Diversity: A Complex Issue

Diversity is a highly charged and sometimes misunderstood concept. The academy faces its own share of tensions and misunderstandings about what it is and how it should or should not be conceived and practiced within our universities and colleges. While the term commonly connotes notions of race, ethnic or gender balances in various aspects of how our society is organized, I (and many of my colleagues) experience diversity as a much more complex notion. This is especially true in a liberal arts setting like William and Mary where we are deeply committed to providing our students with the academic (and social) skills that will allow them to critically understand how societies work, as well as to function effectively on a global stage.  From this vantage point, a diverse student body, a diverse faculty and a generally diverse campus provide us with a win-win scenario. All of us profit from the wealth of experiences and perspectives that people from different backgrounds bring to our campus.  I know my classes will be enriched immeasurably when students represent a healthy mix gender-wise; when various races and ethnicities are represented; when students represent different social classes and when there is a solid mix of students from different states and countries. Finally, let us not forget the importance of having students who hail from different parts of the state–who represent a sound mix of rural, urban and suburban locations within Virginia. My only regret–especially as I teach a course on Aging–is that our student body is so homogeneous when it comes to age.

Teaching sociology provides me a wonderful opportunity to appreciate not only the complexities of diversity but also the many ways that a diverse student body adds intellectual vigor and interest to the classroom. Let me provide a brief example that illustrates my point. In my introductory sociology class, some of the liveliest discussions in the classroom are those in which we examine dominant values in contemporary U.S. society. One such value, freedom, led to a lively discussion on the right to bear arms in a recent class. A young woman from rural Virginia argued that her rural culture so celebrated this freedom that her high school canceled classes on the first day of the hunting season; several other students from rural backgrounds chimed in with similar observations. Some students from urban areas, taken aback, presented counter arguments on the dangers of open access to guns, with some inner city students vehemently decrying the problems in their neighborhoods that resulted from easy access to firearms. I complicated the debate by weighing in with the perspective of one who grew up in a society (Ireland) where citizens are legally forbidden to carry arms. In the end, students gained a greater appreciation for how complicated are the issues that surround a society’s values-especially how they are shaped and how they change over time to reflect changes in society. Thus, our discussion was deepened by perspectives that might not come immediately to mind when we think about diversity: rural/urban perspectives, as well as the views of those who have lived in countries other than the U.S.

Of course students learn from professors and from what they read. Learning from peers, however, has special import for them; students tend to remember discussions where they and their peers have actively engaged a topic. Consequently, to the extent that we can have not only lively discussion in our classes but also discussion from multiple and diverse viewpoints, we provide our students with a critical foundation to nurture intellectual curiosity. We also help meet one of our most important goals as educators–to foster intellectual breadth and depth.