The Daily Orange opinion piece about the increasing diversity of Syracuse University students makes a number of points. I would like to address three of them.

First, the Editorial Board argues that current approaches reverse the efforts of three decades. This is backward. In 2002 the acceptance rate was 80 percent. Today it’s more than 20 percentage points lower.

Second, the Editorial Board suggests that we must choose between inclusiveness, on the one hand, and selectivity and prestige, on the other. It is specious to suggest the choice is between quality and diversity. This is the form of attack communities often face when change occurs. I bet it occurred nationally when Oberlin College admitted African-American students for the first time. It also was visible in discussions when Bryn Mawr opened as a women’s college. Edward Clarke prophesied in ‘Sex in Education’ that the human race was doomed, that women would no longer procreate and that women’s ovaries would dry up. Efforts to open up educational opportunities for different segments of the population bring out those who are afraid of change even as they enable people who did not have a chance at a quality higher education like SU offers to have that chance.

Third, the writer suggests that ‘putting the value of campus diversity aside,’ we consider other issues. We cannot put campus diversity aside. We must put it at the center of our efforts in order that it not linger at the margins. Social change needs vision, energy and plans to accomplish. That is what this effort at an inclusive and quality institution demands and what has been put into place.

Sari Knopp Biklen

Laura and Douglas Meredith Professor

Chair, Cultural Foundations of Education

Published on February 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm