6A= THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY,APRIL17,2003
MINORITY RECRUITMENT
Recruitment
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
at the University remains a troubled and complex process.
Postcards and Phone Calls
Minority recruitment efforts center on person-to-person contact during recruitment and publicity, but determining success is murky: is the goal better quality minority students or increased numbers?
80. 8%
Renita Norman works on the University's cultural recruitment team, a group of students who call potential minority recruits and
answer questions about KU. Norman was recruited by the University when she was a high school senior. She said this personal approach encouraged her to attend KU.
"It made me think they really want me here," said Norman, Topeka sophomore.
For a process as difficult as increasing minority enrollment, the Office of Admissions and Scholarship's efforts are relatively simple.
Extra telephone calls, postcards and letters from minority student leaders are the primary tactics to improve minority enrollment.
One example is sending birthday cards to potential minority recruits.
"We try to personalize recruitment," said Lisa Pinamonti, interim director of admissions and scholarships.
Though everyone is free to use them, the birthday cards are primarily sent to students of color, said Claudia Mercado, assistant director of admissions and scholarships.
Increased interaction with students is another focus. In the Office of Multicultural Affairs, administrators try to make students feel at home. Creating a welcoming, useful place will help more minority students feel comfortable at KU. The first step in making students more at home is making students focus on academics, said Robert Page, director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
"It has to be the focus," Pages said. "Academic success, first and foremost."
Page's office uses programs like HawkLink, which provides free tutoring and monitors the academic success of its participants.
The admissions office does not break down its overall budget, so the
Contributed ar
amount of money it spends on minority recruitment specifically is unclear. The Office of Multicultural Affairs' overall budget is $363,770, with most of the money spent on HawkLink and staff salaries.
Birthday cards sent by the Office of Admissions and Scholarships are a way the University tries to attract minority students.
Efforts to
The University of Oklahoma, for example, has a slightly smaller overall enrollment than KU. At OU, 4,816 minority students were enrolled compared to 2,606 at KU.
increase minority enrollment appear to be working. Though first-time minority enrollment dipped by 3.9 percent from the Fall of 2000 to the Fall of 2001, minority enrollment increased by 14.2 percent and a record 450 minority students enrolled in the Fall of 2002.
When asked about diversity, Janet Murguia had a two-part response.
'A Personal Commitment'
"There's no question that there's a commitment by the University to increase diversity," Murguia said. "But at the same time I have a personal commitment to promoting diversity at the University of Kansas."
Growing up in the Argentine district of Kansas City, Kan.. Murguia is exactly the success story the University strives for: a Hispanic woman from a poor economic background rising to the upper echelons of the political and academic world.
When she first came to the University as a student in the Fall of 1978, Murguia was paired to live with a student in Corbin Hall.
"The young woman basically said she couldn't live with me because I was different," Murguia said. "She wanted a different roommate."
Eventually Murguia joined a sorority — an experience she said was overwhelmingly positive.
"The people in my sorority learned more about Hispanic culture, and I learned more about dealing with people who were different than me," she said.
By partnering with the admissions department, the KU administration has recently reached out to minority candidates in areas populated primarily by minority students.
The University sponsored an event in March for the first time called "KU in KC, K," Murguia's brainchild. The event featured recruiters and student leaders encouraging students in the Wyandotte County area, Kansas' poorest county, to come to the University. Dozens of potential applicants from the area attended the event.
KU ranks in the lower third of the Big 12 in overall minority enrollment.
"I think it sends an important message to have KU put an all out effort in that regard." Murguia said.
Compared to KU's peer universities, the University is behind in the numbers side of minority recruitment.
Even if OU's large Native American student population is not taken into account, it still has approximately 500 more minority students than KU.
KU also has a lower percentage of minorities than the state of Kansas overall, when comparing
the results of the 2000 Census and enrollment in the Fall 2002. Minority students comprised 9.8 percent of the student body in the Fall of 2002, while minorities composed 15.3 percent of the population in Kansas.
Norman excels in the classroom, is a Kansas resident and, like many minority students, is dissatisfied with minority recruitment efforts.
Renita Norman wants to help bring more minority students to the University. So, she plays an active role in KU's Black Student Union and works on the multicultural recruitment team.
Norman's not sure what exactly the University should do, but she's convinced what's being done is not enough.
"There's no magic serum," she said. "It's effort and time. But if everyone's gung ho about it, things would change a lot faster and it would move a lot quicker."
"I see them trying to help this issue, to work on it," said Tran, a member of the Asian American Student Union. "But there's always room for improvement."
John Tran, Overland Park junior, said the University's efforts were visible to minority students, but the perception that KU was not doing enough was hard to shake.
'No magic serum'
"My theory is you can't complain about something if you're not going to work to fix it," she said.
"Sometimes I feel the University doesn't think it's that big of an issue," she said. "We have billions of words they've said, but very few actions."
Tran said he was particularly troubled by the lack of Asian representation in the KU Student Ambassadors program, which gives tours to potential students.
"There's only about two Asian people represented," he said. "There's not even an Asianguy."
Melanie Weiser, president of KU's Hispanic American Leadership Organization, focuses on the University's positive efforts toward minority recruitment, particularly the multicultural recruitment team that Norman works on.
"I think they're making really great steps," Weiser said. "But there's always more that can be done."
Scott Reynolds/Kansam
As the assistant director of the
Renita Norman, Topeka sophomore, discusses current issues during a Black Student Union meeting. Norman works on the University's cultural recruitment team.
Office of Multicultural Affairs, Tony Daniels often makes recruitment trips on behalf of the University. On a recruiting trip to Summer Academy in Kansas City, Kan., he saw another problem with minority recruitment.
"I talked to kids, and asked them why they weren't going to KU," Daniels said. "They told me KU wasn't giving them money."
When asked what could be done better in minority recruitment, Daniels had a simple answer.
"It's the money," he said. "The kids need more scholarship money."
The University has no scholarships designated specifically for minority students.
Robert Page said recruitment efforts needed to be increased in disenfranchised parts of the state, such as Kansas City, Kan., and western Kansas.
"We've got to do a better job of telling these sides of our state that we are the premier institution in the state," Page said.
University officials also need to be more direct about the low number of minority students on campus, Page said.
"Sometimes I think we don't tell them about the barriers and challenges that they're going to face," he said. "We need to let them know that they are going to be the only ones on campus."
What's Next?
It will be hard to tell when KU has
met its minority enrollment goal.
"Our goal should be that we're going to do better every year," Murguia said. "It's hard to settle in on a specific target."
Murguia emphasized the importance of numbers for the University, but she also emphasized the quality of the environment that minority students lived in.
"We recognize we want to build on the diversity we have here," she said, "but as important as it is to talk about our numbers, I'm more concerned about our message. Our message needs to be that we'll welcome all students, but that especially students of color are valued here."
Hemenway said he did not have a specific goal, either.
"I believe we can do more," he said. "But I don't believe in quotas."
Page says he has focused less on numbers than others in the University's administration.
"We could have one C'Nea Hatches or one Mark Dupree or one Tiffany Lopez and they could change the world." Page said, in reference to Black Student Union vice president and president, Hatches and Dupree, and Asian American Student Union president, Lopez.
"Yeah, it would be great to have more students of color on campus but if we bring in more students, we've got to do more," he said.
Edited by Christy Dendurent
Rachel Balzer, Whitewater sophomore, works in the Office of Multicultural Affairs as an assistant. The office is a popular gathering place for minority students.
Scott Reynolds/Kansan
Distribution by race/ethnicity at the University of Kansas
---