Just that with an isolated school that has a fairly defined vibe it seems like more could be gained by admitting, for lack of a better term, more sensitive people who are already attracted to the school. My D attends a liberal, welcoming campus that tries but has trouble attracting a diverse student body. My kids attended a VERY diverse high school and it was definitely weird for her to be in such a white environment. However, lack of visible diversity doesn’t meant that students who are white and middle class can’t have more dialogue and more awareness and a broader outlook. Her school is a great place but just not that attractive to the broad brush of humanity. They TRY to attract more minorities, but that isn’t the sole answer or in my view the most efficient way to change outlooks and attitudes of the majority student population. Telling minorities that “you need to come here so we can be exposed to more diversity” just doesn’t sound that appealing as a sales pitch.
@saintfan. I agree about trying to admit more tolerant students but I am not sure how the University can really go about that. It’s not as if students go about advertising that they are racists. I would imagine that any hints in an application that indicate a lack of tolerance or racism would be red flags for adcoms anyway. I was certainly not suggesting that the “pitch” to minorities should be “you need to come here so we can be exposed to more diversity”. Presumably the pitch to minorities would be the quality of the education and opportunities available – if a University can’t offer that at a minimum then they might as well pack up and close the doors. So I think Bucknell should continue to try to increase minority applications (and enrolled students) while at the same time provide support (academic, social, etc.) for the minority populations on campus and continue to increase tolerance on campus through diversity training, continued dialogue, etc. I don’t think it’s OK for Bucknell to give up and just say “well, we’re in the middle of nowhere, why would minorities want to come here…” And I think that Bucknell is committed to continuous improvement in this area although progress may not be as fast as many would wish.
Bucknell’s location in rural or small town Pennsylvania may make it difficult to attract more black students.
Pennsylvania overall was found to have a relatively high rate of “racially charged” Google searches (i.e. searches for insulting terms for black people).
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/can-google-predict-the-impact-of-racism-on-a-presidential-election/258322/
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/51d894bee4b01caf88ccb4f3/t/51d89ab3e4b05a25fc1f39d4/1373149875469/RacialAnimusAndVotingSethStephensDavidowitz.pdf
Note that Pennsylvania is #3 (behind only Louisiana and West Virginia) on this dubious measure.
further down in those comments is one from someone who claimed to have heard recordings of the entire show, during the schools evaluation of the incident, and that there was no reference to a parody
I think that this episode raises more general concerns about Bucknell’s campus culture inasmuch as nobody within its community sounded alarms about the program. The college’s administration must have been mortified to hear about it from an outside prisoners’ advocate.
You can do as much out reach as you want, Lewisburg, Pa is always going to be a tough sell to urban kids, black, green, purple or white. In that sense, I agree with @saintfan. The school should be trying to find kids of whatever color and ethnic background who will be happy attending school in the Bucknell bubble. Not every school needs to be Berkeley.
“Not every school needs to be Berkeley.” Meaning what?
Meaning that there should be a place for kids who either 1)don’t share the ultra liberal politics of many college campuses (Berkeley being the proud standard bearer of that genre for many years) or 2)want to attend a small college in a rural environment. What did you think I meant?
Berkeley, the school, has changed a little bit. The town…not so much.
There are a lot of conservative students at Berkeley. Outside Sproul Hall, where students park themselves and represent their clubs, there are quite a few religious organizations represented.
I don’t remember this 40 years ago. 40 years…scary.
I know what you mean. I went with my oldest on college visits last spring and when we were at Bucknell I remember thinking wait a minute, it couldn’t have been that long ago.
I think it is a large assumption that conservative leaning = racist. There have been viscious racist incidences in all areas and many kinds of schools, including areas known to be liberal like California. African American students have raised concerns at UCLA and the recent display of anti-Semitism there was personally sickening to me.
Do we judge a whole school, political movement, and type of person on the basis of some idiotic and poorly brought up students who think it is OK to mouth off in the radio, a bus, or any other event? Yes, there should be consequences for that kind of behavior and in many cases there are. However, once we start judging a whole group of people, or an entire college on the basis of the actions of a few, that can lead to false assumptions.
Kids have spent 17 -18 years of their lives somewhere else before they bring this kind of behavior to campus. If they are saying this kind of thing at college, then they heard it somewhere before. Colleges can- and should- do what they can to make sure it is not tolerated on campus.
