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Given the focus on diversity in higher education institutions, one would assume that DEI should have a broader compass rather than a narrow scope. Over the past decade, national trends have emerged in the commitment to diversifying students and faculty, inclusion of diversity within the curricula, and most importantly, emergence of statements of broader diversity plans across the campuses that are also included in the strategic plans. These trends are certainly significant and relevant given the increasing diverse populations in the U.S. higher education. What is missing in DEI initiatives is the lack of global perspective and situating DEI within a larger and inclusive context to embrace institutional internationalization. It is not a separate construct but internationalization framework takes the DEI vision from local to global
CONTEXT
When we hear or read about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the higher education context, we assume that these are natural and inherent within the American society as its core and that everyone understands what these concepts mean. Higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United States have been exploring and responding to diversity matters for decades, mostly in the context of student body diversification. Most institutions focus on structural diversity, the number of underrepresented students on campus. This, even though, discounts the impact of the other dimensions, is a start. Not a new phenomenon, this student body diversification goes back to mid-to-late nineteenth century when "Harvard University presidents commented on their efforts to enroll students from different nations, states, schools, families, sects and conditions of life so that students could interact with and learn from peers different from themselves" (Rudenstine, 2001, p. 32). Nevertheless, the challenges to diversity such as access and academic success still persist especially for students coming from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (Engle, Yeado, Brusi, & Cruz, 2012) and low-income areas. Leon and Williams (2016) explained that the failure to achieve diversity as a strategic goas is the inability to create a sense of institutional ownership for diversity (Maltbia & Power, 2009) and a lack of an understanding that diversity is indeed an evolving multidimensional concept that is situated in "a complex set of interlocking dynamics" (Williams, 2013, p. 7). As Leon and Williams (2016) argued, "addressing diversity must be done from...