Diversity on college campuses is paramount to the overall learning experience, so USC’s recent earning of the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award by INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. Carolina students share a unique experience to enjoy a diverse campus and should be encouraged to widen their perceptions of race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality and embrace this new, evolving culture.
Doing so will unlock a new lens to observe and appreciate our environment, helping students be prepared to tackle the melting pot that is the world.
USC’s Chief Diversity Officer John Dozier is a great example of USC’s efforts to support diversity, as his position was created for this year. Dozier stresses the importance of interaction between people of different backgrounds and using that as a learning experience, because, as he said, learning from people who look and think exactly like you isn’t really much of a learning experience at all.
Marketing USC’s already extensive diversity programs, as well as international programs like Association of Saudi Arabian Students, Indian Cultural Exchange and International Student Association, just to name a few, is important to increasing knowledge of diversity in our college community.
USC also is home to the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, which includes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Programs and hosts Cultural Awareness Week. Then there’s the African American Professors Program, which cultivates aspiring African-American students to be professors. The list continues, and each program is another chance for the university to encourage diversity.
The South isn’t exactly known for embracing diversity, but we’re glad to say USC, one of the major institutions in the region, is making a point — in multiple different ways — of turning that stereotype around.
The university can continue to expand its programming and most importantly, market the ones it already has so that students can take full advantage of them.