Editor's note: In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrations on campus, The Observer explores diversity issues in a four-part series. Part two examines the issues confronting minority retention at Saint Mary's and Notre Dame.
By NOREEN GILLESPIE
News Writer
In a sea of white faces, Deontraneze Thompson stands out in the crowd.
On a campus where African-American students make up .8 percent of the student body, standing out isn't a choice for Thomspon — it's her life. Life for Thompson has meant becoming used to walking into a classroom knowing that she will be the only African-American student there. It's been becoming used to the looks she gets when she walks across campus, and being one of the only African-American women in her residence hall.
But that doesn't mean she's comfortable with standing out.
"I'm usually the only black student in my classes," Thompson said. "When I walk into a classroom, and everyone is the same, I stick out. I don't have the benefit of skipping class and not being noticed."
Thompson, a native of Birmingham, Ala., said that when she toured Saint Mary's as a senior in high school, she realized the diversity numbers were low. However, having come from a predominantly Catholic, mixed elementary school, she didn't think that race was going to be a problem.
It was.
"I didn't care where I went as long as I got out of my state," Thompson remembered. "When I visited Saint Mary's, it was gorgeous — I loved the nature setting. But I didn't factor in that in elementary school, it wasn't about color. It's different in college."
For Thompson and other African-American women on campus, adjusting to Saint Mary's is a difficult task given the small numbers from their ethnic group enrolled on campus. Confronted with false racial stereotypes, a lack of minority faculty and a lack of African American writers and role models in the College curriculum, many African American students find themselves feeling isolated — and fast.
Those feelings of isolation lead some African-American women to consider transferring as they struggle through freshman year, often unable to find connections with women of their own race and identify role models in College faculty and administration.
Apryl Underwood, a sophomore African-American student from Fort Wayne, Ind., understands those feelings of isolation. When her parents made the decision for her that she was going to attend Saint Mary's, Underwood admits that she knew little about the racial composition of the College. After a year and a half at Saint Mary's, she now knows the consequences of low minority enrollment all too well.
"I was this close to leaving," Underwood said, pinching her thumb and forefinger close together. "I'm not back because Saint Mary's is such a great place — I'm back because it's not a good business decision to leave."
As a pre-med student, Underwood didn't want to risk losing the academic credit she had already logged at Saint Mary's, especially with a long medical school career ahead of her. Sticking it out at Saint Mary's became a choice between her future and her temporary happiness.
She chose her future.
"I couldn't face the possibility of losing credit and having to take courses over again," Underwood said. "Saint Mary's may have a lot of drawbacks for minorities, but I don't have the endurance mentally or emotionally to do this again."
Not all minority students make the same choices as Thompson and Underwood to remain at Saint Mary's, however. While College administrators have touted high minority retention rates among the African-American, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian-American and Hispanic-American students, recent trends have shown that the College is having trouble retaining minorities. While minority student retention rate was within 3 percent of the majority retention rate for the classes of 1999, 2000 and 2001, those numbers have dropped. While the College was retaining an average of 84 percent of minority students through the class of 2001, minority retention dropped by 14 percent in the class of 2002. While the numbers rebounded slightly for the class of 2003, minority retention for the current sophomore class stands at only 74 percent.
However, with a total minority enrollment of only 7.1 percent campus wide, losing even a few minority students can make the statistical differences seem huge. While there was a 14 percent drop-off in retention between the classes 2001 and 2002, the College lost only 6 more minority students in 1998 than they had in 1997. When minority enrollment is already low, however, students assert that losing even one member of a minority community makes a huge impact.
"There are so few of us, that for each one of us that leaves, it's a definite blow to the numbers," said Myra McGriff, a junior African-American student who heads Sisters of Nefertitti, a multicultural group that aims to bring cultural awareness to campus. "When even one of us leaves, it hurts."
Yet while overall minority retention decreased between 1998 and 1999, the College remained consistently high in retaining Latina students. Retention rates for Latina students have been higher than general minority retention rates for the past two years.
Regina Diaz, president of La Fuerza, an outreach group that is comprised primarily of Latina or Hispanic-American students, believes the difference in retention is a result of the increasing numbers in the Latina community.
"Because there are more of us, we are able to see, communicate, and relate to each other," Diaz said. "If I can't relate to students, or relate to a faculty member, I would second guess if this is the place for me. It's easier for us because there are more of us — we've become much more present [on campus]," Diaz said.
