united by such work (and this series).