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The undeniable reality is that the United States is becoming a more diverse nation--racially, ethnically, religiously and just about any other way one can imagine. As never before, we are inextricably intertwined in a global society. In terms of race, minority populations make up a majority of residents in one state. Five out of seven of the largest U.S. cities have majority minority populations. Pundits estimate that by the year 2050 the U. S. will be a minority majority nation. In terms of religion, there are more Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists in the United States than Lutherans or Episcopalians. In terms of ethnicity, it is not unusual to find urban school systems in which students speak more than 70 languages. As the population of the United States changes and the position of the United States evolves as a member of a global information based society, our colleges and universities are being faced with the imperative of educating a dramatically different student body for a world which is being transformed. Diversity in every aspect of higher education--people, programs, pedagogies, and outcomes--is challenging the very being of this nation's colleges and universities. Yet diversity is a subject we are unable to discuss on most campuses. In fact, I can think of no more painful issue in all of higher education today, one that mirrors the angst in the larger society. Diversity is a word that summons powerful emotions and strong language, which is an anathema in an academic world, which commits itself to rational discourse. We live in an age in which the dirty words on college campuses are no longer four letters; they are at least six letters--racist, sexist, and homophobic. No one wants to be called these things or to be subjected to the harsh attacks, which so often seem to accompany disagreements over diversity. So it has frequently seemed the wiser course to ignore or at least attempt to duck the issue of diversity and hope that it will go away. This issue of diversity has become far more that just another campus concern. In point of fact, colleges and universities are intentional learning communities. If they are unable to deal with diversity successfully, what hope is there for our students and graduates to live and work in a diverse global society? What hope is there for our unintentional society to grapple with the issue constructively? The United States will surely be viewed in the world by how well we as a nation respond to the diversity challenge. And, of course, if colleges and universities are not successful or simply choose not to act, political leaders rather than the educators will fill the vacuum, as is increasingly the case today.
The Meaning of Diversity The academy does not agree on what diversity means or how it should be achieved. To be more precise, over the past four decades, the term has taken on a number of different, competing, even conflicting meanings, often on the same campus. Several years ago, during a study of race relations on college campuses, I interviewed the presidents of 14 very different institutions. I asked them whether diversity was an important issue at their colleges. Most said yes. I next asked them to define the term diversity and to explain the specific goals this entailed for their campuses. The presidents in general had a hard time with the question. There was a good deal of rhetoric, circumlocution, and imprecision in language. Neither the presidents, nor their institutions had a clear sense of what they meant by diversity, but what emerged from the conversations were four rather distinct notions of diversity and associated activities. The first, very much a product of the 1960s and the civil rights movement, was the need to admit more minority students to college. While the desire to recruit more minorities was a continuing theme in the 1990s, the goals, with regard to "more," have changed since the sixties. Originally, minority students meant blacks, but more recently it has come to mean any underrepresented population ranging across race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, and more. The initial focus was on students, but has since expanded to include staff, faculty, administrators, and trustees. And the idea of greater minority presence on campus has shifted from just increasing numbers to achieving numbers comparable to minority populations in a defined community or society meaningful to a particular institution. A second set of diversity goals, developed in the 1970s, is support or retention of minority populations. This was described by the presidents as either a supplement to recruiting more minorities or a next step beyond. The aim was to provide the "new" populations on campus with the sustenance needed to remain in college, mechanisms for reducing minority attrition and closing the revolving door of recruitment and drop out. This translated into a cornucopia of activities including compensatory services, financial aid, counseling, support groups, extracurricular activities, special residential units, and academic programs in areas such as African-American and women's studies. A third diversity goal, very much a product of the late 1970s and early 1980s, is integration. The aim is to incorporate historically underrepresented groups, which have become segregated, isolated or marginalized on campus, into the larger collegiate population. This has involved the creation of orientation programs for minority populations and less frequently majority students, the adoption of general education diversity requirements, and a variety of extracurricular activities focusing on themes like conflict resolution and tolerance training. A fourth and final notion of diversity, which emerged in the late 1980s and continues into the present, is pluralism or multiculturalism. Here the aim is to create a balance between commonalties and differences in the people who make up the college community, in essence celebrating both each and all. This extends across an entire campus embracing the intellectual, emotional and physical needs of students, faculty, and staff as well as the scholarly, curricular, extracurricular, support and service programs of the college. The goal is equity among diverse cultures and commonality across them with an ideal of a balance between pluribus and unum. These four sets of goals mark distinct periods in both the histories of the United States and higher education. They entail fundamentally different notions of diversity. In the first two instances, as originally conceived, the population of minorities is small and diversity is thought of as an add-on to existing higher education. The focus is on providing opportunity to previously excluded populations. There is little or no thought to what the addition of diverse populations might mean to collegiate life. Campus life is expected to go on unchanged. In the third instance, the minority population has grown, and must be grafted into the existing college community. The aim is to be aware of differences among populations attending college, but the emphasis is still principally on maintaining unum, the previously existing commonalties the community shared. Within this context, new populations are to be recognized and made to feel at home. The fourth is rooted in further increases in minority populations and the rise of a growing number of groups defined as minority. It recognizes both commonality and difference and seeks to create a new community culture, which incorporates both. Our notions of diversity are contradictory and inconsistent. The nation's colleges are attempting to achieve in varying degree all four of the diversity goals, though the presidential conversations focused largely on the first two. Over the past four decades, institutions of higher education proceeded to adopt each of the diversity agendas in turn, rarely completing any one and simply moving onto the next as demanded by the times. The result is a set of incomplete and incompatible diversity initiatives and conflicting purposes on most of America's college campuses. The issue is so controversial and the environment so heated that few campuses have sorted out the pieces or defined their goals for diversity.
