Vanderbilt has been striving to showcase its commitment to diversity through the admissions process, resulting in a large increase in minority applicants even if the demographics on campus seem to tell a different story.

Recently, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education ranked Vanderbilt fifth out of the nation’s 26 top universities in respect to its “relative success in attracting, enrolling and graduating African-American students as well as their progress in bringing black professors to their campuses.”

However, this year the Princeton Review published a seemingly conflicting ranking, placing Vanderbilt No. 18 nationally for “Little Race/Class Interaction.”

And students seem to have mixed feelings, too. “I think there’s some diversity, but not enough,” said sophomore Belem Flores. “You should always try to have more diversity on campus.”

Many noted an increase in ethnic and religious diversity, but some added that such change was really just a drop in a very large bucket.

"I think that Christians and Catholics are definitely predominant and are the most visible, but there's definitely a lot of other religious groups represented," said freshman Ruth Yan. "As far as ethnicity, however, this is very clearly a predominantly white school ... but I've heard many upperclassmen say that for the past few years, each year Vandy is admitting more and more people from minority groups, like Asians."

Admissions statistics show the applicant pool has become more diverse. In a 2009 report, the Office of Admissions reported a 20 percent increase in Asian applicants last year, a 15 percent increase in African-American applicants, an 18 percent increase in Hispanic applicants and a 33 percent increase for Native-American applicants.

“I think campus is growing very diverse, especially for a southern campus,” said sophomore Robbie Zettler. “We are focused more on drawing in student from all parts of the nation and from all religious and ethic backgrounds.”

But do campus leaders think the university’s efforts are working?

According to Ari Dubin, executive director of Vanderbilt Hillel, and Frank Dobson, director of the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center, they are.

“There’s no doubt that the campus has changed dramatically,” Dubin said. “I’ve been here going on five years, and I think there’s no question that the campus as a whole has changed in religious diversity. But I really do think that the diversity at Vanderbilt has changed across the board — in ethnic diversity, social-economic diversity, religious diversity, political diversity.”

Dobson said the high attendance of the Dia de la Raza celebration in mid-October “suggest(s) not only an increase in diversity numerically as articulated by the information from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, but an increase in interest in diversity events.”

Both attributed at least part of this change in student demographic to the efforts of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, but at the same time said they felt that physical buildings, such as the Ben Schulman Center and the Black Cultural Center, helped as well.

 “The reason is a simple one,” Dobson said. “If you look at our peer institutions, they have similar buildings ... If a student was considering Duke and Yale and Emory and Vanderbilt and saw that the others had buildings honoring diversity and Vanderbilt did not, the student would wonder why. … As a competitive institution, we’re keeping pace to our peer institutions and contributing to the intellectual and cultural growth of our students.”

Vanderbilt has created some programs to attract more minority students. Diverse VU “is Vanderbilt's multicultural visit program designed to introduce (students) to the university and to the vibrancy of undergraduate life,” according to the Office of Admissions Web site.

MOSAIC (Medley of Students and Ideas Connecting) welcomes a group of “prospective undergraduate students of color” who come in March to visit “a campus that is constantly striving for increased diversity and awareness,” according to the event details for 2009 MOSAIC weekend. The high school seniors who come have been notified of their acceptance to Vanderbilt and are allowed to spend a weekend mixing, mingling and attending various information sessions that the university holds especially for them.