I have a very good friend who is White and who occasionally reads this blog. Recently he said to me that although he enjoys learning about the issues I write about, he laments that when it comes to discussing race relations, most of my posts seem to focus on its negative aspects -- discrimination, racism, etc. Well, if he’s reading this, I hope he’ll enjoy reading about one positive story on the topic of race relations -- the success of multicultural learning environments on college campuses:

Five years ago, when Purdue University’s administrators sat down to brainstorm ways to improve diversity and retain students, they came up a solution they never thought would become an award-winning retention program.

In their program, “Multicultural Learning Communities,” a diverse selection of students studying the same discipline live in the same dorm as well as take the same classes. MCL project enforce the importance of living and learning from a multiple perspectives by requiring students in the courses to live and learn together. . . .

In an environment in which minority students feel welcome and a part of, they’re more likely to stay enrolled and go on to graduate because they feel at home, said Andrew Koch, director of student access, transition and success programs. . . . Though the university encourages all first-year students to participate in the learning communities, specific recruitment efforts are made to target minority students for the multicultural program. . . .

The first-to-second year retention rate for program participants is 90.57 percent compared to 84.17 percent for non-participants. Slightly more than 87 percent of minority participants returned, compared to 78.9 percent for minorities who did not participate in the program.

This is one instance in which a targeted focus on the histories, experiences, and needs of racial/ethnic minorities -- which includes both minority students and White students -- has proven to have positive, successful outcomes for such students. In other words, in contrast to critics of affirmative action who charge that such a focus is socially divisive, the results say otherwise -- students from all racial backgrounds benefit from such programs.

I think the lesson to be learned here is, there’s no need to fear multiculturalism. Yes there are ways in which multiculturalism can be expressed in extremist and divisive ways, but they do not represent the norm or the mainstream of such multicultural programs. Instead, the vast majority of such programs tend to share the same objective as the Purdue University program -- to educate and support students of all races, not to accuse or denounce one over another.