A Holistic Governance Framework for Diversity Management at the Tertiary Level

By establishing sophisticated governance mechanisms and systems, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) continuously seek to create sustainable innovation processes that allow them to meet ever-changing political, societal and vocational requirements. In this regard, the concept of diversity has proved to be a prominent driver for the development of globally competitive and “excellent” HEIs. Hence, in order to dynamically redesign traditionally established educational structures and study programmes, this contribution suggests a governance framework based on a reflective and dialogue-oriented student lifecycle management which draws on diversity-rel atedparameters. Taking into account both theories on reflexive and dialogical management and models of inclusivity and diversity, a specific framework was developed that seeks to address the dynamic challenges of higher education governance. In the following, this holistic governance model for diversity management is presented under the name of HEAD wheel (Higher Education Awareness for Diversity).