This is probably one of those times when it’s safe to use the word microcosm.

Patrick Coyle of the YAF blog reports.

Ithaca Conservatives Expose Lack of Intellectual Diversity Among Faculty

A new study conducted by conservative students at Ithaca College has revealed a troubling lack of intellectual diversity amongst its faculty. An investigation into the voter identification of the faculty shows that Democrats and Greens compose 92.1 percent of Ithaca College’s faculty, contrasted with 7.9 percent Republicans and Conservatives.

Foundation activist Robert Oliver found no registered Republicans in the departments of Politics, History, Philosophy and Religion, Sociology, and English, creating a very one-sided view of these fields of study.

Ithaca College has a commitment to diversity, specified in the college’s mission statement, that calls for a diverse body of both students and faculty. The study indicates a clear trend in the faculty; one which has not changed since a similar study was first conducted by Foundation alumni and Ithaca College Graduates, Michelle Meredith and Roger Custer in 2003.

In Ithaca College’s strategic vision for the current decade, IC 20/20 Vision and Plan, states, “Every Ithaca College student should graduate with a multi-cultural competence that prepares them to live and work effectively and in harmony within a diverse society and an increasingly interdependent global community.” Robert Oliver questions the schools commitment to true intellectual diversity, “how are we preparing our students to live in a diverse society when we are disregarding the perspective of over 42 percent of the nation’s population? Further, what is so diverse about a community who all thinks the same?”