St. Lawrence University
PAE-7: Measuring Campus Diversity Culture

The assessments aimed to answer three questions: first how Students of Color experience diversity on campus; second, to what extent students in general have meaningful interactions and experiences with diverse aspects of the campus cultures; and third, to what extent our curriculum including study abroad experiences contributes to a greater cultural understanding and diversity learning.

All of the findings are playing a crucial role in guiding our efforts to achieve meaningful change in how we teach “diversity” to our students, how we conduct assessments, how we facilitate dialogue across difference, and even how we organize residential arrangements for our incoming students.

Focus group and survey data reinforce that main interactions among students of different racial and ethnic groups happens because of class assignments and does not automatically carry over into social spaces and activities. Teagle Grant funding from 2008 to 2012 allowed our faculty-staff project team to work diligently to develop new learning goals, policies, and assessment methods to help us build a more diverse and pluralistic campus community, including a diversity requirement in our new curriculum that is more meaningful and more assessable.