Posted on January 11, 2018
Diversity at Penn State
These are the 6 values followed by all of the Penn State campuses. Courtesy of Penn State Mont Alto
Throughout these ten weeks, I will be examining the diversity and inclusion of different campuses and workplaces across the United States. This week, we will talk about a place near and dear to my heart, the Pennsylvania State University. Of the six Penn State values, none correspond better with the diversity and inclusion commitment than RESPECT. Under this value, it directly states, “We respect and honor the dignity of each person, embrace civil discourse, and foster a diverse and inclusive community.” With this, it truly means honoring the principles of every single student or faculty member involved within the Penn State society. This includes such things as ethnicity, gender/sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or social status. So let’s take a look at how Penn State ranks in some of these categories. Although these values are followed by all the commonwealth campuses as well, this will only focus on the main campus.
First off, we will start with ethnicity portion, the most thought of portion of diversity. Of all the students at Penn State, 68.4% are classified as white. This also includes 10.8% international students, 6.2% Asian, 5.9% Hispanic, 4.2% African American and 4.4% is unknown. Now while there is a spread of different ethnicities, other than the white majority, each other ethnicity represents a small amount of Penn State students. Overall out of 2,718 colleges, Penn State ranks at 1,621 with ethnic diversity. This means it is below the national average, a sad reality for a college dedicated to diversity. While this is low, considering the state of Pennsylvania is 81%, this rating may not sound as bad as it. Yet, this is still a negative when assessing diversity here at Penn State. Fortunately, ethnicity is only one part of a much broader picture.
Grade: C
Ethnicities of Penn State students. Courtesy of College Factual
Next, we will observe the gender/sexual orientation aspect. As of now, the percentage of male students is 53.8%, while the female percentage is 46.2%. While some may say this is low, this percentage is actually highly above the national average. The national average is about 40:60 ratio from female to male, so the gender gap is lower than most colleges. Penn States ranks 473 out of the previously mentioned 2,718 colleges. As far as sexual orientation here at Penn State, while there are not percentages of the number of students who classify themselves within the LGBTQ community, I can gladly say Penn State was ranked as a top 30 LGBTQ-friendly schools by Campus Pride. It received 4.5 out of 5 stars, and this can be seen by the numerous number of clubs and student groups involved with the LGBTQ community on campus. Overall, the gender and sexual orientation diversity here at Penn State is highly ranked and one of the more highly regarded aspects here.
Grade: A-
Gender dispersion at University Park. Courtesy of College Factual
We will now transition to looking at age of the students. This may seem weird to research, as commonly all students will be 22 or younger, starting college out of high school. Yet, this is not true for everyone, as some students decide to take a gap year and others may be starting later if they were unable to afford it when they were younger. With this being said though, 73.2% of the students are 22 years old or under. Another 15.2% are within the range of 23 to 24 years old, with the “old” group of 25 and over consisting of 11.6% of undergrad students. So this seems okay, as college is often thought of as consisting of many younger students. Therefore, 73.2% looks average, as about every three in four students will be the “normal” college age. However, the national average is actually only 60% of college students who are 22 years old or younger. Penn State ranks 2,553 out of 3,012 colleges researched, putting them way below average for age diversity. Therefore, Penn State is not very inclusive of the older students on campus.
Grade: C
Age Range of students at PSU. Courtesy of College Factual
Lastly, with disability and socioeconomic statuses difficult to discover, the other diverse aspect that can be researched is the religious and spiritual diversity throughout the Penn State community. Again, percentage of students is impossible to find with this topic, but there are other ways to measure this diversity, and this is through inclusion. For many, religion is an important part of their everyday life, and having a college that allows them to not only practice their religion, but also share it with others is essential. At Penn State, they feel it is significant as well, as the active religious community is made up of almost 60 student-created organizations, straying anywhere from Catholics or Christians to Buddhists or Hindus to Mormons or Muslims, there is a organizations for everyone’s beliefs. For a public university, it is often hard to account for everyone, but when it comes to religion and spirituality, Penn State does its best to keep everyone pleased and involved.
Grade: A
Wrapping up, Penn State has some positives and negatives to their overall diversity and inclusion effort. While they succeed in gender/sexual orientation and religion, they lack in age and ethnic diversity. Now, while they do fall short of achieving complete diversity, it is not something that can be changed overnight. Sometimes effort is more important than results, and as a student here, it is clear to me that they are trying their best to bring in as many different people with as many different thoughts as possible. So while not all the statistics look satisfactory, if Penn State keeps pursuing this goal as they are now, eventually they will find success.
It’s a weird sort of irony to grade the college which is supposed to give you grades. In some ways I find the lack of diversity surprising, but I also could have seen that coming. Pennsylvania is a predominately white state, and PSU does take a large number of in-state students. Therefore, you would expect a large portion of those people to be white. The inclusion of the LGBTA community is another aspect that I would expect here at Penn State. With the legalization of same sex marriage on the recent horizon, many schools, including colleges, gave a noticeable effort to be more inclusive. It’s great to see that Penn State succeeded in those efforts to include all sexuality.