Our first order of business was to define diversity. We defined diversity to encompass many dimensions. The committee discussed the domain of the learning environment .
Students learning takes place at a number of places other than the classroom.
Personal interaction with faculty, other students and staff on campus outside the classroom constitute the learning environment as well. Once we had more or less defined diversity and the domain of the learning environment, we discussed information that could be useful to assessing diversity on campus. First , we felt there were a number of objective data sources that would be helpful in this regard. Rates of success could be defined as graduation rate or length of time it takes for graduation. We felt that this type of data could serve as a valuable benchmark for the campus as well as the schools.