Spring Break
The Daily OrangeGoing with green diversity
By Claire Zillman
Posted: 12/6/07, 1:45 AM EST Section: Opinion
Diversity is a buzzword. It's thrown around in modern speech, most commonly to define a variety of races, skin-tones and ethnicities.
In the past, universities across the country have racially diversified their campuses to give their students a more realistic portrayal of the world.
Now colleges - Syracuse University included - are hoping to add diversity to their campuses, not based on race, but on socioeconomic factors - an initiative that not only uses diversity as more than a racial term, but also gives money to students who sincerely need it.
The programs should be favored over affirmative action because they award financial assistance to students not because they're black or white, but because they come from disadvantaged families who can't afford the outrageous tuitions universities now charge. These programs may not produce a rainbow of students on campus, but that's OK.
On Nov. 15, The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about QuestBridge, a program that matches prestigious universities, like Yale, Columbia and Amherst, with talented, low-income students. These institutions offer those students educations they probably couldn't afford otherwise.
While SU doesn't use QuestBridge, it utilizes about 20 programs similar to QuestBridge in its admissions process, said Christopher Walsh, special assistant in the Office of Enrollment Management]. "SU uses community-based programs because we've found they're better at recruiting underrepresented groups," he said.
One of these programs is Syracuse Challenge, a program in which SU sponsors and counsels Syracuse public school students starting in the eighth grade. If the participating students graduate high school and meet all of the program's requirements, including graduating with a New York State Regents diploma, an 85 percent average for each year of school and an SAT combined score of 1,100, they will be guaranteed acceptance into SU's College of Arts and Sciences.
Walsh said these types of programs sometimes benefit minority students by mere coincidence, but their intention is to help gifted, under-represented students who might never go to college without financial aid.
Programs like QuestBridge and Syracuse Challenge not only provide talented students with free educations, but also bring attention to the socioeconomic diversity of college campuses.
SU students may not be aware of these programs because they add a sort of hidden diversity to the campus. Often, it's hard to tell one's socioeconomic status by their appearance, but Walsh said about 200-300 students are admitted through these programs each year.
While affirmative action-like programs might add the appearance of diversity on a campus, they don't necessarily grant financial assistance to students who need it most.
Shanice John, a junior political science and African American studies major, said students at any university are often "beaten over the head" with initiatives to racially diversify the school. But John said programs that offer advantages to students based solely on race often include outliers who aren't financially disadvantaged.
John said her roommate is black and may be assumed to need financial assistance simply because blacks are often stereotyped as poor. However, John said her roommate comes from an upper-middle class family and doesn't require much monetary help.
While it may be nice to picture one black, one white, one Hispanic and one Asian on the cover of a university brochure, diversity based on socioeconomics, rather than race, might create a truer variety of students since students' personalities, experiences and backgrounds are legitimately different from others, even if they don't appear to be so.
Claire Zillman is a weekly columnist for The Daily Orange. She can be reached at cszillma@syr.edu.
In the past, universities across the country have racially diversified their campuses to give their students a more realistic portrayal of the world.
Now colleges - Syracuse University included - are hoping to add diversity to their campuses, not based on race, but on socioeconomic factors - an initiative that not only uses diversity as more than a racial term, but also gives money to students who sincerely need it.
The programs should be favored over affirmative action because they award financial assistance to students not because they're black or white, but because they come from disadvantaged families who can't afford the outrageous tuitions universities now charge. These programs may not produce a rainbow of students on campus, but that's OK.
On Nov. 15, The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about QuestBridge, a program that matches prestigious universities, like Yale, Columbia and Amherst, with talented, low-income students. These institutions offer those students educations they probably couldn't afford otherwise.
While SU doesn't use QuestBridge, it utilizes about 20 programs similar to QuestBridge in its admissions process, said Christopher Walsh, special assistant in the Office of Enrollment Management]. "SU uses community-based programs because we've found they're better at recruiting underrepresented groups," he said.
One of these programs is Syracuse Challenge, a program in which SU sponsors and counsels Syracuse public school students starting in the eighth grade. If the participating students graduate high school and meet all of the program's requirements, including graduating with a New York State Regents diploma, an 85 percent average for each year of school and an SAT combined score of 1,100, they will be guaranteed acceptance into SU's College of Arts and Sciences.
Walsh said these types of programs sometimes benefit minority students by mere coincidence, but their intention is to help gifted, under-represented students who might never go to college without financial aid.
Programs like QuestBridge and Syracuse Challenge not only provide talented students with free educations, but also bring attention to the socioeconomic diversity of college campuses.
SU students may not be aware of these programs because they add a sort of hidden diversity to the campus. Often, it's hard to tell one's socioeconomic status by their appearance, but Walsh said about 200-300 students are admitted through these programs each year.
While affirmative action-like programs might add the appearance of diversity on a campus, they don't necessarily grant financial assistance to students who need it most.
Shanice John, a junior political science and African American studies major, said students at any university are often "beaten over the head" with initiatives to racially diversify the school. But John said programs that offer advantages to students based solely on race often include outliers who aren't financially disadvantaged.
John said her roommate is black and may be assumed to need financial assistance simply because blacks are often stereotyped as poor. However, John said her roommate comes from an upper-middle class family and doesn't require much monetary help.
While it may be nice to picture one black, one white, one Hispanic and one Asian on the cover of a university brochure, diversity based on socioeconomics, rather than race, might create a truer variety of students since students' personalities, experiences and backgrounds are legitimately different from others, even if they don't appear to be so.
Claire Zillman is a weekly columnist for The Daily Orange. She can be reached at cszillma@syr.edu.
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