Tyler Stovall, Ph.D., dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, says diversity among a university’s student body and faculty is important not only in terms of justice for marginalized communities but also in raising the standards and outcomes for the university as a whole. He says diversity creates healthy competition that brings about higher grade point averages among students and improves the quality of research among the faculty. People are inspired to do their best, he says, when exposed to different ways of thinking and seeing the world.
“Diversity and excellence are not contradictory values, they are values that go together,” he says.
