This is an example of promoting diversity in an integrated fashion. Tell us about your department at Penn State. Neither my department nor program are very diverse. There are no African Americans in my department. I m also the only minority faculty member in our plant physiology interdisciplinary program, which has about 40 faculty members.
None are in any position of administrative influence.
As far as students, I ve taught a very diverse group of undergraduates. It s been very difficult, however, to recruit underrepresented minorities into the graduate program. Not only is the recruiting pool rather small, some faculty may find it burdensome to recruit. And, overall, our graduate program was having a rather difficult time recruiting top students. My Ph.D. students always ask for advice so I always encourage them to be proactive to be a risk-taker.