However, since it is on admissions.vanderbilt.edu , it is unlikely that it would have been shown if it were a highly segregated sorority, for school marketing reasons that should be obvious.
Sigma Phi Lambda at Vanderbilt is also unusual in that it is an explicitly religious sorority. It may be doubly unusual in going against the common segregation in both the sorority and church domains.
Someone concerned about the possibility of sororities/fraternities being heavily segregated should look at more than just one or a few chapters. (Note that high levels of segregation in sororities/fraternities are not limited to colleges in the south.)
Rice is located in a highly safe part of Houston. In addition, the parts of Houston that Rice students are likely to visit will be generally safe as well.
We just toured Rice in September. It appeared to be very integrated and the students were unselfconsciously comfortable. The three dining halls and eating areas we saw during peak lunch hours had large tables that seated 6-8 people and I don’t believe we saw a single table that was all one race. Nor were there obvious “clumps” of a single race of students informally gathering around campus. In other words, race seemed to be a nonissue in all the social settings we observed during our full day there. Could have been an anomaly, but if I were to guess, it wasn’t.
Of all the colleges we’ve toured in the past year, Rice was the one that impressed me the most in person. Not only were the academics and job placement first rate, every single student we met (even the ones we just randomly and casually spoke to on campus) seemed relaxed and happy. No posing, no cynical BS, no snootiness about the selectivity, just open and friendly excitement about how great the place is. Not sure how to describe it, but it seemed almost like a really awesome summer camp social atmosphere.
Rice has a smaller percentage of both blacks and women than Vanderbilt.
Only about 72% of Rice undergrads live on campus, compared to 90% at Vandy.
Only about 50% of Rice undergrads are from out of state, compared to 90% OOS at Vandy.
Vandy has approx. 3000 more undergrad students than Rice, which is a lot more people to interact with.
Of course the big elephant in the room for Rice for many years, is the question of why they have such a small percentage of OOS students compared with most other elite private U’s. Does the admissions office intentionally favor Texas applicants, or does Rice just have a problem attracting top OOS students?
@Defensor - the method used in that article was seriously flawed and it is obvious by just comparing the Houston colleges. Rice more dangerous than the UH/TSU area?
Defensor, that is truly laughable. Rice can draw from an in-state population of 28 million. Like the California schools, it can easily populate its classes with highly qualified in state students. Vandy is in a state with 6 million people. Obviously it needs to recruit more out of state students.
You are likely to find some racial issues at all colleges where the majority of the student body is upper middle class simply because of the housing segregation that exists in many parts of the country. Many students are legitimately ignorant because they live in homogeneous communities and go to homogeneous schools. Although I support the Greek system for building leadership, it is an unfortunate fact that Greek life often leads to more segregation as people try to associate with folks “like” themselves. A good number of fraternities and sororities have overcome this barrier and those can be excellent places to be. My D2 was in very integrated sorority chapter at her school and was quite active in promoting diversity. However, even at her school she was amazed by the ignorance of some folks, and there were issues.
I think schools like Rice and other schools where Greek life is deemphasized will probably have fewer issues, but be aware that the whole country has a long way to go in this area, and the rise of white nationalism is not helpful.
There is a group I’m familiar with called Dialogues On Diversity that puts on performances, such as the Black-Jew Dialogues - at universities and colleges around the country in order to promote dialogues on diversity. I saw Black-Jew Dialogues about 9 years ago and it was hilarious. They are still plugging away today though are refreshing the jokes. There are some clips on youtube.
“Of course the big elephant in the room for Rice for many years, is the question of why they have such a small percentage of OOS students compared with most other elite private U’s. Does the admissions office intentionally favor Texas applicants, or does Rice just have a problem attracting top OOS students?”
There’s two obvious reasons for the big in-state enrollment at Rice. There’s no mystery or elephant in the room.
First, Rice was operated as small elite institution primarily serving Houston and Texas for a long long time. It was tuition free to Texans until the mid-1960s. So Rice’s history, brand, alumni base, etc. are way way more TX focused than many of its peer private schools would be. Rice’s lineage is sort of like Cooper Union’s (whose enrollment tilts heavily towards NY-ers).
Second, TX is a huge state. So (similar to California) Texas provides a big pool of highly qualified applicants that can fill a majority of Rice’s seats while keeping the selectivity high. It would be tough for Vandy or Duke to do that by relying primarily on their home state applicant pools.
I graduated from Duke and have lived and worked near the Research Triangle as recently as 2012. In my experience, both the institution of Duke and the city of Durham were marked by very tense racial relations. The self-consciously “radical” tilt of Duke’s faculty in the humanities and social sciences (a tilt that is curiously at odds with the school’s overall pre-professional orientation) tends to exacerbate rather than ameliorate these tensions.
I have no direct experience of Vanderbilt, but it has long had a reputation as a bastion of Southern “old money.” That traditionalist vibe has no doubt been modified as Vandy has worked so hard recently to increase its national recruiting profile, but I suspect that it still tends to exert some pressure on racial interactions on campus.
My daughter is currently a student at Rice, and–based both on her experience and on what I’ve seen and learned about the school–I would say that its racial atmosphere is exemplary. As others have noted, Houston is an extremely diverse and international city, and this diversity is reflected in the Rice student body. What sets Rice apart is that this diversity is not marred by a propensity for groups to self-segregate in the name of “empowerment” or “safe spaces.” On the contrary, Rice is a school where people from very different backgrounds interact socially and academically as a matter of course. Rice’s residential college system and its lack of Greek organizations both do much to foster such mixing. Another factor that should not be underestimated is the general friendliness and openness of the Rice student body; the pervasiveness of these qualities reflects a conscious strategy on the part of the Rice admissions team.
“Another factor that should not be underestimated is the general friendliness and openness of the Rice student body; the pervasiveness of these qualities reflects a conscious strategy on the part of the Rice admissions team.”
Vandy and Rice always get very high rankings for having happy students. For this year, Princeton Review has Vandy #1 and Rice #2.
I’d think the atmosphere at Rice would be helped by its smaller size, its randomly assigned house system and no greeks.
Also, the economic demos at Rice are a bit lower than at Duke and Vandy. Which would tend to correlate with Rice’s higher minority enrollment and also its more local/regional enrollment. Although the enrollments at all three are strongly well to do.
Median family income $161k Rice, $187k Duke, $204k Vandy. Top 1%-ers are 9.8% at Rice, 19% at Duke, 23% at Vandy. Top 5%-ers are 35% Rice, 44% Duke, 47% Vandy. Top 10%-ers are 50% Rice, 56% Duke, 59% Vandy.
Last, what kind of minority enrollment is most important to you? Rice, for example, has the most Latinos (18%) and the most Asians (29%) but the fewest AAs (7%).