When Kaplan and Newsweek highlighted LSU as the country’s most diverse school, they thought the University’s minority enrollment was 24 percent.
They were wrong.
The number of black, Asian, Native American and Hispanic students is closer to 15 percent, said Bernie Braun, administrative analyst for the Office of Budget and Planning.
Rob Anderson, research editor for the Office of Media Relations, was the main source of the article by Mary Carmichael, a Newsweek writer.
Anderson said he gave Carmichael information about the University’s efforts to increase diversity, mentioning resources tailored to minority students, such as the African-American Cultural Center. He also focused on the number of black students to graduate with doctorate degrees.
But Anderson said he did not give her the 24 percent minority enrollment number.
Carmichael said a University official gave her the numbers, though she could not remember who. She believed those numbers included international students and students who did not reveal their race, but she couldn’t confirm that.
Braun said those categories normally are not used in computing minority enrollment.
Anderson said, “Neither the chancellor nor I gave her the specific numbers, and I’m not sure how she got them.”
Despite the confusion, Carmichael said she is impressed with LSU’s efforts for diversity and, had she known the correct minority enrollment figures, LSU still would have been recognized as “Most Diverse.”
But Carmichael’s conclusion begs a larger question.
Are numbers and a few programs enough to establish LSU’s diversity?
Landon Franklin, a marketing senior and BSU vice president, thinks so. He said the campus is racially diverse, but lacks gender diversity, as the overwhelming majority of black students seem to be women.
One of those working to resolve this problem is Regmon Chaney, assistant director of minority recruitment. In an earlier Reveille article, Chaney said that the University is in need of vast improvement in terms of minority enrollment, especially of black students.
Franklin and Chaney agree that racial diversity is imperative to any college campus.
“College is where we’re all preparing for the real world. In that world, people are different,” Franklin said.