If you take a look around society, you’ll see the word ‘diversity’ thrown around in nearly every setting possible. Diversity is a topic of discussion in the workplace, school settings, television and media, and anything else you could possibly think of.

With the constant use of this term throughout society and the importance attached to achieving it, do many of us even know what diversity means and why it is deserving of the recognition it currently receives?

As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, diversity is defined as

“The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.”

From the dictionary definition and the use of diversity in day to day life, we can come to two major conclusions.

1. Diversity in a country filled with people of different backgrounds should not be difficult to attain.
2. All spaces of living and existing throughout society should be committed and striving towards diversity, as purposely excluding people from spaces is just rude…

Many can conclude that striving for diversity is important based on personal experiences and lifestyle choices. However, actual scientific evidence can be used to support the claim that diversity is crucial to expanding and improving society. For example, in a study conducted by the University of Colorado, it was found that healthcare studies showed that patients fare better when care was provided by more diverse teams; professional skills-focused studies generally found improvements to innovation, team communication and improved risk assessment with diverse teams; and financial performance also improved with increased diversity.

The evidence cited from the study conducted at University of Colorado is just one study supporting the claim for why diversity is so important, and there is much more data that exists to support claims in favor of diversity.

Since we all now have a better understanding of what diversity means and a slight understanding for why it may be significant, throughout this semester, I plan to use this blog to address different aspects surrounding the topic of diversity. In the next few weeks, I hope to address in detail why diversity is important in academic, social, and societal spaces, to help attain a more improved society. I also plan to discuss the natural, forced, and artificial existence of diversity and the impacts of its presence.

The concept of diversity is incredibly important to me as a person, but more importantly as a Black and Muslim at a predominantly white institution. The concept of diversity is so complex and multifaceted, however I hope that through this blog, I can break down such a dense topic, making it more understandable to all my readers, and emphasize the importance of diversity, so that we may all work towards attaining a diverse society.

Stay tuned,

Yeems