SAMANTHA BLONS
Assistant News Editor
Each fall, the Admissions staff for Seaver College pores over thousands of applications from Pepperdine hopefuls. As they sift through essays, transcripts and letters of recommendation, they attempt to put together a class that will not only be academically strong, but also reflects diverse backgrounds and contributes to a rich educational community.
The controversy in diversifying a college campus, however, lies in where to draw the line between attracting a multiplicity of people and ideas, and implementing a form of affirmative action.
In the past two decades, Pepperdine’s undergraduate population has seen a significant increase in the number of students from a racial minority. In 1990, for example, black students comprised only 2.6 percent of the Seaver student body. That percentage has more than tripled among domestic students, and the school has seen an increase in the number of Asian, Native American and Hispanic students as well.
Intercultural Affairs Coordinator Don Lawrence said Pepperdine has been making important strides toward student diversity in its many forms, including socio-economic, geographic, ethnic and racial, as well as toward building a more gender-balanced student body.
“We’ve come a long way, particularly over the last 10 years,” he said. “But that does not mean there’s not still room for improvement.”
Research suggests that students who attend college in a diverse environment have more enriching learning experiences than those who do not, Lawrence said.
“The more diverse we are, the better everyone’s educational experience here will be,” he said. “Pep is moving forward in all these areas, but it’s not something that happens overnight.”
There is a debate within higher education as to what role race should play admissions decisions.
Director of Admissions Michael Truschke wrote in an e-mail that while racial diversity is a factor in student admissions, “there is no single characteristic or attribute that is the trump card that will get a student through the admission process.”
Lawrence said he thinks if two equally qualified students, one white and one from an under-represented background, have applied to a college has made a commitment to ethnic diversity, then that school should choose the under-represented student.
But not everyone agrees that one’s demographics should be a factor in admissions decisions.
“I tend to think that gender and skin color should not be considered,” said Dr. John Elliot, visiting assistant professor of business. Although he recognizes that the issue is not as simple as making admissions practices “color-blind,” he said for the most part, “we should make decisions just on the applicant’s qualifications.”
But Elliot, like most of his colleagues, agrees diversity is essential in a university setting.
And there is no question that Pepperdine is becoming more ethnically diverse. In 1990, white students comprised nearly 73 percent of the Seaver student body that was from the United States. Black students accounted for 2.6 percent, Asians for 5.6 percent, Hispanics for almost 5 percent, and Native Americans for less than 1 percent.
In 2006, white students made up 60 percent of the domestic student population, while blacks, Hispanics and Asians each represented between 8 and 10 percent. The Native American student population more than doubled as well.
However, despite changes among domestic student demographics, diversity at Seaver is decreasing in its international student population.
The percentage of international students has been steadily dropping since the late 1980s.
In 1988, 11.3 percent of the student body was from a foreign country. That percentage has dropped significantly and has been hovering in the 6 to 7 percent range since 2002.
Along with striving for ethnic diversity, Seaver has also been making strides toward a more gender-balanced student population, Truschke wrote. Each of the past two incoming freshman classes were 55 percent female and 45 percent male, making them the most gender-balanced classes in the past 15 years.
The nationwide trend of fewer men applying to four-year institutions resulted in unbalanced gender ratios in recent years.
“We have been extremely pleased with our numbers for the past two new classes,” Truschke wrote. He maintained that admissions standards were not lowered to allow for more male students.
“At this time we have not had to alter our admission practices in order to account for our more balanced class,” he wrote. “The enrollment statistics for men and women are very similar.”
Opponents of diversity-based admissions practices are concerned that using race and gender as admissions factors borders on affirmative action, and could deny a qualified white student admission to a prestigious university in favor of one from a minority background.
Lawrence said the first problem with this line of thinking is the assumption that the minority student is the less qualified of the two.
“The presumption that diversity brings everything down is faulty; it’s actually very biased,” he said. Lawrence, who worked in the admissions offices at other universities for six years, advocates using ethnic minority status as an admissions factor, in addition to all the other factors.
“I’m not promoting a form of affirmative action, but I’m promoting an admissions process that allows for greater access to those that are underrepresented in higher education,” he said.
Lawrence stresses that striving for a diverse student body does not mean Pepperdine will have to sacrifice qualified students.
“Academic excellence and diversity are not mutually exclusive,” he said. “We can have both.”
10-04-2007