While Ball State was recently awarded for its commitment to diversity and inclusion, some students feel the university still has room for improvement.
Ball State was one of more than 90 schools across the country awarded the Higher Education in Excellence and Diversity (HEED) award by Insight Into Diversity, a magazine which focuses on diversity in higher education, including Indiana University Bloomington and Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis.
According to the magazine's website, the award, which Ball State has won for the fourth year in a row, “recognizes colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
Marsha McGriff, associate vice president for Inclusive Excellence, said receiving this award was a “big deal.”
“It is a very rigorous process for selection,” McGriff said. “It's very detailed, and they even do a follow up email, to kind of tease out some of your responses from the application just to get a better and clearer understanding of what it is you're doing.”
The application asked questions regarding university percentages of student enrollment based on ethnicity and students identifying as LGBTQ, first-generation, transfer, having a disability and veterans, according to the magazine's website.
In addition, the application also looked into percentages of staff, faculty and administration in terms of ethnicity and gender, as well as university programs regarding promoting diversity and inclusion.
Ball State’s strategic plan was one of the highlights in the application process, McGriff said. She added she has never been a part of a university that puts inclusive excellence as one of its priorities.
“These are questions that we're asking ourselves, and they have corresponding objectives, initiatives, indicators and a toolkit to help us be a part of that process,” McGriff said. “I think it just is a much deeper dive than just saying diversity and counting numbers.”
Brooklyn Arizmendi, president of Spectrum, a student organization at Ball State, said while the university is “taking steps forward towards doing better” for minority groups on campus, it is still “fairly behind.”
For example, Arizmendi said, Ball State is building the new Multicultural Center which will have its official groundbreaking ceremony Saturday. But, she added, a lot of buildings on campus don’t have inclusive bathrooms for the transgender community.
“As someone who constantly advocates for the LGBTQ+ community, it is disappointing to see other universities with better resources,” Arizmendi said.
She questioned whether Ball State and the officials approving new policies and spending money on behalf of the university are truly representative of its diversity.
According to an email from the office of President Geoffrey Mearns, 23 percent of the 4,034 first-year students at Ball State self identify as people of color.
The students of Ball State, Arizmendi said, do more to offer “additional resources” to other students than the university as a whole does.
“I think more important than diversity is inclusion,” Arizmendi said. “We put people of color and varying identities on our ads, but in actuality we’re a predominantly white university.”
Contact Charles Melton with comments at cwmelton@bsu.edu or on Twitter @Cmelton444.
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