Many universities are striving to be more diverse within their course offerings, students, and faculty.Nicholas A. Bowman’s article entitled How Much Diversity is Enough? The Curvilinear Relationship Between College Diversity Interactions and First-Year Student Outcomes studied if interpersonal interactions with diversity produces a positive experience and if it helps first-year students at a university increase important life skills necessary for the growing emphasis on diversity in the workplace. Bowman study found that “As expected, interracial interactions are positively and significantly related to gains in leadership skills, psychological well-being, intellectual engagement, and intercultural effectiveness during the first year of college.” (Bowman, 2013) …show more content…
Colleges and Universities that are doing just enough to get by are holding their students back. As Bowman explains, “[...] ignoring race in recruiting, admissions, and campus programs runs the risk of ultimately diminishing student growth.” (Bowman, 2013) Finally, in order to increase these opportunities the universities must find ways to recruit and sustain students of diverse backgrounds. The author highlights several possibilities in order to achieve this, “Such efforts can include recruiting from high schools whose pre-dominant student populations are underrepresented in higher education; using admissions processes that are conscious of race, social class, geography, and other factors; and offering additional grants and scholarships to targeted groups of students.” (Bowman, 2013) For everything that Bowman studies, it points to the fact that Universities must focus their efforts on fostering a welcoming community for students and faculty of diverse backgrounds in order to continue to allow all of their students to grow and develop skills necessary for their
“College campuses are not dominated by widespread racial/ethnic segregation and the racial/ethnic clustering that does occur isn’t impeding intergroup contact.” (578, Hoeffner and Hoeffner). Throughout the essay, the writer continues to provide facts and sources on the information that diversity is not a problem on college campuses. She quotes evidence that states that college students are getting a “variety of positive educational outcomes that result from being educated in a diverse environment.” (578, Hoeffner and Hoeffner).
When a person presently looks at university school systems, one never imagines the struggle to obtain such diverse campuses. With Caucasians, Asians, Latinos, and African Americans all willing and able to attend any institution, it is difficult now to envision a world where, because of one’s skin color, a person is denied university acceptance. In actuality, this world existed only fifty years ago. In a time of extreme racial discrimination, African Americans fought and struggled toward one of many goals: to integrate schools. As a pioneer in the South, a man named James Meredith took a courageous step by applying to the University of Mississippi, an all white university. After overcoming many legal and social obstacles, the University of Mississippi’s integration sent positive effects rippling among universities across the nation.
Clearly, HBCUs provide several benefits to African-American students. Not only have they helped to combat the cycle of discrimination that minority students experienced before the civil rights initiatives of the 1960s, but they strive to provide a warm, supportive and inclusive academic environment that addresses African-American college students as a whole person. Additionally, HBCUs are increasing their efforts to ensure that higher education is accessible, affordable and achievable for individuals with unique socioeconomic challenges. Despite obstacles, historically Black institutions will continue to play a vital and significant role in the fabric of higher education.
As previously stated, it appears there are persistant barriers present that hinder enrollment, retention, and rate of graduation for African Americans in higher education. It is imperative that educational concerns for African Americans are addressed at all levels, but it is particularly important at the post secondary stage. Higher levels of education are associated with both lower unemployment rates and a higher income. If...
African- American males have been underrepresented among college students and degree earners for years, however the reason for this is often misconstrued. The percentages of white high school graduates “In 1998-2000 had jumped to 46. However, only 40 percent of African-Americans and 34 percent of Hispanics in the same age group were attending college” (McGlynn, Angela Proviteira). The question then to pose, is why minority students are not succeeding in college compared to Caucasian students, “Only 47% of Black male students graduated on time
“Commitment to diversity is at best a distraction and at worst an essentially reactionary position that prevents us from putting equality at the center of the national agenda,” ()according to Walter Benn Michaels, in his 2004 essay, “The Trouble with Diversity.” Upon hearing the word 'diversity,' members of society may immediately think of race. and political correctness urges society to support racial diversity. According to many, celebrating diversity is the best way to combat societal inequality. This is because people are convinced that the differences that divide society are the results of racial prejudices. Michaels, however, feels that the biggest problem in America is not that of sexism or racism, but instead the increasing gap between the rich and the poor. So if the problem is actually in the economy... The fact that people re-describe economic inequality as racial inequality is counterproductive to equality because people are simply trying to solve a different problem. But how did the notion that what separates us is race even start?
Annotated Bibliography Journals: The Journal of the American Denson, N., & Chang, M. (2009). Racial Diversity Matters: The Impact of Diversity-Related Student Engagement and Institutional Context. American Educational Research Journal, 46, 322-353. This article discusses the different forms of racial diversity contribution to students’ educational and learning experiences and the positive effects on students who adopt these diversity opportunities. The author demonstrates how the quality of higher education is substantially heightened by diversity-connected efforts.
