The Red and Black

Diversity. Wait, don’t skim over this just because the word may seem worn-out and old hat.

Folks at the admissions office are patting themselves on the back – and they should. Black and Hispanic student enrollment is up, and this year’s freshmen class is the most diverse in the University’s history.

But statistics don’t alleviate the real problem on this campus — that we lack a climate of inclusion.

Some of my readers may be thinking, “But she’s white, how can she speak on this topic?

Before coming to the University, I experienced being one of few white girls on my track-and-field team in high school.

Once, at my overwhelmingly white, former college in North Carolina, a friend (also white) and I attended a meeting of the school’s Black Cultural Society.

At the meeting, my friend and I expected a discussion on an English department document then circulating campus criticizing black dialect.

Instead, we engaged in the subject of race. The result: a conversation where both sides shared similar fears and hopes.

The experience was uncomfortable, enlightening and very necessary for me to become a more intelligent, well-informed, discerning college student.

Last year I had an opportunity to learn more about Asian-American culture from my Korean roommate. Sometimes the subject of ethnicity creptcautiously into our conversations. Often times we blatantly teased each other.

But she constantly educated me on the racism she endured and the unspeakable nasty comments flung at her outside bars on Friday nights.

My experiences with diversity here have been isolated and occasional. This is disappointing, but I know a simple solution: we need to talk to each other.

This means trading the iPods and cell phones for quality, face-to-face conversation.

If the University is serious about climbing the ranks of academic rigor, it should take a lesson from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. According to 2004 data from its Office of Institutional Research, the college’s student body of 16,525 students was sliced this way: 74.3 percent white, 10.9 percent black, 6.8 percent Asian, 2.8 percent Hispanic and 0.9 percent American Indian.

In the same year, the University had 24,619 undergraduates, with 86.4 percent white, 4.6 percent black, 4.8 percent Asian, 1.8 percent Hispanic and 0.9 percent American Indian.

U.S. News and World Report ranked UNC 27th in the country overall, while the University trailed at 58th.

UNC also earned a top-ten spot in The Princeton Review’s “happiest students” category

A diverse campus ameliorates the higher education process. Sound far-fetched?

I don’t think so.

Nearly every non-white person I talk to tells me we’re behind the eight-ball when it comes to racial integration.

Fellow students, start talking now — we all have much to learn.

— Kathleen Frey is a news stringer for The Red & Black

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