Hispanic-American enrollment has consistently exceeded other minority group enrollment on campus for the past decade, and the group makes up the majority of the minority population on campus. Even though there are 70 Latina students enrolled at Saint Mary's, however, the numbers do not rid them of the adjustment problems that other minority groups face.
Lilly Morales, a Mexican-American student originally from Brownsville, Texas, noticed immediately that she was in the minority upon her arrival on campus in 1998. Having spent time with Mexican-American students during the application process, she was caught by surprise when she couldn't identify anyone of her race.
"My first day here, I saw nobody who was Mexican-American," Morales said. "I checked into my room, and walked through the door, and both of my roommates were white. I was scared out of my mind," she said. "I asked them which bed I was sleeping in, I left, and I didn't come back until late that night."
Morales' adjustment was made easier through connections she began to make with the Hispanic-American community at Saint Mary's — connections she said were critical to keeping her on campus.
"I wouldn't have made it to my junior year [without them]," Morales said. "Some members of the student body are very close minded, and don't want to see the word diversity. Sometimes, it's just been ridiculous, the comments people make. Being here would be very difficult if I didn't have anyone to speak Spanish with … it helps, because they can tell me, `Don't take what people say so seriously,'" Morales said.
The La Fuerza program, in conjunction with the Office of Multicultural Affairs, makes efforts to reach Latina students before they even set foot on campus through a pen pal program. Letting students know that they have a support system early on in their college experience is important, Diaz said.
"We like to let them know that we're here ahead of time. [We're} a very big support system. Even if they don't want to be active in the group, we let them know there are girls willing to be there for them," Diaz said.
The Office of Multicultural Affairs makes strong efforts to connect minority students with other multicultural students and provide information about different cultures for all students. Terri Johnson, director of Multicultural Affairs, believes these connections are critical.
"We do talk to students about how do you deal with being the only one sometimes," Johnson said. "We try to serve as mentors and advisors, and try to get the students involved in the community."
But while LaFuerza provides a solid support system for Hispanic-American students, it is more difficult for some African-American students to take advantage of a cultural network. With fewer students, trying to connect with each other can be nearly impossible.
"You can't have a club if there's only 10 people on campus, and not all 10 participate," McGriff said. "And if you feel like you're always hitting walls, and you'll never get anything accomplished — the group will dissolve."
It is also difficult for the African-American community to watch the College commit to diversity through programs such as this fall's Chicana 2000! program, a series of lectures and coursework designed to raise awareness about the Chicana culture. While some African-American students feel the College's commitment to diversity is important, they feel their own diverse experiences are being ignored.
"It's not polite to have Saint Mary's be comprised of different cultures and showcase one without recognizing the other ones," Underwood said.
"They chose [the theme] because there are more Latinas on campus … it's not fair that they're educating the entire freshman class about that culture, but not doing anything that educates about our culture," Thompson said.
While the numbers of Hispanic-American students are drastically higher than the numbers of African-American students, admissions officers do recognize that improvement is needed in recruiting and retaining African-American students. Affiliations in programs such as the National Hispanic Organization simply do a better job of making connections with Latina communities, said Mona Carrandi de Bowe, associate director of admissions, who specializes in multicultural recruiting. While the admissions office is working on making new connections with programs that specialize in African-American connections, such as the A Better Chance program, changes take time. That does not mean, however, that Latinas are more of a priority than African Americans.
"There is an equal push [for African-American and Latina students]," Carrandi de Bowe said. "The College doesn't differentiate when we put together diversity goals. We talk about groups equally. It just happens that [Saint Mary's] is a better fit for one group than another."
That fit has a lot to do with the Catholic nature of the College, Carrandi de Bowe said, which can be a roadblock to admitting African-American students.
"I'm reluctant to make big generalizations, but a lot of Latina students come from families that are comfortable sending their daughters to a Catholic women's college," she said. "If an African American student who isn't Catholic isn't comfortable with their religion, the Catholic environment [can be a deterrent]."
While the Latina population has grown faster than the African-American population on campus, the total campus minority enrollment lingers at just 7.1 percent. When minority students only make up 111 faces on a campus of 1565, regardless of race, the experience is a difficult one. Surviving as a minority is a task that takes determination, willpower and pride, say several minority students.
"If you're really serious about your education, you need to have the ganas [Spanish for will] to get what you want at Saint Mary's," Morales said.
"You have to work twice as hard to prove that you belong here," Underwood said. "I want to know how many Caucasian girls on this campus could go to an all-black school. That's how special you have to be to be a black girl at an all-white school."
All News Stories for Wednesday, January 24, 2001
