Race as Only One Element of Human Culture - Research Paper Example

HERE HERE YOUR HERE HERE The Role of Race and Diversity in Colleges and Universities INTRODUCTION Race is only one element of human culture that is included in new definitions of diversity. In the college or university environment, there are generally diversity policies or other affirmative action processes in place to ensure that there is a quality volume of racial equality in areas of hiring and student recruitment. This is to ensure that educators and students, alike, have opportunities to collaborate with people from varying backgrounds and also improve their socialization skills related to education and work teams. However, race is not the most important factor when deciding on admittance to the university, since it is necessary to meet the goal of a more unified team environment. In order for this to occur, factors including experience, income, socioeconomic status, marital status, and sexual orientation should also be considered in equal measure to race in order to effectively ensure a diversity policy and promotion. RACE AND ITS ROLE Organizations such as the NAACP actively promote better opportunities for African-American citizens in areas of politics, public service, education and human rights. This organization was established to ensure fair treatment for black citizens and works to advocate their rights in a variety of business, professional and personal environments where they might be considered at risk populations for discrimination. Why do organizations such as this exist? It is due to pre-existing stereotypes and prejudices against black citizens that still linger today that give them a disadvantage in hiring and sometimes education. The NAACP recently developed a film competition with support of the American Red Cross, Sony Pictures, and Best Buy in order to help students of different races to present their own innovative social solutions using film to exploit their diverse opinions (naacp.org, 1). The NAACP was chosen as an example so as to reinforce that there are already a large volume of advocacy groups that continue to protest to legislators and senior-level decision-makers to ensure they are given equal opportunities as other races in society. Their efforts are ongoing and continue to change the hiring and recruitment policies in business and the college environment. Because they already have such a well-known and influential backing, universities should pay less attention to race when recruiting and focus more on recruiting the most talented and motivated students regardless of their race. It is likely that groups such as the NAACP will continue to motivate legislators to add more diversity policies to the university agenda, thus giving university leadership more opportunities to provide and construct a fair and balanced non-biased recruiting model. However, some might disagree and say that such fights need to be extended into the actual organizations where the person of disadvantaged race attempts to belong. There is a recognized shortage of black advertising professionals in today’s society, which impacts the quality of products available to ethnic consumers and might not have the same revenue-building power of other top product brands advertised by agencies with many white professionals. Offers one advertising professional, “If ad agencies were more inclusive, they could take advantage of a broad ranging diversity in talent and greater creativity” (Holmes, 108). This acknowledgement impacts the educational environment in many ways, first of which is the marketing unit of the college. Today, with globalization being so paramount in most business decision-making for large-scale companies, there is much more emphasis on creating unique and expressive advertising content in order to help companies profit and succeed in gaining new customers. Entire university or college divisions are devoted, in some educational environments, to promoting this education on product know-how and communications with diverse customers. Since there is already a shortage of ad professionals who are not typically white and it has been acknowledged that diversity in this field opens the doors to new creativity, universities might want to consider the program in which the student is interested and then make race a factor depending on their determined attitudes and motivations. In this case, both the ad business and the university recognize this shortage and should take responsible measures to place a more diverse population of ethnic students in the marketing role when considering recruitment opportunities. DEFINING DIVERSITY AND THE REAL WORLD Diversity is much more than just race, it includes religious beliefs, income and marital status as well (among many other personality or cultural traits). What is referred to as invisible diversity are attributes not readily seen (med.umich.edu, 2), as is the case with racial differences that are quite apparent. The goal of the university recruiter is to recruit the most talented and inspired students to bring a higher value to the curriculum and all other students that must interact within it. However, in a real-world environment where business professionals must work together in teams, there is much more involved than simply racial factors for a quality work group to be constructed and bring forward positive results. In real business, married persons work with non-married persons effectively or devoted religious cultures work with stern non-believing partners and still produce effective project results. There is no genuine data located in research that identified that racial differences supersede the cultural or demographic background complications stemming from diverse workgroups, thus it seems no more important than any other diversity imperative such as work experience or socioeconomic status. Using black citizens as the relevant example again, the University of Michigan Law School identifies that in education there are stereotypical vulnerabilities that exist which contribute to drop out rates in the university (Lempert, Kiddery, Clydesdale & Chambers, 5). Within the school environment itself there are pre-existing prejudices that impact the quality of the learning atmosphere for black students. Why? Data did not uncover what is driving these stereotypes or negative assessments of different races and in many ways this is unimportant. The fact is that negative attitudes about different races continue to change the quality and outcomes of the learning process for black students (and perhaps other racial backgrounds) that impact the university and the student financially. When such negative assessments exist, educators have to change their curriculum focus and give these disadvantaged students more attention than the majority. The long-term consequence of allowing these stereotypes to continue is a poor reputation for the university with higher dropout rates or more funds being devoted to financial assistance programs by multiple agencies and the university leadership. As a form of cost/benefit analysis, it would seem that race should be considered as a more important factor during the recruitment process for all of these reasons. People who believe that diversity involves only racial background are likely misled or have been raised on older attitudes associated with the melting pot philosophy and do not understand diversity and encompassing more than merely race. In real-life business, teams require ongoing communication, the encouragement of collaboration, and understanding how to overcome barriers in order to build a winning project team (Flynn & Mangione, 54). Such teams demand efficiency and ongoing operational process improvements in order to gain a positive alignment of talent that makes a rewarding project outcome. If race were the only consideration, taking as an example new graduates that are not white, there would still be communications problems created by cultural belief differences and other barriers caused by religious, family or socioeconomic values. It would be highly limiting for university professionals, who have the important chore of preparing tomorrow’s business and organizational leaders, to determine that race is more important in diversity than any other factor in recruitment. A wise and knowledgeable recruitment professional would recognize the shortcomings and actual, real-life needs in business and then identify students who would best contribute to filling these gaps. So much more than race must be considered when admitting students as it could impact business success in the future and even the supporting community economy. CONCLUSION Students need to be equipped with the proper understanding about business culture in order to be valuable members of the workforce after graduation. It was established that organizations such as the NAACP are constantly acting as advocates for racial rights and are making positive changes to how business and educations recruit persons of color. Because they already have such a strong backing by reputable organizations, the university should pay less attention to these matters until their recruitment model is changed by new regulatory outcomes of their efforts for the disadvantaged. It was also established that despite the arguments that might suggest race is most important, there are too many factors associated with diversity to focus mostly on race in recruitment. All of the cultural or social dynamics of different men and women are necessary to add more value to business objectives, team-building and to provide the university with a quality reputation as a leader that produces long-lasting results for graduates. It would be irresponsible to suggest that race is the primary factor in recruitment, however having a well-established diversity policy at the university is beneficial for not only the student, but the integrity of the school and its staff as well. Bibliography Flynn, A. & Mangione, T. “Five Steps to a Winning Team”, Health Care Executive. Vol. 23, Iss. 1 (2008). Holmes, Tamara E. “The Boomerang Effect”, Black Enterprise. Vol. 40, Iss7. (2010). Lempert, R., Kiddery, W., Clydesdale, T. & Chambers, D. “Affirmative Action in American Law Schools: A Critical Response to Richard Sander’s ‘A Reply to Critics’”. University of Michigan Law School. Accessed March 15, 2011 at http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=umichlwps Med.umich.edu. “What is Diversity? It’s More than Race or Gender”. Duren and Associates (2002). Accessed March 16, 2011 at http://www.med.umich.edu/diversity/pdffiles/file28.pdf Naacp.org. “What’s Your Issue? – Film Your Issue Competition” (2010). Accessed March 15, 2011 at http://naacp.org/youth/college/index.htm. Read More