Within a school of 8,000, Northwestern’s class of 2012 enrolled just 87 black students, and even fewer Hispanic/Latino students. Hopes are higher for the class of 2013.
FMO’s Black Enrollment Committee, in conjunction with Phi Beta Sigma and Zeta Phi Beta, hosted the second Minority Enrollment Student Forum Wednesday night to discuss the current and future state of Northwestern’s minority enrollment. About 30 students attended.
The forum focused on financial aid, diversity in Northwestern admissions publications and the upcoming Wildcat Days to promote the improvement of minority enrollment, and stressed the importance of student and administration involvement. The first forum was held during fall quarter.
“It’s a great cause,” Medill freshman Dallas Wright said, upon attending the forum. “You can just look around and see why we need it.”.
The most important component in stimulating minority enrollment is the presentation of Northwestern during Wildcat Days, according to Medill sophomore Bradley Akubuiro, who led parts of the forum. Minority students will visit primarily during April 19-21. This year there is less programming, and every event is optional, in response to the feedback received last year.
“Most of it is going to be based on student interaction on a personal level, not [an] institutional [level],” Akubuiro said.
Suggestions for improvement included more interaction between administrators, like President Bienen, and prospective students during Wildcat Days. Students also discussed minority preview days at other universities and strategies that work at competing universities, like Vanderbilt.
Students, especially black males, were encouraged to host one or more prospective minority students during Wildcat Days. Currently, there are about 90 hosts and about 200 students looking to participate, according to Medill freshman Breajna Dawkins, a member of the Freshman Advisory Board.
“The reason students are coming here is to learn about Northwestern,” Akubuiro said, “and we are Northwestern. It’s us.”
This year, an extra effort was made to invite students from Chicago to participate. In addition, the Northwestern participants in the Spring Phonathon were able to convince nearly 100 prospective minority students who hadn’t planned on participating in Wildcat Days to come, according to Akubuiro.
Also addressed during the forum was the diversity, or sometimes lack of, present in Northwestern publications. “Last year’s weren’t necessarily the best,” Weinberg freshman Kaasha Benjamin said while presenting this part of the forum. She noted an improvement this year. “To us, it looked like they highlighted what our community would be proud of,” she said.
This year, the university published a pamphlet specifically about diversity. It was titled “Open Minds,” and sent to prospective minority students, though it was noted that this was not a “fix-all” for the diversity issues on campus.
Financial aid was also a concern during the forum. Akubuiro said there is still a lot of work to be done to improve financial aid at Northwestern. However, he noted that given the economic crisis, Northwestern has responded well. By cutting spending in other departments, Northwestern has managed to avoid a large increase in tuition, and still increase aid by 10 percent, Akubuiro said.
“I think that speaks volumes about our school,” he said. Other students commented on policies at competing schools, such as no student loans, or no tuition if a family’s income is under a certain amount.
At the end of the forum, ASG presidential candidate Mike McGee briefly spoke and answered questions about his ideas and experience in improving minority enrollment. No one from Bill Pulte’s or Luke Adams’ campaign was present.
Weinberg senior Samuel Ludington said he was very pleased with the student turnout. “It was an issue that needed to be addressed,” he said. “It’s an opportune time, in terms of Wildcat Days coming up.”
As part of last year’s small minority class, Communication freshman Charles Agbaje said, “[Low minority enrollment is] something that really struck us as a small freshman class. It would benefit the university if it could be improved.”