– Shannon Ashford, 21, is a CSUN communication studies major.

I’m voicing my concerns about the article “Student organizations deliver letter to President Harrison to emphasize diversity on campus,” because I believe that the real issue is that some students on our campus need to realize the amount of acceptance in our university leads to a large diversity in our university’s community.

CSUN is among the largest of the California State Universities.

Students’ purpose of voicing their concern of the decline of the African American and Hispanic attendance in our school should highlight the power behind the diversity we have on our campus.

With that being said, students should also explore the numbers of the current population on our campus, claim arguments with beneficial facts, and note that our attendance on this campus can also affect the acceptance of another possible student.

With CSUN being the heart of the San Fernando Valley, it’s likely many high school and transfer students list this university as one of their options they wish to attend.

Therefore, knowing the amount of students currently attending this university has also led to a large amount of diversity.

Students who are concerned about the decline of acceptance of a specific race or ethnicity should realize that diversity doesn’t just lie within race but also gender, sexual orientation, language, etc.

CSUN has many students who fall under the different identifications.

As a student who is involved on campus, I get the chance to see the power behind this diversity. I think the more students get involved on campus, the more they will have the opportunity to witness diversity in our school’s community.

My involvement on campus gave me the opportunity to have lunch with our university president, Dianne Harrison. During that time, I gained more knowledge of the topic of the population of our campus.

With this incoming freshmen class being the largest class ever accepted into CSUN, we are at a current population of over 40,000 students attending the university. She also mentioned that the longer we stay in school at CSUN, the more it will affect students applying to our university.

Although I don’t 100 percent relate to that specific statement, it is not said in a place where they want students to feel like a burden.

Instead, it relates to this article. If you personally are concerned about the decline of acceptance and the diversity on our campus, take a moment to think — the quicker you achieve [and graduate], the more opportunities for other students to be accepted into CSUN to create more diversity.

Students voicing their concerns is beneficial to our campus if the arguments are factual and valid. During that lunch with Harrison, she mentioned how Hispanics have the largest population on our campus. There are clubs and organizations on campus highlighting the success of both Hispanics and African Americans as well as other ethnic cultures.

As an African American student, although I am not involved in these specific organizations, I am involved in other organizations that have a lot of diversity.

For example, I was involved in the New Student Orientation team as a TAKE XXVII cast member; you could identify the diversity in that organization. Also, being involved in a Panhellenic organization on campus, I proudly claim that my sorority is the most diverse sorority at CSUN. This shows the concern students have for diversity of student involvement and of our university as a whole.

The goal of this letter was not to show my disagreement to those who voice their concerns about the lack of diversity on campus; however, it was to show that when you pursue in some sort of research about our university and compare it to others, there are benefits to understanding the diverse population of our campus.

The examples used were to show credibility of how these concerned students can see there actually is a high degree of diversity in the student body on our campus.

I urge for students to examine the growth in our population and the diversity that lies within.

Students who show their concern and involvement on campus may gain a better understanding and perspective of how diverse our campus is.