In the wake of the recent student strike, don't be fooled by the grievances voiced by the leaders of the Graduate Student Senate and the Student Government Association. One of these complaints is that the University of Massachusetts does not have a diverse student body and is not accessible to low-income students.
If we take this claim as legitimate, and not as a veneer to hide the real issue of graduate students' failure to secure a new contract, it is safe to say the statement is plain wrong.
In this context, GSS and SGA leadership cannot obfuscate the hard fact that our student body is already incredibly diverse, regardless of race and socio-economic status. Moreover, the additional factors that contribute to this diversity are more important than skin color and financial background. They reflect students' power to pursue individual interests that are not dictated by external elements they cannot control - like race.
One unwavering foundation of our diverse student body is the high number of RSOs on campus, ranging from 30 academic clubs, 21 art clubs, 25 ethnic/cultural clubs, nine media outlets, and 12 religious organizations, according to the UMass Web site.
For instance, how many other college campuses in the United States can lay claim to the vibrancy and diversity of student activism pertaining to faith and spirituality on this campus? Personally, I have experienced these differences firsthand, as every Monday, students gather in my dormitory for Bible study. Also, I am friends with open atheists and have had classes with people who are active in the Muslim Students Association and Hillel.
Furthermore, the GSS and the SGA overlook the diversity of academic subjects pursued by undergraduate students here. Compare the availability of majors and minors at this school with those offered by surrounding area colleges, as well as at other private universities in Massachusetts and throughout the country.
You will find that UMass offers substantially more diverse academic programs, including some I did not realize college students would pursue after high school, like fruit and vegetable crops and kinesiology. Even though this is a land-grant institution, I still did not expect as many people as there are to be members of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture.
The fact that I assumed students pursued more liberal arts programs in college, rather than these unconventional programs, indicated how my mindset expanded due to encounters with people who pursued these wide-ranging courses of study. Specifically, I realized that the pursuit towards nontraditional majors reflected the simple truth that different people think differently and have different interests, regardless of race and money.
This liberated mindset exhibits why UMass is already diverse in areas more meaningful than those identified by the SGA and the GSS. In particular, there is a sharp difference between how their leaders narrowly define diversity and how it is practiced in reality by students.
In reality, diversity at this school is not limited to how people look on the outside or whether the community he or she comes from is rich or poor. Rather, religious and academic diversity reflects the essence of the freedom students use to pursue studies and embrace faiths in accordance with their individual preferences instead of those determined by biology and other forces outside their control.
Yet let's assume that racial and socio-economic diversity is very important. Enforcing strict academic and disciplinary standards in Springfield and Holyoke high schools will do more to make students qualified to attend college than pouring additional money into social outreach programs.
Therefore, a commitment to academic achievement will better expand availability and affordability to this school. Moreover, if high school students are convinced to value education, then they will further enrich the academic diversity present at UMass if they do decide to attend it.
Still, diversity is more than placing black students next to white students in classrooms. It is true that perhaps the most significant aspect of diversity, political differences, is not as manifest as it should be on campus. Yet other factors strengthen the notion that race and money do not accurately illustrate why diversity is so important in comparison to other elements.
Academic and religious differences, as well as cultural and artistic diversity, illuminate the personal journey of individuals to pursue interests which are not confined to race or money.
How can we remain united when we will never be the same racially or financially? It is because the differences arising from the manifestation of individual preferences shows that diversity is produced by individual will, and not by leaders proclaiming it. If there ever was an immutable feature of humanity, it is the universality of the human will and spirit.
So don't be deceived by SGA leaders who claim that this campus is not diverse enough. "Real" diversity - that is, diversity which transcends how one looks physically and how much money their parents make - does exist at UMass Amherst in a tangible and profound way.
Greg Collins is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at gcollins@student.umass.edu.
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