The Chronicle of Higher Education published (in September) a special report devoted to age diversity on campus. They write that it can serve as a sort of ‘field guide to help readers better understand their elders– or their youngers’:

There are now five generations on campuses: The most senior scholars were born before World War II, followed by the baby boomers, then the somewhat hard-to-pin-down members of Gen X, then the much-studied millennials (less often called Gen Y), and finally, the young, tech-happy students of Gen Z.

There are a variety of articles in this special report, many of which are directly relatable to our activities in the UCI Libraries, including:

• How Generations X, Y, and Z May Change the Academic Workplace
• How Older Students Can Enrich Your Classroom
• What ‘Diversity’ Hides

There’s a lot here, and absolutely a lot to think about. I sometimes struggle reading this sort of report (“Smartphones are at the root of many of the differences between Generation Z and previous age groups…”– Thank you, Professor Obvious) but connections are made in the articles I’ve read that are a bit more concrete and directly applicable to the world we see around us than is sometimes the case. The library profession is facing its own well-documented age-related issues, and so much of this is directly relevant to us.

This special report is in the September 22 issue of CHE, and due to our extraordinary e-resources team, we have full-text online access.

Previous CHE special reports ‘Diversity in Academe include ‘Disability on campus’ (September 2016) and ‘Who sets a College’s diversity agenda?’ (May 2016).

~ Josh Hutchinson