EXAMINING THE BAGGAGE: First Steps Toward Transforming Habits of Mind Around Race in Higher Education

In an age of politically correct color blindness, it is important that higher education engage students in honest discourse about diversity (King, 1991). Throughout higher education, most faculty as well as students regard themselves as multiculturally aware, without regard for varying degrees of multicultural competence (Bennett & Bennett, 2004; King, 1991). Transforming perspectives related to race and other diversities requires students to become aware of their identities, influences that have shaped those identities, and their attendant habits of mind and ways of being around matters of diversity (Sheared, 1994). What does it take to foster openness to questioning previously unexamined and unquestioned perspectives in order to consider alternative perspectives on race?.