Business Journal Op-Ed

Diversity

Diversity is a buzzword these days.  Corporate and higher education organizations attempt to increase their diversity by more aggressively recruiting persons of color.  Women are in more leadership positions and the older population seems to be growing exponentially.  Immigrants and refugees are becoming more prevalent in our community.  Diversity is cool.  Or is it?

More than two centuries of American history have proven that our nation’s founders were wise in many respects.  As one example, they decided to place the Latin motto, “E Pluribus Unum,” on a ribbon flying from the beak of the eagle emblazoned on The Great Seal of the United States, our national emblem since 1782.   The motto is translated, “Out of many, one.”  Have you considered what that motto means to us in modern times?

In an January 1967 speech, then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey remarked, “Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity — an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”  Does the sentiment Humphrey trumpeted prevail today?

We are rich in ethnic diversity.  According to the Center for New North Carolinians, which is based at UNCG, many countries of origin are represented in the Guilford County area. There are about 75 first languages represented in the Guilford County Schools.  The reality is that all of us except for Native American Indians can look back to our immigrant heritage in the last few centuries.  I’m a relatively new North Carolinian myself, transplanted from New England in the summer of 2002.  By ancestry, I am 75 percent German, with Austria, Bavaria and Prussia influence as well.

In this election year, battles for elective office will spotlight another element of our diversity – differences of opinion.  I wonder if through this process we will be drawn closer together or drift further apart?  Will we recognize the strength of our diversity, or will we allow differences of opinion compounded by gender, racial, ethnic and age differences to disintegrate into divisiveness?

“Diversity,” said the American publisher Malcolm Forbes, “is the art of thinking independently together.”  But in the past few years we’ve seen the term “polarization” increasingly applied to civil tensions over gay rights, abortion, public education, flag burning and contemporary art. These topics and many others will be debated and discussed by candidates and the electorate again this year.

We will not achieve our potential as a nation – or as a Piedmont Triad region – until we truly embrace our diversity and make a safe space for our differences of opinion. We must be willing to talk about any question or issue no matter how sensitive or controversial. Debating peace and war, economic opportunity, capital punishment, women's rights and other issues is a fundamental democratic activity. And everyone must be heard.

We face this challenge on our college campuses, as we work diligently to make certain that students have the opportunity to hear differences of opinion and respect them.  As a college president, I’ve come to understand that a liberal arts education is fundamentally crucial to the preservation of democracy; that it is important to raise difficult, complex and controversial questions and that all of us must struggle to find our own personal truths.

I returned to the classroom this semester, and in my faculty role, it’s my job to get students to grapple with situations, reach conclusions on their own and have the courage and confidence to face life straight on.  We want students to be unrelenting pursuers of truth who are comfortable in raising significant social and political questions.  The value, of course, is in the search and not in the final arrival.

Here are some suggestions for those who would embrace the strength of our diversity:  Participate in the political process this year and really analyze the issues.  Listen to the “other side.”  Vote.  And in your everyday life, make a resolution this year to learn about the background of someone who is different.  Visit a faith community other than your own.  Intentionally interact with members of different racial and ethnic groups.  Participate in activities for people of all ages.

Out of many, one.  So may it be.

This opinion-editorial was originally published in the Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area in January 2004.