Students should feel at home, no matter what race

When UK announced that black enrollment this school year had increased, the university breathed a sigh of relief — an increase of even 1 percent is an improvement — and the recruitment office began working hard to bring that number up even more for fall 2009.

UK should be proud of the increase, which is a bigger margin than it sounds, but also acknowledge that with an increase of minority students comes the responsibility of this university to ensure that campus is a diverse and welcoming place for everyone.

Student Affairs commissioned a report in May — before those enrollment numbers jumped — aimed at discovering what students think about diversity and community building programs on campus, the Kernel reported Friday.

After reviewing eight meeting sessions with a focus group of 30 UK students, the report, “Building Everyone’s University: Student Perceptions of Diversity Programming at UK,” stated students said they felt UK’s campus tends to be self-segregated and “the administrative and student culture at UK poses a challenge to the success of diversity programming.”

What does this mean? Students at UK might not count the number of minorities seated around them in the cafeteria at the Student Center, but they aren’t comfortable with programs aimed at bringing together different racial groups on campus.

Bringing people together. Student Government has a solution to this. Different campus organizations should host events, deem them diversity or community building, invite the whole campus by tacking up flyers in the classroom buildings and then reward good attendance by offering a drawing for free iPods.

“One thing we plan on doing is getting a combination of 10 iPods or iPhones and giving them to specific organizations to give out to students,” SG President Tyler Montell said in a Q & A with the Kernel editorial board last month. “We have picked diversity and cultural events as something we want to focus on.”

But throwing rewards at people who attend these diversity events is only a Band-Aid meant to increase attendance and make UK feel like students are coming together. But are they really? Can we walk into the Student Center cafeteria and feel comfortable sitting down in the middle of a group of people of a different race?

These events shouldn’t be about attendance or even increasing tolerance. UK needs to make a serious effort to better acceptance and appreciation for people of all racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The Kernel commends Student Affairs for acknowledging diversity programming at UK is sub par and asking students — who are most emerged in the campus community — for honest answers and suggestions for how to make this better. But it can’t stop there.

Now UK must be honest with itself. Diversity isn’t a word or a statistic that we pat ourselves on the back for on our way to top-20 status. Diversity is a concern of real students now made vocal by this report.

With black student enrollment up and students speaking out about their lack of comfort with diversity events on campus, never has there been a better time to step back, make changes and ensure students feel at home at UK.