Jack Sweeney
Editor-in-Chief
This year’s incoming class is the most diverse in CC’s history.
Whether you agree or disagree with the way diversity is achieved, there can be no doubt as to the value of minority representation on campus.
I take that back. To label diversity as simply a “value” to an institution is to suggest that minority representation is on par with such values as, say, a larger gym or smaller student-to-faculty ratio.
Equitable class and race representation are the prerequisites to a legitimate liberal arts education. A worldly, well-rounded academic experience in its essence should foster a community representative of the very world we are about to enter.
Before we pat ourselves on the back for our most diverse year yet, there is still work to be done.
For the ’13-’14 school year, we were far behind many notable liberal-arts institutions due to our rather homogenous student body, according to a U.S. News and World Report study.
This issue can easily be shirked as a problem with the admissions office. However, getting minorities here is half of the deal. Before we ask ourselves how we can build a statistically diverse class in the future, we should precede with the question, “What am I doing for the minorities on campus right now?”
CC events and classrooms have a tendency to be as white as the top of Pikes. Case in point: Winterfest.
As a community we must ask ourselves, “Do we encourage a culture of inclusion? Of belonging?”
This past week, I was lucky enough to be in the right loop of people to hear about and attend the panel on Ferguson and the subsequent “walkout” in front of Worner.
For those of you who were there, I’m sure you remember the power of the words spoken that day. The greatest change is that which begins at home, and let’s make sure CC is just that—a home.