We are from Ohio so our concerns with respect to LGBTQ diversity has to do with the safety of the surrounding community. There are parts of Ohio where this would be no big deal at all and other parts where we would have real safety concerns if our daughter was out with her girlfriend.
22% US students of color is actually not that many when you are at a small school and happen to be a student of color. According to their stats, they only admitted 7 multi-racial kids last year, which is a pretty small cohort for my daughter to belong to. There did seem to be some community-building activities for Black students, but we aren’t sure how or if other kids of color find community on campus. We really loved the diversity of the international students and considered that to be a huge plus. Most other campuses we’ve visited have had overwhelmingly Chinese students in their international population. My daughter is studying Chinese so in some ways, that is a positive, but the large numbers from one country can lead to (understandably!) less interest in mixing with other students.
We were also surprised that in 4 hours of panels and sessions, not one mention was made of diversity at all. No mention of special programs or inclusion or anything from anyone (though their was a flier about the diversity center in the packet if information). On other LAC tours we have been on, tour guides have addressed both gender/sexuality and racial diversity and how the school addresses them as part of their spiel. I did feel we got honest answers and good suggestions about how to get more information when I asked the admissions guy about it, which was great. He didn’t flinch at all when I asked. I was a little concerned that nothing was mentioned because the administration (overwhelmingly white at these events) weren’t quite comfortable addressing it. I hope that isn’t the case and we didn’t go on an official tour, so we will wait and see how it is addressed there before we worry too much about it. We will meet with the diversity office the next time we go, too.
We know every school will not be perfect and these issues haven’t turned us off at all so far. It is just an area for more exploration as we move forward.
**In case anyone happens upon this post later looking for discussions about diversity, there is a FB group where parents are trying to share resources around diversity and college searches called Belonging: College for Diverse Identities.