Gettysburg College will increase the diversity of the student body and will create campus environment that is accessible and welcoming to a diverse student body.
Understanding difference goes to the heart of a liberal arts education. Students encounter ideas that challenge them, hear perspectives they hadn't considered, and have experiences that cause them to look at the world in new ways. A critical part of understanding difference in a liberal arts college involves engaging people who are different-people with different backgrounds and belief systems and life experiences. A diverse campus environment opens minds, enriches the educational experience, and better prepares students or leadership and fulfillment in a diverse world.
We embrace diversity first and foremost for what it adds to students' education, but there is another side to it as well. In the years ahead the greatest increase in the number of college-bound students will be among members of minority groups. To continue to be competitive, we must be able to attract and retain students rom a wide range of backgrounds.
One key to achieving greater campus diversity is broadening access, which we will achieve by expanding efforts to recruit students from diverse backgrounds and by eliminating physical and other barriers that inhibit access to College, and by increasing resources for need-based financial aid. Equally important is developing and sustaining a campus environment that celebrates diversity in the fullest sense of that term- diversity of ideas, interests, abilities, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, background, and socioeconomic level.
300 North Washington Street · Gettysburg, PA 17325