Bucknell is a Posse school, which is a positive step toward attracting URMs. But the rural and/or “privileged” schools that are the most successful in this area are the ones that make it a top priority, and which devote substantial time and resources to attracting a diverse student body.
As the parent of an URM (rural schools)/ORM (either coast) who looked at 20 LACs, I’ve been impressed by the programs some schools in the midwest and south have in place for supporting students who are outside the majority on campus. I’ve spoken to a number of students of color at these schools, and the rate of satisfaction seems to correlate directly with whether they feel valued by the school, and not as much on whether the surrounding area is necessarily diverse.
Didn’t know what you meant, which is why I asked.
MWD3, what’s a “Posse school?”
LakeWashington – You can read about the Posse “Movement” (not Program) and the 52 participating colleges and universities here:
@Pennylane2011 Fair point about judging a school by a few students, I am guilty of that. I guess it’s just a factor of how brazen this was…
@ohiodad51 I agree with most of what you have stated. By way of disclosure, I’m a man of color (and also played FB in college) and agree that if you are not use to such insulated surroundings, it can take a bit to become acclimated. My niece went there from a rather diverse and urban area of NJ and had a difficult time not with school per se, but the environment. I think many people from the AA community (and least in the mid-atlantic area), associate Lewisburg with the federal pen, versus this very solid school–and I think that is entirely unfortunate.
I will say that an institution need not have overt animus for it to be unwelcoming, as there are a whole host of factors that may contribute to their lack of numbers regarding greater diversity…
@boolaHI I am not African American, but came from an economic and social demographic far different than the average Bucknellian at that time. It was a difficult transition for me, far harder for a good friend who happened to be African American (and also a linebacker) and from a similar economic demographic to my own. As I am sure you can appreciate, football gave all of us different kids a bit of a haven in an otherwise strange world when we got there. But in addition to the social safety net of the football team, Lewisburg provided other comfortable surroundings for me. I had hunted and fished my whole life,and spent a good deal of time out doors. Soon enough, I gravitated to those classmates who did the same and the wonders of the Susquehanna Valley was our playground for four years. So yes, while it was easier as a lower class white kid like myself to blend in at Bucknell than it was for Kal as a black kid, I also had the advantage of my upbringing away from the crowded urban areas of the east coast, and could find pleasure in the outdoors and the rural aspect of Bucknell whereas he grew up outside of Bayone. So it was kind of a triple whammy. Rich kids, mostly white, in the middle of nowhere. For the right impressionable guy (like me at a less cynical age) who was only dealing with one social shock (the money part) it was very much a Thereauvian mind trip to take a greek philosophy course at 8 am and then be deer hunting by noon. For a lot of my friends not of the prep school/Cherry Hill/Delbarton persuasion who didn’t appreciate the outdoors, it took a lot longer to feel comfortable at Bucknell. And that is kinda my point. Bucknell is a unique place, and it has to be challenging to get urban kids, let alone urban minority kids to come to school there. I am not sure what really can be done about that, frankly.
@Ohiodad51 Yup–When the makeup is more Choate, than Orange, NJ, difficulty will arise. One of the things my niece mentioned was not so much a waspy factor (while that certainly played into it), rather many of the kids had hopes and/or expectations of going the IVY route, and an ensuing inferiority complex formed , and it thus created hyper competition within the student body–she said that was very stressful.
Alas, we came from a different time–for good or bad–when back in black meant AC/DC and a really good kegger. As I shared on a previous post, right before I got on the plane for summer-camp (you know how that is) freshmen year, my mom ( a single mom at that) handed me 5 crisp 20s, and said to me " here you go–make it last, and see if you can get a part-time holiday job, so you can get home for xmas." I ended bunking with this theology major from India for the holidays (they kept it open for some of us)-him introducing me to curries and the such, and me teaching him the nuance and vagaries of dominos–yes it was certainly a different time.
LOL. My dad was a single parent as well. He borrowed a car to come out and watch me play in my first varsity start, in which I promptly tore a tendon in my ankle and missed the rest of the year. What did he have to say? He wanted to talk about a blitz pick up he was convinced I missed earlier in the game, and said I had to make sure and study extra hard because now that I was hurt I didn’t want to give the coach a reason to be ticked off at me. Empathy was pretty much just an SAT word in my house.