|
|||||
 | |||||
|
Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 9/26/07 |
|
|
In
the News Archive - Year:
October 2, 2005 UWGB, students welcome growing diversity Minorities 6% of university's population By Kelly McBride
Originally from Guyana, Ogle spent much of her life in New York City before moving to Green Bay with her mother and sister in 2003.
Living in a less diverse community can be frustrating. Frequently, people assume without asking that she's Jamaican. Often, they think she's African. But Guyana is in South America.
"That sometimes gets to me, I'll be honest," she said. "I don't assume. I ask where you're from."
Although enrollment of minority students at UWGB is at an all-time high, it's still easy for Ogle to feel like she sticks out. Minority students make up just 6 percent of the total student population at UWGB. Officials are working to increase that number, and many students say they'd love to see it happen.
Of course, there are obstacles. But as UWGB looks to significantly increase its total student enrollment during the next six years, diversifying the student body - and the institution's faculty - remains a vital goal, said UWGB Chancellor Bruce Shepard.
"We aren't doing this just to improve the education of minority students," Shepard said. "It improves the education of all our students. ... If we aren't reflecting our community 10 years from now, our university will fail."
Reaching out
About three-quarters of UWGB students are from Northeastern Wisconsin, much of which has an increasingly diverse population of young people. In the Green Bay School District, for example, one in three K-12 students is a minority.
The primary obstacle to reflecting those numbers at the university level is academic progress, said Sarah Butler, a Native American alumna of UWGB and the academic counselor coordinator for Upward Bound, a program designed to prepare low-income and first-generation students for college early, at St. Norbert College. That's a result of myriad factors, she said, including some families not making education a priority.
To help fuel college aspirations in K-12 students - and their families - UWGB uses its Phuture Phoenix program to reach students early. In some cases, Shepard said, reaching families can be even tougher than reaching students.
Phuture Phoenix pairs UWGB students with students from 10 Green Bay elementary Title 1 schools. Title 1 schools have a high percentage of students from low-income families. The goal is to expose younger students to the university and encourage them to pursue a college education.
Word of mouth also is a crucial part of the equation, said Steve Taylor, a 1979 UWGB alum who has served on several university committees. The other half of the recruitment effort - minority retention - can help generate future interest in the institution.
"The hurdles that I see for Green Bay are just to continue to get others involved, current students involved, in the recruitment of minority students, to continue to have a positive experience for those students," Taylor said. "So when they go back to their hometowns, that others are interested in the university and it becomes like a snowball effect."
UWGB also hopes diverse faculty will attract a more diverse student body, Shepard said. Thirty percent of last year's faculty hires were minorities. The Chancellor's Community Council on Diversity oversees many of the diversity efforts on campus.
The students' perspective
UWGB's American Intercultural Center is a convergence point for students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. They mingle easily in a casual atmosphere of studying, eating, laughing and just hanging out.
Increasingly, the center's melting-pot dynamic - a term many regulars use to describe it - also has included white students, said UWGB senior Juny Lee, who is Hmong. That's good to see, he added.
The campus climate, while generally accepting of racial and ethnic differences, could definitely use more minority students, said UWGB sophomore Marjorie Springer, a Native American.
"(Diversity) exists, but it could be double," she said. "The more diverse, the better. (But) you can't make people go to school. ... You've got to want to go to school."
Upward Bound and similar programs can go a long way, Ogle said.
"They already hit the campus," she said of participants, "touched the soil."
And although many current students emphasize the importance of family and early college aspirations in helping to increase diversity at UWGB, it might not be too easy in what's still a fairly homogenous area, said UWGB senior David Butler, a Native American.
"There's a lot of space around here, and people are really polite," Butler said. "It's just a different setting. (It's) setting, more than race."
No matter what the dynamics, progress in the area of diversity has been made, said Green Bay resident Alex Zacarias, a 2005 UWGB grad and a member of the Chancellor's Community Council on Diversity. Making the university campus more diverse has multiple benefits, he added. And there's more to be done.
"I think we've achieved small inroads. We are definitely having some success," Zacarias said. "We're still way behind as to where we should be at. Attitudes should be changed.
"I think the most important thing is people need to understand that diversity is not just a feel-good thing for the community, that diversity, if you look at the bottom line, it contributes to our economy. ... Let's think about our future."
| |
