A few higher education industries define the goals of education for the rest of us. As "gold standard" institutions they have created the mental framework for other universities. Whether that is through example, political capital, or the type of people they have graduated, the rest of the world seems to want to emulate their success.
An article in the Maine Wire discusses what is diversity of thought. It isn't what you might think but it can have an influence on university outcomes if it reflects the student population but yet still changes the way student's think.
Higher education isn't about creating clones but more about creating independent thinkers that view the world in new ways. Having faculty from the same indoctrinated educational background does student's a disservice. They are not exposed to new and unique ideas or ways of thinking needed in the Information Age.
The more "educated" we get the more difficulty we have coming up with unique ideas. Our thought process follow the paths that others have blazed before us. While this works great most of the time it isn't beneficial all the time. The next economy will need people that can reconstruct data in more holistic frameworks.
In business we learn diverse teams help generate the most unique and useful ideas. In higher education we learn there are predefined ways of solving problems. Geniuses often violate these predefined ways of thinking but in higher education we still shun from full diverse creativity. Making sure we have people of different backgrounds and thinking patterns leads to a better reflection of the full scope of human intelligence and problem solving creativity.
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