Monday, April 28, 2008

Affirmative Action

I promise I will stop talking about Minority Programs, but I am really interested and curious to see what everyone thinks about them...especially if you disagree with them.

This sort of leads into my next comment about universities advertising that their campus is diverse. They demonstrate this by placing a group of students each being from a different ethnicity on the cover of their ads. (There was even a joke about this exact topic at Bear's Place: Comedy Caravan a few months ago.) Do you feel it is "bad" for non-diverse universities to advertise similar to that?

3 Comments:

Blogger Katie Krengel said...

If those students actually attend that university/college, then the institution has every right to put them on the cover of any advertisement. After all, who is the judge of what is diverse and what isn't or what is the tipping point for some place to be called "diverse". Diversity is different for everyone based on their past experiences so you can't really say that a place isn't being truthful because you find that their diversity isn't enough. I believe the university may advertise their campus any way they like, as long as the students pictured actually attend.

10:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On the topic of minority programs, I think there is a place for them in certain circumstances; however, I am an advocate for the most qualified applicant/ candidate being chosen for the position. I feel minority programs are great in order to assure the most qualified applicant does get that position if there is any kind of unconscious discrimination against a particular minority class.

As far as campus diversity, I do not think that campuses should be able to advertise they are diverse if in reality they are not a diverse university. I would be very unhappy if I were the type of ‘diverse’ individual that a school was targeting and received all kinds of ads from the particular school promoting diversity if they are really not a diverse school; I would show up expecting to meet all sorts of people who share some sort of diversity similar to mine and would be very disappointed to discover all of the ads were nothing but a false pretext. I would suggest a college should rather, promote diversity or the desire to acquire more diversity by stating in their ads just that—the university is working very hard to acquire a more diverse population and they would love to reach out to the diverse people. I do not think creating an image of diversity is the answer to gaining a more diverse campus, or making it appear that a non-diverse campus is diverse, it is lying, and I think this could potentially hurt the university more than help it.

4:39 PM  
Blogger Student said...

I agree with Heather and Katie. The university has a duty of honesty--to not misrepresent themselves. Publishing ads that include non-students with varying ethnic backgrounds should be frowned upon. However, regardless of the actual portion of the population "diverse" students represent, I believe a school is justified in advertising their students. The consequence of diversity advertising (if truthful) is most likely to encourage other minority students to attend the school, which has tremendous benefits for students (i.e. they get to learn from the varying backgrounds of their peers).

2:21 PM  

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