BY HOPE WEBB AND GORDON CEPURAN
Students at Bradley often stereotype their own student body as stereotypically dominated by white engineering students from the suburbs of Chicago.
One resource for students on campus is the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, formerly called the Office of Student Multicultural Student Services.
Director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion Norris Chase said he feels passionately about the importance of diversity on campus.
“When we talk about diversity that just means differences,” Chase said. “Diversity is important in a lot of ways because it challenges us to be different. It challenges us to think outside of the norm that we probably haven’t been exposed to.”
Chase is in his fourth year at Bradley serving as an advocate for traditionally underrepresented students. He has his master’s degree in education.
“There are people who deal with discrimination in today’s world. We’re still having a conversation about women and equal pay. We’re still having a conversation about how to provide quality services to people who identify as LGBT,” Chase said.
“There’s research that shows that teams that are more diverse are more effective. There’s research that shows people who have diverse ideals and communicate with people with different ideas have more productive thoughts or project goals,” he added.
This video about the Office of Diversity and Inclusion can be found here.
Sophomore elementary education major Kaylee Bortscheller said she is unsure if Bradley has a problem with diversity.
“The majority of people in my classes are white females like me,” she said. “But I’m not sure if that’s just my discipline or what.”
However, Bortscheller said she does see a problem with racist and sometimes hateful comments, particularly on social media.
“I see and hear a lot of racist comments against Indian students on campus,” she said.
Bortscheller said the most frustrating part for her is seeing people try to backtrack or justify their racist comments.
“After someone posts something and people call them out on being racist, the poster will retaliate by saying something like ‘Why do we live in such a politically correct society?’ claiming they’re being censored, as if being politically correct is a bad thing” she said.
Borscheller referenced articles such as these that help to strengthen her opinion on political correctness.
“I don’t quite understand why it’s such a big deal to the people who post these things,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to worry about the world being too politically correct if you’re just being a decent person. Just monitor your own speech and don’t blame it on the world becoming too P.C.”
Bortscheller added that these comments largely appear on anonymous platforms, such as the pseudo-anonymous location-based social media platform, YikYak.
Click here to read a Bradley Scout article about the anonymity of YikYak.
Imani Brown, senior journalism major, said she feels diversity is particularly important at Bradley, because of its predominately white student body.
“I love being at Bradley,” she said. “I think I serve a greater purpose here even though I am part of the minority.”
Brown is a part of the peer mentor program at the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, a leadership role she said she feels blessed to have.
“It’s important for students to know that the world does not look one specific way,” Brown said. “The world is made up of different people from different cultures and different backgrounds, so if our college campuses look like that, students are better prepared to go out and change the world, make it a better place for everyone.”
But how diverse is Bradley, really? Let’s take a look at the numbers (note: some percentages are unaccounted for due to participants choosing not to identify their ethnicity).
From 2006 to 2014, Bradley has seen a fall in students who identify as predominately white by 11.5 percent (data from the years 2015 and 2016 was not available). Additionally, from 2006 to 2012, Bradley’s African American population rose 2 percent, its Asian population rose almost 1 percent, and its Hispanic population more than doubled.
The number of Caucasian students enrolled at Bradley is clearly steadily declining.
Bradley is obviously trying to increase their diversity on campus. While the numbers for almost all minorities have been increasing since 2006, Bradley did not begin with a large percent of their population as diverse to begin with.
This means it’s easier to see an increase in Hispanic members of the student body, because only 2.2 percent of students identified as Hispanic in 2006.
The number of minority professors is also steadily increasing from 1989 to 2006, with Asian professors up by 30 percent, African American professors up by 83 percent and Hispanic professors up 75 percent.
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Professors who identify as Caucasian still possess a clear majority however. The number of professors Bradley hired in general increased by 30 percent from 1989 to 2006, and the number of white professors increased by 17.9 percent. This means that while the number of minority professors is increasing, the numbers are not as high as they appear on the surface.
This and many other statistical information can be found here.
“I think the recognition of the creation of, the collaboration of, and more importantly the appreciation of the different background we all come from and how we can make each other better, makes the community better,” said Chase.