Diversity on Campus - Essay Example

According to these scholars, discrimination against women diminishes in institutions that have their representation above 30% while racial discrimination diminishes with a representation of about 7% of the minority race. Other determinants of diversity include verbal communication and sexual orientation. The significance given to diversity in campuses arouses the question of whether diversity plays a crucial role in determining the outcome in students. Proponents of diversity associate diversity in campuses to educational benefits.

Borrowing from psychology, Milem et al. (3) argue that a diverse setting, different from that back at home, provides discontinuity from the home environment. This enhances students’ identity and cognitive development. It further increases the chances of students completing their courses because of the diversity in such a campus which reduces the feeling of strangeness. On the other hand, homogeneous institutions replicate the expectations and social life of students’ home communities thus impeding intellectual development due to lack of new challenges.

Diversity in campuses has been noted to promote a social environment which if used as an educational tool would promote diverse learning and development among students. Winkle-Wagner and Locks (22) give a psychological explanation to this arguing that if minority opinions are acknowledged in a group, it stimulates cognitive complexity among the majority. Issues of social concern such as death penalty would elicit diverse opinions based on the difference in ethnicity and religious backgrounds.

As such, the minority opinions cause the student group in general to think an issue in diverse ways which could cause a different perspective of understanding the issue for the greater good of the group. Therefore, the minority influence should be appreciated and utilized to benefit the larger group in their learning and development. This way, the students that go through diverse campuses get equipped with the necessary skills to survive in a democratic society where diverse ideas and opinions are appreciated.

Finally, it would be appreciated that diversity economically empowers the disadvantaged students, thus closing the gap between the poor and the rich. Financial barriers lock out a majority of bright but needy students from higher learning. Therefore, providing financial aid to students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds provides them with opportunities available to the students from more affluent backgrounds (Winkle-Wagner and Locks 22). This interaction provides an opportunity for the two classes of students to interact and bridge the gap between the poor and the rich.

Furthermore, it provides the needy students with an opportunity to access education like their peers from well-off families hence making them equally competitive in the job market. This in turn empowers then economically. Despite these arguments for diversity in campuses, opponents argue out that diversity does not necessarily imply greater benefit to the students. Diverse campuses present challenges that could end up negatively impacting on students. In as much as a diverse campus would have all the groups represented in its student population, there remains a group that still would be the majority, most likely the natives of where the