Having served in higher education the past three years, I have grown in my appreciation for the complexities of colleges and universities. Specifically, I am fascinated by how institutions value diversity within their student population and among their employees. Over the past two years colleges and universities have had to confront their racist past to understand their student population. Christian higher education has not been immune to this soul searching. Christian institutions must recognize diversity as a biblical and institutional imperative to embrace institutional inclusive excellence. Diversity needs to be embraced for institutions to survive in a pluralistic and changing society. As higher education faces a tumultuous future, there is a heightened need for diverse administrators who can navigate and effectively lead institutions towards inclusive excellence. Currently, I work as the Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment at Messiah College. I oversee the recruitment of students from Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, and Washington DC. My positon also serves as the director of the Lloyd and Lois Martin Multicultural Scholarship and Amigo Scholarship. These scholarships were started to help Messiah recruit and retain students of color. The Lloyd and Lois Martin Multicultural Scholarship awards four Full-Tuition scholarships and six $20,000 scholarships. The Amigo Mentoring Scholarship awards forty $16,000 scholarships. The Martin & Amigo
Dr. Cephas Archie is the Diversity & Inclusion Program Coordinator for Houston Community College (HCC), where he assists in the implementation of the colleges 7 + campus Diversity & Inclusion Plan. Collaboratively working with all institutional stakeholders – both internal and external, Dr. Archie spearheads the institution’s diversity and inclusion efforts for the near 81,000 students, faculty and staff. As an employee of the Office of Institutional Equity at HCC, his efforts are accompanied by the college’s Diversity & Inclusion Council.
Keeping in line with Marietta College’s statement on Diversity and Inclusion, it is important to map out a plan to make sure we are living up to the mission of the college. In order to fulfill this mission, it is necessary to have students from diverse backgrounds represented on campus. However, having students on campus is only one aspect of D&I work. Understanding the make-up of the college and the surrounding city, it is necessary to ensure these students have the support to be retained through graduation. In this effort, I propose the creation of a three part program that will assist in this effort. This plan will involve
We, Lindenwood University’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force are charged with promoting the well-being, safety and security of a diverse academic community in which teaching, learning, and the exchange of ideas can flourish, and where we encounter, encourage, and interrogate ideas that challenge settled notions of truth.
From the very foundation of Berea College, the school has had the core principles of Christianity built into it. The principle that it is our obligation to work towards alleviating the adversity of all, regardless of the race or class of those who are disadvantaged. Unfortunately Berea College’s commitment to race and class is not always fully expressed by their actions. In order to remedy this, Berea College should put greater effort into its commitment to class and race by creating a committee made up of multiple races and classes, with the purpose of creating programs to help individuals who are disadvantaged by their race and/or class. Such a committee would be tasked with working to understand every aspect pertaining to the races and classes
Affirmative action, and race-based admissions standards, are the best way to increase (or maintain) diversity at institutions of higher learning. In spite of its perceived flaws, it has increased the diversity at previously all-white institutions of higher learning, such as the University of Texas at Austin, and that diversity has allowed friendships to be formed that otherwise would not have been, has allowed students to learn from professors they otherwise would never have and allowed professors to learn from students from a wide variety of
Diversity, what does it look like at Jackson State University (JSU), a historically black university, located in Jackson, MS? Administrators in higher education are charged with the responsibility of preparing students to be civil minded in a society that is changing rapidly as it relates to the inclusion of others. With such intensity to incorporate increased changes and differences, there is a need to collectively understand the full scope of differences among students.
Unfortunately, notwithstanding poet Louisa Fletcher's desire to start over, colleges and universities in the United States will not at any time soon access the Land of Beginning Again. Those institutions must enact meaningful change transitions from where they exist today, and there is much change that is needed. To wit, innovator and strategic management consultant Fred Buining asserts that higher education is in the "eye of the hurricane," which means that leaders, scholars, and educators are not doing enough to meet the challenges they face. Buining suggests that there is "no critical mass" in terms of the changes that are needed in higher education. Moreover, he believes that while today's student in colleges and universities are getting younger the professors and instructors are getting older, issues like cultural diversity and commercialization threaten institutions of higher learning. This paper reviews and critiques scholarly sources that address issues of diversity and commercialization on college and university campuses. Thesis: colleges and universities are in many respects becoming very much like corporations, and this is truly the wrong direction for higher education
Companies and educational institutions greatly benefit from the guidelines of affirmative action because they profit from the different ideas, work styles, and contributions unique to each diverse individual. As quoted in Paul Connors’s compilation, Affirmative Action, President of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, addresses the importance of a diverse educational system by stating, “The experience of arriving on a campus to live and study with classmates from a diverse range of backgrounds is essential to students' training for this new world, nurturing in them an instinct to reach out instead of clinging to the comforts of what seems natural or familiar” (12-13). A statement by Southeastern Oklahoma State University further supports the idea that success in modern day society stems from diversity saying, “Our country is strong because of the rich diversity of our culture, not in spite of it” (Affirmative Action).
