Your diverse campus should be your ‘Camelot’
The most recent commentaries about diversity in college admissions took me back, way back to the spring of 1975. I was a freshman in high school involved in publicity and stage crew for the first large-scale musical in our school’s history, Camelot. This show was a great choice. Most of the cast did not need to know or learn how to dance. Later musicals had more dancing.
The play was my first true experience within a diverse student body.
Our cast, crew, pit band and ushers, men and women of different ages, races, religions, and family backgrounds made Camelot a smashing success. It sold out every night for six nights–and not only because parents wanted to see their children on stage. The town changed its name to Camelot for a day and hosted a downtown parade to drive up interest. Camelot involved something like 150 students. I dropped a couple of photos of a student review shared by a former cast member. A recent production of Camelot at New York’s Lincoln Center Theatre also had a diverse cast and direction.
If you visit this site you might wonder: why am I starting this post with a story about a high school musical?
Our high school was a major football power back in those days. But this play united a student body as much as any football game. I learned a lot about how to get along with different people from being involved with the play. Those lessons have stayed with me today. Reflecting on the play led me to listen to a recent version of the title song.. I hope that you will click that link and listen, too. This line stands out for me:
In short there’s simply not a more congenial spot for happily-ever-aftering than here in Camelot.
High school students look forward to finding the college that will be their happily-ever-after place.
Many have been in diverse high school communities in classes and activities like a musical. So, they also hope to find diversity in the campus community that they believe to be their most congenial spot. With few exceptions, such as intercollegiate athletics, students run student activities on campus.
A diverse campus is diverse in more ways than you may realize.
Yes, a diverse campus would have students, men and women, of different ancestries, races, orientations and faiths.
But the larger the school, the more diversity you have in other ways, for example:
- Commuters who must live at home vs. those who live in off-campus housing
- Adults returning to school after some absence, who might also be parents and caregivers
- Part-time students managing classes around jobs
- Military veterans
When you add age and life experience to a diverse campus, you are bound to be exposed to a more diverse set of viewpoints.
What should you hope to find on a diverse campus?
It should have more than clubs, organizations and spaces for multi-cultural programs and activities, and:
- Encourage students to think for themselves by exposing them to different viewpoints.
- Assure aqual access to student success services such as career development, residence life, academic advising and mental health counseling.
- Offer a majority of clubs, organizations and activities where all are welcome to participate.
- Have a policy where speakers of varied viewpoints are not to be harassed or heckled while speaking or responding to questions from an audience.
- Permit protest against anything as long as the protest does not cause physical threat to any person or any person’s property.
- Provide a semblance of a comfort level where a prospective student will feel that they would not be injured or ridiculed, nor deprived of access to common areas and student services.
How can prospective students and their parents get ideas about a diverse campus?
Obviously, they should take a visit beyond the campus tour and information session. Admissions officers and student ambassadors are nice people. But they’re supposed to be nice and present the best picture of a diverse campus, and do that very well.
Here are some ideas to help for before or after the tour and information session are over:
Have a meal at either the dining hall or the main food court.
Pay attention not only to students and who is mingling, but also the music playing. Are the facilities managers trying to accommodate a variety of musical tastes?
Consider the food selection.
Can you eat what you would like to eat, and does it look like others are happy as they get their meals? I’ve heard my share of “they don’t know how to make (ethnic dish)” comments from college campuses. Ideally, everyone should find something to fit their tastes and diets.
Attend campus events.
Watch how the audience treats a visiting team or guest speaker. Imagine yourself on that visiting team or addressing that audience. How would you feel if you were treated poorly?
And here are some things that you can do at home:
Listen to love/hate student YouTubes produced by current students or those who just graduated.
What are they saying about the school? Ideally, listen to students who are different from you and get different takes. For instance, I got a very different view of UNC-Chapel Hill when I listened to a YouTube produced by eight Black students two years ago.
Look at the photos of the editorial board for the online versions of the student newspaper, student government and the Greek councils.
They’re chosen by students. Does the leadership appear diverse? For one example, click to the page on the online version of the Rutgers Daily Targum, the oldest college daily in the country. You should also look at the news articles and see how the paper covers events and controversial topics.
Watch some of the large campus events online.
Again, imagine yourself on that visiting team or addressing that audience. How would you feel if you were treated poorly?
Read reviews.
I have found Niche and Cappex reviews useful for getting student perspectives on a school. Niche reviews allow students to see different perspectives as well as opinions about the overall educational experience.
I hope these ideas will be a useful start, and welcome readers to submit their thoughts. Diversity may not be easy to see at every college; the same is true for its acceptance and celebration. But at the same time you will find schools and school communities that are quite proud of their efforts not only toward attracting diverse students, but also towards guiding them to direction and graduation and helping them to build a network for life.
Many college administrators will talk about the importance of having a diverse campus.
The idea of a diverse campus will not go away, especially for schools that recruit heavily in a diverse region within a half-day’s drive. But college-bound students and their parents should do the work ahead of time to help make sure that their diverse campus will be their happily ever after, aka their Camelot.
Want to know more about me?
Buy my new book, The Good College!
Listen to my latest interview on ‘Tests and the Rest’ with Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin!
Check out my talk, What Exactly Is a Good College? hosted by test-prep experts Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin on Tests And The Rest!
Listen to my talk, College Is A Learning AND Living Community hosted by Dr. Cynthia Colon from Destination YOUniversity on Voice of America Radio!