Conclusion Put simply, we do not have the luxury of time with regard to diversity. We need to act. Our situation is this. * The meaning of diversity is poorly defined. * Goals for diversity are unclear and conflicting. * Most colleges and universities lack comprehensive and systematic plans for achieving diversity. * Presidents are not providing adequate leadership. * Students are divided and tension around diversity is high. * Faculty involvement is low. * Student affairs is inappropriately being asked to assume responsibility for the diversity agenda. * The curriculum is a grab bag of unplanned diversity initiatives. * The extracurriculum, though rich in diversity activities, lacks intellectual depth, is largely unconnected with the academic side of higher education, and is largely ignored by the faculty. * Academic culture has grown weak and fails to provide colleges and universities with a shared set of beliefs and values that go beyond the differences that divide people. * Campuses are unable to discuss the issue of diversity. Discourse is dominated by two small, but vociferous groups--one yelling that diversity has eclipsed all other aspects of college life and the other shouting that colleges remain impervious to diversity. Meanwhile, the rest of the campus community attempts to avoid the issue. In this environment, a climate of political correctness prevails. * As such, colleges and universities are unable to persuasively explain to the public their purposes, goals, plans, practices, and accomplishments with regard to diversity. This makes it easier for critics to attack practices like affirmative action and harder for institutions to defend them.
An Agenda There is an agenda for every campus and an agenda for higher education collectively. For individual institutions, our needs are seven. 1. Presidents need to provide leadership on the issue of diversity. 2. The entire campus community needs to be engaged in the issue--faculty, students, staff, and trustees. 3. The campus needs to develop mechanisms for safe, candid college-wide discussions regarding diversity. 4. Colleges need to define clearly the operating definition for diversity on campus and the goals for achieving it. 5. Institutions should develop a comprehensive, long-range plan for diversity detailing timelines, responsible parties, completion dates and resources allocated. 6. Colleges must be able to explain publicly and defend the practices in which they are engaged. 7. Institutions should carry out research on the effectiveness of the methods employed to achieve diversity and the consequences of achieving diversity on campus. For the nation, this is a time of intense debate about the future of diversity. It is also a time in which it is actually possible for colleges and universities to stop, think and plan about what we wish to accomplish with regard to diversity. This moment will be fleeting. I suspect as the rate of student unrest increases regarding the issue of diversity, and it will given the demographics of higher education, that this moment will be replaced by having to respond instantaneously to student protests and demands. This then is a unique time which higher education needs to use well. Higher education has not been an effective actor in the social policy debate on diversity. One of the principal tools for achieving diversity in higher education has been affirmative action, a policy that is being repealed in states like California and Texas. The nation's colleges and universities have been tacitly responsible for these actions. We have been inexplicit in making clear what it is we want to achieve and why we want to achieve it with regard to diversity. This has provided an opportunity for critics to put their own construction on the events occurring on campus. I am a strong supporter of affirmative action. I believe it is the one vehicle our nation has for providing equity for disadvantaged and underrepresented populations at the college level. College campuses which engage in affirmative action have a qualitatively richer campus life intellectually and even socially despite the divides on campuses today. The problem with my opinion is that it is merely an opinion. The higher education community has done a poor job of documenting the case for affirmative action or almost anything else with regard to diversity. We are fortunate in having a comprehensive study by Derek Bok and William Bowen, which provides a strong research base for the claims I and others make for affirmative action. The point is this. It is time for the leading universities in this country to create a national think tank on diversity to study its methods, accomplishments, and consequences. It should engage in research, advocacy, and technical support to colleges and universities. The center could usefully track progress, make recommendation, and develop ideas, programs, and proposals that would provide a framework for individual campuses to set priorities and an action agenda to achieve them. This center could be lodged in a national association such as the American Association of Universities. It could be located in a prestigious organization associated with equity such as the Educational Testing Service. Or it could be freestanding. Once again, the time is short. Action is more important than words. Arthur Levine, Ph.D., is president of Columbia Teachers College. |
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"Pundits
estimate
that by the year 2050 the U. S. will be
a minority majority nation."
