Increase structural diversity

Bowman (2013) highlights the important role that a racially diverse campus plays in promoting educational outcomes for students; with a racially diverse campus, opportunities for cross- cultural engagement, and therefore student growth in intellectual engagement, psychological well-being and leadership skills, is more frequent. Campuses that are moderately diverse do not see as much of a gain in these educational outcomes as campuses that are more highly diverse (Bowman, 2013). This may be due to the phenomenon that students referenced in their interviews – with so few students of color on campus cross-cultural engagement experiences place an unfair burden on them in that they have to participate in such experiences as part of their daily lives, whereas their White peers do not. This also highlights the reason so many students felt so strongly about the need for Black organizations on campus, even if diversity were to increase. These organizations deserve continued support regardless of the changes that are made within the broader campus environment.

without cost to minority students. Ideally, increased diversity within the faculty would be important and appreciated, but students interviewed emphasized how much they gain from being able to interact with peers of similar backgrounds. Increasing diversity within the undergraduate student population may therefore provide students with a greater opportunity to see change than through the faculty.

If the composition of the student body changed enough that all students were able to interact with students that looked like them and those that were different on a daily basis this burden would be lessened for students of color and provide more frequent cross-cultural engagement for other students as well. White students on a predominantly White campus may not necessarily have to interact across cultures unless they voluntarily choose to do so, and being the majority on campus, race is not something they consider as part of their everyday experiences the way it is for students of color (Chavous, 2005). By increasing diversity on campus, White students are more likely to interact with more diverse peers than on a campus in which those interactions would only happen voluntarily. Students would then be required to build cultural competence to positively engage in such experiences which the University should help to facilitate in order to promote the success of such engagement.

Bowman (2013) provides suggestions for ways institutions can achieve a more diverse student body which first involves utilizing practices which increase the admissions for students of diverse backgrounds such as recruiting from high schools with higher populations of traditionally underrepresented student groups, providing greater financial assistance or scholarships, or using race conscious admissions processes. This would certainly be a task that the university takes on at a high level, working with different recruiting strategies and

admissions procedures for new students, but an important one if we are to see greater changes in the campus environment for underrepresented students.

The University has had success previously in recruiting a more diverse student body. Following the computer room sit-in in 1968, the University committed to enrolling a more diverse population of students. In order to achieve this, a school-community partnership was established in which schools and community organizations identified prospective Black students to attend the University (Proposal for Project “A”, 1969). Along with a team of students from the Black Action Society (BAS), University admissions staff worked with these prospective students to recruit them to enroll. Once here, BAS students were intimately involved in the orientation and support of these new students to ensure their success. This was done with an understanding that students would be most successful if they established strong relationships with African American students who were already able to successfully navigate Pitt (Proposal for Project “A”, 1969). This same principle holds true today as is shown in this study but also in higher education literature. Students are most successful when they have a supportive network of peers and institutional agents (Fischer, 2010; Hausmann et al., 2007; Hurtado et al., 2012; Museus et al., 2008; Nuñez, 2009). Perhaps looking back on those policies that worked in recruiting more diverse cohorts would be beneficial to helping the institution recruit with success now.

With greater structural diversity in place, more frequent cross-cultural engagement is possible. Pike and Kuh (2006) found that cross-cultural interactions were “more strongly related to structural diversity than any other institutional characteristic” (p. 443). This research indicates that the first, and perhaps most effective step, an institution can take to improve educational outcomes for all students is to enroll a highly diverse student body, but the reason outcomes are

improved is due to the more frequent cross-cultural interactions that take place with a more diverse student population. Most students associated an increase in diversity with an increase in the ability of the African American student population to be able to positively interact with the broader campus community while putting less burden to do so on individual students as there would be more of them to take on the task. But Pike and Kuh (2006) also note that while the concept of increasing diversity may be simple, it cannot stop there. Some attention needs to be given to the quality of these cross-cultural interactions as well.