(Left) Pankaj Chandra, Professor of Production and Operations Management at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, (middle) Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza, Lord Justice Professor in the Constitutional Court of Uganda, and (right) Stanford economics professor Caroline Hoxby discuss expanding access to higher education for diverse populations throughout the world.
That was one of the key takeaways from a panel discussion held at the historic Hotel de Ville Thursday at the second annual Princeton-Fung Global Forum.
The panel — formally titled “How to Expand Access for a Diverse Population” — featured scholars from three nations, including the United States, that are wrestling with how to use policy to encourage greater social parity in postsecondary education.
The discussion transcended the ongoing debate about the merits of diversity on campus — as well as how to achieve it — and delved into what colleges and universities should do to make optimal use of the diversity that’s already been achieved.
“The real challenge of diversity is to create a classroom learning environment that creates a collective pride based on individual pride,” said Pankaj Chandra, Professor of Production and Operations Management at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
Chandra said that, while universities are seen as a “mechanism of integration,” questions remain about whether universities are “assimilative in nature [so] that the value of diversity is not taken advantage of in a classroom.”
Chandra touched on the system of affirmative action in India known as “reservation,” which reserves roughly half of all university seats to students from disadvantaged backgrounds and includes members of various castes and tribes.
