if the goal of this great university is excellence, and it is and should be, the attainment of that excellence requires diversity as a fundamental el… - Vilma Socorro Martínez

What does it take to build a great university? One must start from the premise that a great university is much more than a campus which provides a home to a group of professional schools. The courses which it chooses to offer, the people it chooses to employ and to teach, and the questions it chooses for research ultimately derive not exclusively from discussions in faculty meetings, but from society: society's demands, its questions, its dreams. The university is both the creation of and the intellectual force for the society in which it lives. A university flourishes as it examines and teaches the intellectual questions arising from the society of that time and place.

The university of the twenty-first century would be irrelevant if it did not take account of the most striking changes in our world: rapid communications, enormous increases in lit-eracy, and, most importantly, greater mixing of cultures in all aspects of our lives.

It means requiring all students to study the history, culture, and contributions of these people whom we call "minorities."