HPU's Non-Melting Pot

Imagine being in a class where everyone else looks alike; except for you. Imagine being the minority and no one getting your culture.

For some High Point University students this is just another day at their college.
Every year High Point University expands its population of students; however does HPU leave out its diversity?

The Odd Man Out

According to HPU’s statistics, the freshman class of 2009 consists of 6 percent African-Americans. This sounds fine until it is compared with the 81 percent that are Caucasians. In the 21st century world, is this right?

Isabella smith, an African-American student of HPU, blames it on the schools programs. “The school just now in the past few years allowed us to have our own black sororities and fraternities.” Smith says if they put more spotlight on these programs more African-Americans would apply to HPU.

Smith also noticed how there is only two African-American HPU ambassadors, and most are Caucasian. An example, like this she says, does nothing to promote ethnic diversity.

Culture Shock

Not only does HPU have an issue with race diversity but also culture diversity. There is such a small group of international students that go to HPU that those international students who do go to HPU feel uncomfortable.

High Point University president Nido Qubein in his online newsletter list ways in which American students should handle and make welcome the foreign students, but the attention to international students seems to end there.

When Manar Faraj, an international student at HPU, first meets another student they first assume she is Hispanic because of her coloring. Faraj then tries to inform them that she is from Palestine. People then tell her that, “Oh, you must mean Pakistan.” This frustrates Faraj because it is like no one at HPU knows anything about anybody else’s culture just their own.

Manar Faraj is from a refugee camp in Palestine, she received a scholarship to Guilford Technical Community College and then to HPU. She is now the current president of the International Club of HPU.

She says that she felt more comfortable going to GTCC where there were “a large group of other foreign students.” At HPU, there is only a small minority of them.

Faraj said that even though she has found her place at HPU, some people still do not accept her when they found out that she is a follower of Islam. It seems to her that people still think, “She’s a terrorist.”

Mending Bridges

What could help HPU gain more diversity? Both Smith and Faraj agree that HPU needs more cultural enrichment events to create more awareness to other cultures.

Faraj’s main mission at HPU is for people to learn about her culture and for her to learn more about the American culture. She believes that if people learned more about other cultures that students would not just base their impressions on the stereotypes of the culture.

Faraj also believes that since private schools like HPU are too expensive for underdeveloped countries that there needs to be more aid so that people from those countries have a chance to go to HPU.

With these thoughts in mind, HPU is holding an International Week all this week. Students can eat foreign cuisines, see how other cultures dress, and watch videos on life beyond HPU.

Activities such as these are the stepping stones leading to equality of all.

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