Since the establishment of higher education in the year 1636 schools all over US send out brochures, booklets, website links and much more to promote their school and attract a certain student base. Seeking a specific level of diversity is highly enforced and in doing so the distinction of a schools demographic is shown in the propaganda they present to each and every student. Although frowned upon, sometimes judging a book by it's cover is the only option you have, especially if you live over 1,000 miles away.
Looking a little closer to home at our small New England liberal arts college, Wheaton sends us several booklets and information packets before we are even accepted and each time the information is observed and taken into consideration. Throughout the years the display of medial advertisement at Wheaton College has diversified however it can sometimes be deceiving. With the majority party being 76.3% White, creating a booklet with 50% Black and 30% White and 20% Latino isn't exactly fair to the student looking to apply. Arguments have been made that in order to diversify, the risk of false advertisement is necessary but just how far should we go?
Have you ever wondered just how diverse Wheaton College really is?
Wheaton Student Demographic
Ethnicity of Students from U.S.
|
0.1% American Indian/Alaskan Native
4.2% Asian
5.6% Black/African-American
7.6% Hispanic/Latino
3.8% Multi-race (not Hispanic/Latino)
0.1% Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander
76.3% White
2.4% Unknown
|
How accepting is the campus community as a
whole toward someone who falls into the minority
(ethnic, sexual, or religious)? -Niche
An instance many would find to be negative deception is a case is a little further away from home and displays obvious false advertisement in an unnecessary setting. A gentleman at the University of Wisconsin was photoshopped into a picture with 100% white men and women at a football game in which he didn’t attend, in fact, he has never attended a UW football game ever. Below is the result of this institutions actions involving Diallo Shabazz.
“Diallo sued. He didn’t ask for a settlement. He said that he wanted a “budgetary apology.” He asked that, in compensation, the University put aside money for actual recruitment of minority students. He won. Ten million dollars was earmarked for diversity initiatives across the UW system. The irony in the whole thing is that UW requested photos of Shabazz shaking administrators’ hands in reconciliation (i.e., photographic proof that everything was just fine). Oh, and also, the Governor vetoed part of the earmark and many initiatives wore off with turnover.” -The Society Pages Lisa Wade, PhD
This incident happened in 2000 and went so viral that it caused a drastic raise in controversy over false or “cosmetic” advertisement within larger institutions and other schools. In examining student opinion based on both Shabazz’s situation and other similar instances many students don’t look directly at the demographics of a school but what it has to offer academically.
"When you go to college, it's not just about the classroom, but it's also about the stuff you learn from the people [in the classroom],"
This was said by a student in the midst of his college search. This student is one of several 12th graders of Jefferson high that was interviewed by NPR. Jefferson High, in Portland, Oregon, is a very diverse school with at one point a larger population of black than whites. They all seemed to answer the same in that a college is about finding the right place academically for you and demographics are just a bonus package.
These schools are simply selling an image of what they believe to be a desirable setting for prospective students of all races and ethnicities. A sociologist named Tim Pippert and his researchers looked at more than 10,000 images from college brochures, comparing the racial breakdown of students in the pictures to the colleges' actual demographics. They found that, overall, the whiter the school, the more diversity depicted in the brochures, especially for certain groups. If a school is trying to sell an image they believe in and want, not only the sake of a more diversified educational spectrum but also for the wellbeing and belonging of the students themselves then it is argued that marketing of a false images is, in a sense, healthy and will allow for the eventual elimination of this cosmic advertisement with the acceptance of real diversity among higher educational institutions. Questions that arise from this are still, how far should this false creation of social diversity be taken? Does creating programs like those Wheaton has established make it more acceptable to fabricate images into those with more appealing climates due to the evidence of future diversification?
Citations-
Web Team. (n.d.). About. Diversity – the College. Retrieved October 29, 2014, from http://wheatoncollege.edu/about/diversity/
Wheaton College - Massachusetts - Diversity. (2014). Niche.com. Retrieved October 29, 2014, from https://colleges.niche.com/wheaton-college----massachusetts/diversity/
Prichep, D. (n.d.). A Campus More Colorful Than Reality: Beware That College Brochure. NPR. Retrieved October 28, 2014, from http://www.npr.org/2013/12/29/257765543/a-campus-more-colorful-than-reality-beware-that-college-brochure
Wade, L. (2009, September 2). Sociological Images. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/09/02/doctoring-diversity-race-and-photoshop/
This blog post is very relatable because as students, we all look for schools that we believe we can fit in. I know that I was specifically looking for schools that were diverse, along with a slew of other criteria. I do believe that it is a good thing to advertise diversity in your school since we live in a very diverse country, however, you should not be over-emphasizing the diversity to the point that your are deceiving ethnic students into think the school is has a large population of students with different backgrounds. The school needs to be truthful when advertising to prospective, especially about diversity.
ReplyDeleteI transferred to Wheaton halfway through my sophomore year. Prior to Wheaton, I attended Goucher College in Baltimore. Like most small liberal art colleges, it placed a great emphasis on diversity and, like most small liberal art colleges, it was somewhat deceptive. Especially since it is located just outside Baltimore, which has a great black, Latin American, and Asian population, I had expected a bit more diversity than was actually present. I was somewhat disillusion upon transferring when I read about Wheaton's diversity, and found it roughly the same as Gouchers. I found both schools put a lot of emphasis on diversity and global education, but didn't entirely deliver.
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