Racial diversity is something that is often discussed on college campuses. As a student who self-identifies as a minority in more ways than one I often feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the subject of racism and race. However, often times when these issue are discussed I learn something new; this was the case when reading the articles this week. This week’s articles examined the issue of race from different perspectives. This allowed me to re-examine the issue in a fuller manner; it also allowed me to question some of my own notions that I hadn’t really challenged before.
Imagine being a student of low economic status that has always dreamed of going to a world renowned university but the stench of racism still looms at the well-known college. The racism displayed at this university is undeniable and very visible which in result scares away many diverse students. Colleges claim to be diverse but with the lack of minorities due to the recognizable racism issues and problems this proposes an important matter. Racism at The University of Mississippi can be solved by raising awareness of racial problems and also the increase of mandatory diversity classes.
March 6th, 1961 Affirmative Action policies in higher education were implemented (Infoplease). Affirmative Action was designed to provide equal access to universities for historically underrepresented minorities. The argument of whether Affirmative Action should be decimated is a simple one. Students who have the academic credentials and earn their way into college deserve to be accepted. For no reason should previously excluded minorities gain unfair leverage in an attempt to “right past wrongs”. But with Affirmative Action banned in only eight states, we are left with two questions; how exactly Affirmative Action affects the culture within universities to have it seen as an unjust policy, and can diversity continue to survive without this program.
I aspire to be an Office of Multicultural Affairs Ambassador because of my prior experience as a Bowling Green State University student. For my first and second year, I was a part of the Arts Village in Kreischer-Compton. During my second year, I was a mentor on the behalf of the Arts Village. As a mentor, my task was to enforce diversity and inclusion in the Arts Village while assisting incoming students with acclimating into life on campus. Coupled with this is my background in creating events in order to promote community. Through this occupation, I’ve gained knowledge in helping other students, organizing and running events, and the promotion of the Arts Village through Preview Day and Open Houses.
In order to study the need of a racially and culturally diverse college campus, the journey and battles fought must be dicussed. While there is a lack of diversity on college campuses today, they are not completely devoid of people of color. However, there was a time when college campuses were one hundred percent Caucasian. Jonathan R. Alger, Jorge Chapa and a team of researchers conducted studies on various college classrooms. They then went on to publish their findings in a book titled Does Diversity make a Difference? The purpose of their paper was to discuss the importance of diversity and reveal the effects of non-diverse campus. They begin their book by taking a look into the history of diversity in America. The start of the Civil Rights movement along with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty took place in the mid 1960s. These events forced the country to face the reality of the people of color in America. These Americans of color did not have equal access to education, jobs, housing, or other valued resources (Alger et al. 2000). College administrators and faculty were starting to understand the necessity of a diverse campus. The realized that people of color had just as much to offer to the United States as the Caucasian majority. During that time, “many higher education faculty members and administrators were deeply concerned that abandonment of race sensitive admissions and hiring, at a time when most minority groups continue to be unrepresented in higher education, will severely limit campus diversity and would undermine the learning environment for all students.” (Alger et al. 2000). Additionally, a lot of the traditionally white colleges and universities were provoked and questioned by the concerns of their students. The universities and colleges began to notice their inability to extend the same educational
Within the core of many educational institutions, diversity is a commercial tacit. While every institution cannot offer the same kind of diversity, the endorsement of such exists through various definitions. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges define diversity through the various classes: race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, disability, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and age (“Statement on Diversity”)
This becomes a sensitive issue in the fact that religion and culture are important to the individuals and thus we need to come up with ways to ensure that each religion and each culture is effectively respected to avoid conflicts in the colleges (O'Neil, 61). Racial backgrounds are also an issue to consider based on the fact that we have different races in the country and thus this will still be represented in the colleges as we offer equal opportunities to the students from all racial backgrounds (Hensley, 56). This brings in the question of the minorities and how to interact with them without hate speech and racial discrimination, and the most volatile place to get such a scenario is in the institutions of higher learning where we have young energetic and vibrant people from all