David C. Stinebeck, Interim President

We have always believed that diversity was important to a liberal arts college, even when the makeup of our campus was much more homogeneous than it is today. In fact, it was our faculty who went to the administration many years ago with a concern that the student body was too homogeneous, too white, too much from the same background, and that multicultural perspectives, and ethnic and social diversity were an important part of our educational experience. With that in mind, the Admission Office began to look for ways to diversify the make-up of entering classes, and began to actively recruit minority students by recruiting in urban areas.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, overemphasizing merit in awarding financial aid dollars tends to attract affluent students. These students do not tend to be ethnically diverse. But by reorienting aid to reach more lower and middle class students with outstanding potential, we give greater priority to need, and therefore attract a broader mix of students. Does this approach work? It shows in our results. Not only is our diversity almost double that of our peer institutions, our selectivity continues to rise. Our minority students are real leaders. (Half of the Student Government leadership this year are minority students, and this is not an anomaly.)

All of us take great pride in the fact that our diversity rate is so high. We believe that selective, private liberal arts colleges should be responsive to American society. For us, diversity means representing a cross-section of American society, and to do that we need to have a student body from diverse economic levels as well as different races and ethnic backgrounds. A socio-economic approach to recruiting casts a wide net.

But diversity is not just about socio-economic classes or race or ethnicity. It is important to respect and learn from each other in many different ways -- religion (and we are fortunate to have a chaplain who thrives on diversity as he leads the Multi-faith Center), gender, sexual orientation, points of view. A campus where all of these attributes are respected is a wonderful place to be.

But in the quest to make diversity a part of everyday life we face some very tough challenges. Last fall we lost a promising black first-year student because of an ugly verbal encounter with some white male students. The dean of students and I made it publicly clear that this behavior will simply not be tolerated on this campus, and we formed the Council on Social Equality to begin diversity training on campus described elsewhere in this issue.

We are not yet color blind. We can always do better. But if one single student is made to feel unwelcome on this campus, our job is not done.

At the March meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Board agreed to continue the presidential search until May.

According to Search Committee co-chairs Karen A. Rightmire ’69 and John T. Baily ’65, the Presidential Search Committee was charged by the Board with presenting two or more outstanding candidates to the Trustees by their meeting on March 4, 2005. The committee identified three exceptional candidates, however two of the candidates accepted presidencies at other colleges before they were able to visit the Albright campus.

“While this speaks well to the outstanding qualifications of the candidates, and to the ability of the College to attract them,” Rightmire and Baily said, “We want to be faithful to both the process and the charge that the Trustees gave to the Committee. The candidate who visited campus was very well received and remains a serious candidate, however both the Trustees and the Search Committee feel that it is important that the Trustees and the campus community have the opportunity to meet more than a single candidate on campus.”

A pool of prospects has been generated by consultant Dr. Herman E. Collier Jr. of Academic Search Consultation Services based in Washington, D.C., as well as by the recommendations of alumni. The Search Committee met on March 28 to review the candidates and selected a number to be considered further.

Candidates will visit campus and the Search Committee will conclude the process on or before the Board’s next regularly scheduled meeting on May 21, 2005.

“Selection of our next president is a most important decision, and the College wants to continue to be open, thorough and deliberate as we complete the search,” said Rightmire and Baily.