An interesting report from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University Bloomington recently released and noted in the Chronicle of Higher Education. One of the key findings is that "historically underserved students benefit more from engaging in these activities [activities related to the National Survey of Student Engagement] than white students in terms of earning higher grades and persisting to the second year of college."
Although diversity is not nearly as "hot" a topic in Canadian post-secondary institutions as it is in our sister schools in the USA (let's not get into a discussion of those reasons), student engagement activities influence on college persistence in general and ways of improving success for students of diverse social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds, specifically, are both areas of interest. Even more specifically, Bible colleges and other Christian colleges and universities are often further behind in recognizing and addressing issues of diversity - something that simply should not be. (Don't get me started on this rant!) And so are most of our evangelical churches in North America.
But... its less hard work and less time consuming to keep the 95% majority of Caucasians happy than to really make significant change that actual reflects what we teach/preach. And after all, leadership is supposed to be easy and relaxing, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment