How committed to diversity-in all its forms-is Gil Vilanueva?So much so, the dean of admissions said, that were it legal, he would ask applicants to share their sexual orientation with his office.

"Unfortunately, it's not legal to ask people if they're gay," he said.

Such is the nature of the buzzword "diversity," the broad concept that has taken higher education by storm in recent years. It has been fueled by educators' almost universal belief that students benefit when surrounded by a wide range of people and ideas.

That range extends beyond race, as racial-minority students are often the first to point out. Diversity of religion, nationality, political opinion and sexual orientation are all goals pursued by colleges and universities.

At Brandeis, 10 admissions officers, including Villanueva, divide the globe to recruit prospective students. They monitor the matriculation of Transitional Year Program students, Martin Luther King Jr. scholars and Posse scholars (see main story) within the framework of the greater student population, and work closely with community-based organizations in urban centers that have already identified strong candidates for college.

Still, gains in enrollment of racial-minority students have not kept pace with peer institutions, the University acknowledged in a recent self study. At Tufts University, minorities make up more than 25 percent of the undergraduate population, more than twice the percentage at Brandeis, according to The Education Trust, a Washington-based advocacy group.

"We've been working really hard at it," Jean Eddy, the senior vice president for students and enrollment, said of efforts to increase the matriculation of minority students.

"We've had some nice gains, not as many as we'd like to have, but we're still working on it," she said in a phone interview.

Older institutions with larger endowments than Brandeis, administrators say, can offer more of the financial aid these students need, as well as more frequently fly in minority candidates to visit their campuses.

A 2003 Supreme Court decision that allowed public universities for the first time to consider race as a factor in admissions decisions has further intensified the competition to recruit minority students. And with many of those students coming from backgrounds that have left them inadequately prepared for elite colleges and universities, experts say, the pool of minority students is inevitably smaller, only increasing the competition between institutions.

"The kind of [minority] students Brandeis and other institutions are recruiting . there's not that many of them," Vilanueva said.

The challenges in enrolling a diverse student body are many, both for Brandeis and at other colleges and universities. The reduced buying power of Pell Grants for low-income students has made college less affordable for minorities in recent years, said Kati Haycock, president of The Education Trust.

She also described the popular U.S. News and World Report ranking system as "perverse."

"You don't get any points in higher education for serving minorities," she said in a phone interview.

And then there's Brandeis' Jewish identity, which, depending on who is asked, can be seen as either a weakness or an asset when recruiting minority students. Some minority students say it was the University's emphasis on social justice that drew them here. Others say its Jewish identity almost scared them off.

"I think the Brandeis story translates very well into making [minorities] want to come here," said Robert Andrews, a recruiter in the Office of Admissions. "The issue is telling them the story.