Introduction This paper examines the struggle African American students are more likely to face at a predominantly white institution (PWIs) than at a historically black college or university (HBCUs). Each author has his or her own take on this hypothesis; most of the author’s studies suggest that African American students have a hard time adjusting to an environment at a PWI (Littleton 2003). However, African American students at HBCUs tend to be at ease with their learning environment. Though many of the author’s agree with one another, there are other authors whose studies come to the conclusion that race is not a factor in college education anymore. That being the case, on average, the African American population is approximately four percent at PWIs (Littleton 2003).
Affirmative action has been a controversial topic ever since it was established in the 1960s to right past wrongs against minority groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The goal of affirmative action is to integrate minorities into public institutions, like universities, who have historically been discriminated against in such environments. Proponents claim that it is necessary in order to give minorities representation in these institutions, while opponents say that it is reverse discrimination. Newsweek has a story on this same debate which has hit the nation spotlight once more with a case being brought against the University of Michigan by some white students who claimed that the University’s admissions policies accepted minority students over them, even though they had better grades than the minority students. William Symonds of Business Week, however, thinks that it does not really matter. He claims that minority status is more or less irrelevant in college admissions and that class is the determining factor.
Racial preference has indisputably favored Caucasian males in society. Recently this dynamic has been debated in all aspects of life, including college admission. Racial bias has intruded on the students’ rights to being treated fairly. Admitting students on merit puts the best individuals into the professional environment. A university’s unprejudiced attitude towards race in applicants eliminates biases, empowers universities to harness the full potential of students’ intellect, and gives students an equal chance at admission.
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic achievement of minority children. Instead of addressing educational discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it takes to make a d... ... middle of paper ... ...
Signed in an executive order by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity was created to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. Three years later, President Lyndon Johnson presented the Civil Rights Act in 1964 prohibiting discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin (Wang & Shulruf, 2012). Later that same year, President Johnson gave a commencement speech attempting to give an ethical response to the losses both materially and mentally to the African-Americans in slavery in the United States (Chace, 2011). Within the later years of the 1960s, higher education institution administrators, in an effort to boost under-represented groups of minorities, introduced the affirmative action concept into the admissions processes (Wang & Shulruf, 2012). What has been the effect of these monumental milestones for minorities and under-repre... ...
When diversity is being discussed, there are a plethora of ideas that are associated with it. Whether people are talking being put on a waitlist for college, about people of color, or about representation in the media, the subject of diversity is not rare. Recently, the conversation of diversity has become more common because colleges want to demonstrate that they have diversified campus. How would diversity on campus be defined? Most importantly, diversity is more than having an extraordinary personality. Race, gender, sexuality, and social status are a few of the superfluous traits that make an individual unique in a college’s eyes. In Sophia Kerby’s article, “10 Reasons Why We Need Diversity on College Campuses”, she notes that, while there has already been an effort to diversify high schools and middle schools, accepting students of different backgrounds is not as apparent in higher education (1) . A university desires to diversify its campus in order to benefit the students that are attending the college. Students are not only likely to improve
Affirmative action policies were created to help level the playing field in American society. Supporters claim that these plans eliminate economic and social disparities to minorities, yet in doing so, they’ve only created more inequalities. Whites and Asians in poverty receive little to none of the opportunities provided to minorities of the same economic background (Messerli). The burden of equity has been placed upon those who were not fortunate enough to meet a certain school’s idea of “diversity” (Andre, Velasquez, and Mazur). The sole reason for a college’s selectivity is to determine whether or not a student has the credentials to attend that school....
University of Texas at Austin. In 2008, Abigail Fisher sued UT-Austin because she believed that their race-conscious admissions policy prevented her from being accepted into the university (Hoover, 2016). The court upheld the decision that stated that schools can admit students based on racial preference. Since 2008, schools have been more compelled to focus on the greater question of access for low-income and underrepresented students (Hoover, 2016). Hoover 2016, mentions that “Race and class are different threads, but they often entwine. Since Fisher arose, scholars and students alike have helped college leaders see how socioeconomic disparities, and not just race, shape students’ experiences.” (Pg#?) The crucial question coming out of this decision is what (if any) affirmative action admissions policies help the representation of disadvantaged groups. Some scholars believe that a less blatant class-based admissions policy can maintain or increase on-campus diversity. This paper examines the research looking a SES affirmative action policies and determines if they result in a level of diversity greater than or equal to the level achieved through race-conscious admissions. In this paper, we use SES-, income-, and class-based affirmative action interchangeable as well as race-based and race-conscious affirmative