Diversity Meetings Not Very Diverse

Although mandatory diversity discussions planned for orientation week are meant to encourage interaction between ethnic groups, the first day's worth of sessions was attended almost exclusively by Jewish students.

The diversity discussions were originally scheduled by the Freshman Dean's Office for Saturday.

But Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III decided to make a change when he realized that the date conflicted with Rosh HaShana, the Jewish new year.

Epps rescheduled the meetings for Friday and Sunday, so orthodox and conservative Jewish first-years who had religious services on Sunday could attend the Friday session.

The composition of the Friday session hardly reflected the diversity of the College: 14 students showed up on Friday and the overwhelming majority of them were Jewish.

Yael t. Goldstein '00, an orthodox Jew from New Jersey, attended the Friday discussion session because she had services on Sunday. Although she said the group was quite homogeneous, she said she did not believe the similar ethnicities of the students defeated the purpose of the discussion, because the conversation focused on the students' interpretations of the required readings.

Elisabeth W. Swain '63, the associated director of the Core program who led Friday's discussion, agreed that it was a "powerful conversation."

Matthew R. Hubbard '00, a self-described non-practicing Protestant from Massachusetts, said the discussion in the session he attended on Sunday was shaped by students' backgrounds and experiences.

Epps said he was sorry about the conflicts and that he had tried to minimize them as much as possible.

And Hillel chair David J. Andorsky '97 said that for the most part, the Freshman Dean's Office is very accommodating to Jewish students in terms of scheduling.

"From my perspective there are inevitably going to be things that conflict," he said.

This is acceptable as long as there are reasonable means for people to make them up, he added.