Black student population falls as SATs rise

Georgia College and State University has seen its percentage of black students decline 4.5 percent from 16.1 percent in 1999 to 11.6 percent in 2003.

Dr. Paul Jones, vice president for institutional research and enrollment management, said this decrease is an indirect result of the university’s change in mission statement in 1997.

“We’ve seen declines [in the percentage] in a number of areas – the biggest area is the freshman class,” said Jones, who added that the goal was made after the mission statement changed to eventually raise GC&SU SAT average to 1200 by 2005.

Jones said this goal essentially had a negative impact on minority enrollment across all ethnicities. Black students, whose SAT scores nation-wide for the 2004 year ranked the lowest of all minorities, have felt these negative effects the most.

Graduate student Crystal Cammons thinks the problem can be helped by better recruiting techniques.

“There’s definitely a need for more [diversity],” said Cammons. “We need to recruit in more predominately black areas. I know we do a lot of recruiting in Atlanta – we need to recruit in places like south Georgia.”

Joffery Blair, assistant director of Admissions, said the pool of qualified black students is smaller than it has historically been, and GC&SU has to compete with other schools to attract those qualified students.

“With the small pool, I’m not saying its impossible, but you have to get a little creative,” said Blair.

Jones said one change needed to attract and retain minority students is the need to provide more extensive scholarship opportunities.

“No one is advocating that we are to lower our standards,” said Jones, who added that when the minimum is cut off, the school enters a competition with other institutions of being attractive enough and providing enough incentives for those students who meet the higher requirements to want to attend GC&SU.

“Applications for first time [minority] students were up 21 percent for fall 2004,” said Jones, adding that this increase brings a positive element to the issue.

Jones said more scholarship support is needed to assist minority students, who often come from backgrounds where families are not able to provide the financial resources necessary for college.

“We can’t deliver [that support] at this time,” said Jones, adding that other schools competing for these same students are usually able to offer more financial support and, therefore, are more attractive to minority students.

“We want to do all we can to provide a learning environment conducive to you walking away and being successful,” said Jones. “That’s what you lose when you don’t have that diversity. We need students from all kinds of backgrounds.”

Blair also emphasized the complexity of having a diverse campus.

“Diversity is more than a black and white thing,” said Blair.

Jones said another issue needing to be addressed is student retention.

“Student retention is also a big problem,” said Jones, adding that President Leland has established a task force that will look into that particular problem, among other issues.

Jones said he feels reaching out into the local communities and trying to attract those students to GC&SU is one area that needs to be addressed.

Jones said another piece of the puzzle is attracting minority students to make campus visits.

“Seventy percent of students that visit campus enroll here,” said Jones, highlighting the importance of upcoming receptions and other events planned to help attract minority students to the campus itself.

Blair also said recruitment efforts include personalized visits to high schools as well as better follow-up communication with prospective students, as well as getting students on campus.

“What we’re trying to do is get minority students on campus,” said Blair. “We want to get them involved in things already going on on campus.”

Jones said the issue of diversity as a whole has gained the attention of officials at GC&SU.

“We are certainly putting more attention on it,” said Jones, of the issue of diversity as a whole.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 1 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry