Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to describe the multicultural attitudes of chief housing officers in California colleges and universities, compare the described multicultural attitudes across six demographic variables, and report key issues in university student housing related to diversity. Methodology. Descriptive and ex post facto research was used for this study. Participants in the present study were 76 California chief housing officers whose institutions were members of the Western Association of College and University Housing Officers during the 2004--2005 fiscal year. Participants responded to a questionnaire that consisted of three parts. Basic descriptive statistics were used to describe chief housing officers demographics and their levels of multicultural attitude. Analysis of Variance and Z-scare tests of differences statistics were used to discover any significant differences in multicultural attitudes of chief housing officers. Findings. Quantitative data showed that chief housing officers in California are a diverse group in terms of gender, age, years of service in the student housing profession, and housing population size represented by each. However, further findings revealed that there is a significant lack of ethnic/racial diversity among chief housing officers in California with 71.1% being Caucasian/White and with only 3.9% being Latino/Hispanic. In light of these findings, further quantitative data showed that there were no significant differences in the multicultural attitudes of chief housing officers across all six demographic variables examined. Finally, chief housing officers reported a great variety of diversity issues in university student housing. Conclusions. The study data support the conclusion that chief housing officers in California regardless of demographic variable comparison have a high appreciation and awareness for multicultural issues, but continue to positively struggle with key concepts surrounding diversity issues. Recommendations. First, extend this present study to chief housing officers in other parts of the United States to discover if there are any significant regional differences in multicultural attitudes. Second, add chief housing officer focus group interviews to provide a deeper probe as to why chief housing officer multicultural attitude scores are so high. Third, administer to student housing residents a similar multicultural attitude questionnaire to seek any correlations with chief housing officers. Fourth, conduct further research to explore why Latino/Hispanics may not be as attracted to the chief housing officer profession as other ethnic/race groups when compared to their demographic representation in California.