EDITORIAL: CMU making progress on diversity, but more must be done
Maintaining a diverse campus – not only for statistical purposes, but to genuinely offer an inviting atmosphere for all cultures – is essential to the growth of any college or university.
As global communication continues to expand and the world itself becomes more diverse, it's important that Central Michigan University keeps in line with these standards.
As reported by Central Michigan Life on Monday, CMU recently reported a small but notable increase in minority students for the 2013-14 school year.
About 80 percent of enrolled students identify as caucasian, which is entirely expected in a predominately white region of a predominately white state.
However, this figure has been steadily declining. In 2003, 86 percent of campus identified as caucasian.
The university is taking positive steps toward increasing diversity among students on campus, but this process wasn't done over night.
For starters, the Office for Institutional Diversity added some foundation. Through the office's programs and activities for students, diversity has been promoted more aggressively on campus than in years prior. The OID periodically assesses the institution’s long-term diversity goals in addition to offering programs and activities for students to learn through a clear and concise atmosphere.
The Office of Multicultural Academic Student Services has helped students, of all ethnicities, adjust to the cultural and ethnic atmosphere at CMU. Additionally, the College 101 program encourages economic diversity on campus, and Multicultural Advisers in residence halls encourage students to partake in programs and activities that educate them about other cultures.
However, we are still leagues behind other schools like Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan, which have a white concentration of 64.9 and 67.4 percent, respectively.
It is important for the university to continue to monitor its diversity statistics and to examine ways in which to promote it. In the long term, more diversity could mean better enrollment figures for CMU.
Aggressively recruiting minority students not only could make CMU stand out in their minds, but it could also make CMU more appealing to a student looking for a diverse campus.
Through exposure to a variety of cultures, students learn from and gain acceptance of those different from them. The world is a very diverse place; the sooner students grasp this, the better off they will be upon their arrival into the real world, and the more diverse CMU is, the more marketable it becomes to students outside of Michigan.
