Originally posted on LinkedIn
Diagnosis #4️⃣ from my ~100 conversations with education experts: “Diversity” in Higher Education is often just an illusion 🫥
Francisco Javier Quintero Cortés tells me how he’s seen in DeVolver ConCiencia the extreme effect of bringing together truly different cultures and backgrounds. Rosita Manrique with Origen Red de Liderazgo already achieves this with more experienced profiles. Why doesn’t it happen more in Higher Education?
Not for lack of desire or because of elitism. But because there are no incentives to do it. Groups come pre-formed: 👬 friends from high school, the same social circle, the same plans as always. And the university, beyond the classroom, doesn’t offer or design real spaces to mix different stories, worlds, or perspectives.
➡️ The class unites academically, but not humanly ⬅️
Where does the real diversity experience actually happen? Often in spaces that arise outside the university’s core: student clubs like AIESEC, post-university programs like Enseña por Colombia, volunteer work… where what unites people isn’t their background, but their purpose or interests. That’s where real social cohesion forms — but only for a select few.
The problem goes beyond the campus ⚠️. When the university doesn’t build bridges between different contexts, what it inadvertently feeds is ignorance of the “other.” And in a country like Colombia 🇨🇴, that’s fuel for polarization.
Shouldn’t the university be the prime space for learning to coexist with difference?
What if we designed university life experiences that go beyond the curriculum and invite us to genuinely know each other? What do you think? Who should take on that role? The university? The students? Other actors?