Collegiate Times

Luckily we have the university to do that thinking for us. While some might argue that the only way we can ever become a more "diverse" school (there's that word again), is to insist that faculty members work tirelessly to promote it on the educational level, ultimately the push for diversity should not trump all other kinds of service that the faculty provide.

When it comes down to it, sure faculty "workshops" on diversity might help from a public relations standpoint, but the real way that Tech will ultimately become more diverse is by reaching out to a more diverse group of high school seniors. The key to creating a diverse campus climate is looking to the high school level. Once students have been admitted to Tech, it's entirely difficult, if not impossible to inspire thousands of students to care about, let alone think about, something they feel does not affect them. If the administration is unhappy with the current diversity of the student body, it should be working with admissions to pursue students with a variety of backgrounds and the have the academic achievement to match. Admitting a more diverse group of students to Tech - whether in the ethnic, geographic, religious, socioeconomic or other sense - would instantly alter the campus climate. Faculty members wouldn't have to seek out diverse organizations to support because almost every organization would be more diverse.

However, the current requirements on the promotion of diversity interfere with the academic freedoms granted to faculty members on this campus. Hopefully individual faculty members will choose to promote these ideals, but CLAHS should not so directly affect course readings and research on this subject.

Diversity should be held as important, but ultimately it is an ideology. Faculty members should feel free to provide service through projects and organizations they see fit. While classroom performance isn't the only factor in evaluating faculty performance, it should certainly be high up on the list. (Research doesn't hurt, either.) Commitment to diversity should be held as another important criterion, which faculty members should be encouraged to participate in.

There should not, however, be an instituted service requirement if faculty members wish to keep their jobs or receive promotions. An enforcement of this idea undermines not only the idea of faculty research, but also may lead to another, more disturbing outcome: a facade of interest in diversity while building resentment toward the entire enterprise.

The editorial board is composed of David Grant, David Harries, Laurel Colella, Jenna Marson and Alexandra Kaufmann.  

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