Opinion: We need to promote diversity on campus with new & updated POC recruitment programs and cultural competency workshops
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When I walk down University Ave. during peak hours, I often get the sense that I am a fish out of water. It is a beautiful area. I can see that. But sometimes, the anxiety of being one of a small population of Latinos at the university is enough to jumpstart hyperawareness of my difference from the majority. The feeling is alleviated by the sight or interaction with other Latino or POC students.
In predominantly white institutions, POC students often feel hyper aware of their ethnic identities, look for more POC-welcoming environments, change their behavior to fit white social standards and in some cases, find themselves victims of racial discrimination and prejudice.
These feelings in POC students would be solved if there were more people on campus who looked like them and shared similar experiences and if students were encouraged to take cultural competency workshops. This also raised the question that if affirmative action was still in place, would it help bring more POC students to the UO and change the culture on campus for incoming students of color?
Studies on diversity’s positive effects on student bodies at large show that students of color thrive and the graduation rate increases on diverse campuses. In addition to promoting a sense of welcoming and belonging for POCs, greater racial and ethnic diversity enhances the college experience for non-POCs as well. Students develop greater critical thinking skills and gain complex thinking abilities, as well as social and historical thinking skills.
There would also be less overt interpersonal racism. UO would benefit from a dose of change and diversity, considering there are still instances of aggression and racism that occur toward POC students on campus.
In an interview with the Daily Emerald, Luis Renteria,the senior assistant director of admissions at UO, spoke on the university’st admissions process, diversity and affirmative action.
“The SCOTUS decisions don’t affect us in any way,” Renteria said. “It won’t impede us to actually recruit students.”
“What we are doing is we are focusing on what we can do as far as recruitment through our programs, college advocacy programs and provide support for students who are underrepresented and underserved,” Renteria said. “We have been very consistent with these programs. It is one of the reasons why we have been growing diversity on our campus.”
Programs focusing on recruiting BIPOC students are a step in the right direction. While the admissions department’s efforts to increase diversity are appreciated, they just don’t have the same effect as affirmative action which was repealed by the Supreme Court earlier this year.
And even though not every POC comes from an socioeconomically disadvantaged place, it would be disingenuous to dismiss the large populations of those all over the U.S. who do and that affirmative action would not drastically improve diversity, retention and culture in PWIs.
Many other POCs come from underserved and overpoliced communities, underfunded school systems and grew up under the heels of poverty. This experience is one that, again, does not apply to all POC students but is not uncommon at all. Affirmative action retained disadvantaged students of color when it was active and facilitated an increase in POCs gaining admittance and graduation rates. It helps break the shackles of cyclical poverty for social mobility, all while changing the culture of inclusivity on campus as well.
Although I am disappointed in the SCOTUS decision, there is some hope. For now, we depend on admissions officers like Renteria to advocate for improving and continuing the use of programs for economically disadvantaged POC students, and perhaps even faculty members who see this can establish cultural competency workshops on campus.