Bad news, readers: we bungled some numbers in our Winter 2011 cover story on diversity in AU Student Government.

Because AU’s freshman class is 62 percent white according to the College Board, the story stated that the other 38 percent are people of color. The problem is that 14 percent of students don’t report their race, so 62 percent white doesn’t necessarily mean 38 percent non-white. I contacted AU’s Office of Institutional Research & Assessment to get some better numbers. According to OIRA, our student body is:

• 20.23 percent people of color
• 6.97 percent international students (their race isn’t recorded by OIRA)
• 14.22 percent not identified
• 58.58 percent white

According to Science and Engineering Indicators, a publication by National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (a federal agency), most people who do not report their race when applying to college are white, possibly because they think it could disadvantage them during the college admissions process.

In light of this, we have revised the relevant section of our article.

To sum it up, Student Government is racially comparable to the student body, as the senate and executive cabinet is comprised of 20 and 25 percent racial minorities respectively. A promising indication if you like the idea of proportional representation in Congress.

Credit where credit is due: Eagle editor Charlie Szold was the first to catch the fishiness of our numbers (Check out the Eagle report on diversity here).

We regret this error.