ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the part of that study that examined the relationships among precollege environments and dispositions, student engagement with diverse others in college, and students’ engagement in integrative cocurricular diversity programs. It explores through a research model what prompts students to engage with diverse others, formally and informally. Faculty-student interactions, engagement with one's peers outside of the classroom, and involvement with cocurricular activities while in college are ways students become connected to their campuses. Although curricular and cocurricular activities such as writing-intensive courses, undergraduate research, service-learning, and learning communities have long histories in higher education, they are increasingly considered high-impact practices and have begun to receive much attention as the desirable form of cocurricular engagement. Cocurricular diversity programs represent a realization and nexus of the broader evidence from higher education scholarship on the educational value of a diverse learning environment and also support the importance of engagement in out-of-classroom activities and experiences with overall college engagement.
