Peer Group Diversity

Applying to college was a multi-year experience for me. I can't remember a time when I didn't think I would go to college, and when I didn't think about where I'd go. My mom's oldest brother has something like 7 kids (2 by birth, one adopted at birth, and at least 4 foster "kids" with whom he and his wife maintain a life-long relationship). His philosophy about paying for college was, "Sign every piece of paper they put in front of you, and it will all work out somehow."

My parents' philosophy about paying for college was sort of similar - don't talk about it. Perhaps they talked between themselves, but they encouraged us girls to make our decisions without worrying too much about the price tag. We all went to private colleges, we all had scholarships, we all came out with hefty student loans that we might never pay off, and our parents remortgaged the house. It all worked out.

Since I wasn't paying much attention to tuition costs, that freed me up to focus on other criteria.

I looked closely at national ranking, of course. And some of the Fisk quality-of-life type ratings. I also looked very closely at what percentage of the student body lived on campus (high was desirable) and what percentage of the student body was Greek (low was desirable). And I paid a lot of attention to sex and race ratios. I wanted to go to a school that had a good amount of diversity.

I'd grown up in a community where "minorities" were the majority. Late in my sophomore year of high school, we moved to an extremely white and (upper) middle class community where there was very little diversity of any kind.

A high school friend of mine worked with a black guy from a neighboring community. His co-worker came to pick him up one day, in their job's van. He got a little lost. A black guy in a van driving around the block a couple of times in broad daylight? Someone called the cops. That's the kind of community where I finished high school.

But it's hard to tell a lot about a school from rankings and rating and guidebooks and brief campus visits.

Wash U has a lot of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. But, at least at the time I went there, it wasn't very well integrated. My dorms, most of my classes, my co-ed service fraternity, my friends - mostly white.

Then I graduated and got a job in the community. Almost all of my coworkers are white.

My husband and I drove around town and visited lots of communities. We saw one that looked perfect, and seemed to be pretty nicely integrated. We bought a house. It's a lovely community. Very poorly integrated. The many students of color in the local schools are part of an active bussing program from the inner city.

In short, most of the people at our jobs, our church, or neighborhood, and our peer group look just like us.

Laziness helped this to happen. Going along with the flow, choosing an easy path and not stretching out of our comfort zone. Periodically, Paul and I discuss finding ways to fix this, but we don't know where to begin.

Last night, I was humbled to have a discussion with a friend who's found herself in a similar situation. She sits down a couple of times a year to try to figure out ways to break through the way that this community tends to segregate itself.

She has signed her three-year-old up for classes at public parks in parts of the city that have higher populations of African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups. She's made an effort to take her child places on the bus, when their own car would be more far convenient.

And they do a lot of volunteering, but that's what's really bothering her lately. Most of the people of color who her young son sees are people he's helping, not friends of his parents. And she's very concerned about the message that's sending.

This is someone who's making a real effort. She's a great friend, a great person, and a new role model for me.