Unprofitable Diversity

Diversity. It is a word heard often within the hallowed halls of Harvard. Whether it is spoken in a meeting of College administrators or in a gathering of a campus publication's staff, it is safe to say that diversity is a concept that seems to be on every-one's mind.

Of course, this should not be surprising. After all, diversity is one of the characterizing principles of American society. It is also the central commonality among successful secondary schools such as the Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia or Stuyvesant High School in New York, the same schools that produce many of Harvard's students. And it is this goal of diversity which also underlies many of the decisions made by the College admissions office.

But in this undeniably diverse environment, are our experiences truly diverse? The answer, I think, is "no."

Sure, it all starts out well. Freshman Week provides an incredible exposure to the diversity (not to mention the sheer size) of the incoming class. We meet people from all over the world. We are exposed to a variety of interests and past accomplishments and we encounter individuals similar to and very different from ourselves.

It is indeed a glorious week, complete with concerts, ice cream socials, and numerous four-question conversations. Some of my favorites include: Where are you from? What dorm do you live in? What are you thinking of concentrating in? Oh, and do you know person X from the same town as you? (Questions may vary.) But few (if any) of the people we meet during this week become our acquaintances and even fewer become our friends.

By the time we are in our second or third year, our primary social circles are composed of people we have met through extracurricular activities and classes. Faced with a high-stress academic environment and constant demands on our time, it is these shared activities that have seeded our friendships. And as a result, our friends seem more similar to us than they are different, sharing many of our passions, interests, and social habits. Much of the College's diversity seems to be stripped away from us forever and it no longer seems appropriate to engage a random person in a four-question conversation.

And as the diversity of people around us diminishes so does our exposure to new ideas and perspectives. It becomes more and more unlikely that a talented friend will introduce us to the world of poetry or drastically change our view of the world through the study of art, unless we are already an artist or a poet in our own right.

Attempting to compensate for this lapse in our education through classes also fails. Most would agree that the Core does a lousy job of exposing us to a variety of subject areas. Trying to take departmental courses is also a failed proposition. Try to take an introductory VES class without being a reasonably good artist or an introductory drama class without previous acting experience. The number of talented artists and actors in an average college class will likely diminish one's chances of success in such courses (not to mention making it difficult to get into such a class in the first place). At Harvard, it seems, diversity only leads to specialization.

Even the college administration seems to be very aware of this problem. Its policy of randomization has been enacted primarily to ensure a diversity of residents in each of the undergraduate houses. But instead of enhancing the diversity of our college experience, randomization has forced many of us to limit our social circles even further, electing to reduce our multitudes of social associations into a single large blocking group that serves as the nucleus of our social world.

Such heavy-handed policies, passed down from the lofty administration, are unlikely to increase the diversity of our Harvard experience. Instead, we need more opportunities to meet diverse individuals from the College and learn from their particular talents and ideas.

I would like to learn how to draw and I'm sure there is a variety of talented student artists that could teach me. I would like to learn how to act, and I am sure there is a plethora of talented student actors that could show me the ropes. But I do not really know who those actors and artists are, and they don't know me. We are confined to the social circles we have already established, constantly wondering if the diversity of Harvard simply means that we have a better chance of finding people that are just like us.

Elliot Shmukler '00, a Crimson editor, is a computer science concentrator in Adams House.