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A diverse work force is crucial to the future of the country's economy, so says the American public, according to survey results released last month by the Business Higher Education Forum (BHEF), a collaboration between the American Council on Education (ACE) and the National Alliance of Business (NAB). The study also cites diversity in higher education, which feeds the professional work force, as vital to America's successful competition in the global economy.
Eighty-one percent of respondents said a culturally and racially diverse workplace is important, and 85 percent said diversity is important to the future of the economy. Ninety percent of the survey population said that having students of different races, cultures and backgrounds is important to the quality of higher education, and 65 percent support a partnership between business and academe to promote diversity. These findings, which cut across racial and gender lines, indicate that diversity is a core value of the American public.
"Business has been a very strong stimulant to diversity, not only in the work force, but also in higher education," said James Wyche, executive director of the Leadership Alliance. The Alliance is a consortium of 27 of the leading teaching and research colleges and universities, including Columbia, dedicated to encouraging more underrepresented students to go on to graduate school and complete their Ph.D.s.
"Diversity in higher education is largely on the undergraduate level and has hit a plateau where there is not much change," added Wyche. "Business has been more supportive of diversity because of their interest in diversifying their own workplaces and the work force in general. We need to aim for a partnership between business and academe where diversity can become a reality in both domains."
Seventy-seven percent of survey respondents agreed that business and higher education should be allowed to take action to ensure that their student bodies and work forces will be diverse -- only 17 percent disagreed and six percent remained neutral.
The BHEF study, a telephone survey of 1,000 adults, ages 18 and older, was conducted by the Lake Snell Perry & Associates public opinion firm of Washington, D.C. The survey has a plus or minus 3.1 margin of error.
The Leadership Alliance is a consortium of 27 leading research and teaching colleges and universities dedicated to improving the participation of underrepresented students in graduate study programs and in science, mathematics, engineering and technology professions in the academic, public and private sectors. Alliance member institutions include, in addition to Columbia, Brooklyn College, Brown University, Clark Atlanta University, Dartmouth College, Delaware State University, Harvard University, Howard University, Hunter College, John Hopkins University, Montana State University-Bozeman, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, New York University, Prairie View A. & M. University, Princeton University, Southern University at Baton Rouge, Spelman College, Stanford University, Tougaloo College, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, University of Pennsylvania, University of Puerto Rico, University of Texas at San Antonio, Xavier University of Louisiana and Yale University.
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