Boulder – The number of minority students attending the University of Colorado at Boulder has reached record levels, even as the number of black students on campus has dropped to the lowest it has been in four years.
That paradoxical picture comes from the annual campus census for 2006 enrollment. The census gives CU officials – who have been struggling to improve diversity on a campus that is still more than three-quarters white – plenty to be happy about.
In numbers for this fall, CU officials reported 4,177 American degree-seeking students of color. Minorities make up 15 percent of undergraduate students on campus. Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, the associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity, said she believes both figures are records for the campus.
CU has 28,942 degree-seeking students.
The university saw a surge in the number of Latino students this year, with 106 more degree-seeking Latinos on campus this year than last year. Overall, the number of minority degree-seeking students grew about 3 percent.
“It’s not whopping progress, but it is increasing,” Yoshinaga-Itano said.
But the census figures are perhaps as revealing for showing how far CU has to go in improving diversity enrollment.
The number of degree-seeking black students on campus this year dropped by 19 to 430, the smallest number of black students at CU since 2002. The increase in the number of degree-seeking Asian-American students on campus – three – did not keep pace with overall student growth, meaning Asian students make up a smaller percentage of the student population this year than last.
And, while Latinos now make up 6 percent of the student body, that is far below the 19 percent of the population that is Latino in Colorado, according to the latest U.S. census figures.
“If you look at the state in which we live, that number is nowhere near close to the number of Hispanics who live in the state,” said CU senior Israel Garcia, who works with a program on campus called SORCE, which aims to recruit students from minority and other under-represented groups, then provide them with support while at CU. “As the flagship institution, we should represent the state in which we live.”
Black students now make up 1.5 percent of CU’s student population, the same percentage the campus had in 1988.
“It’s disappointing, but it’s not surprising,” said Jasper Peters, a member of the campus’ Black Student Alliance.
“It seems typical of the institution we’re dealing with that, no matter how much we say we would like it to change, until we take active steps to make it change, not much is going to happen.”
Lou McClelland, CU’s director of institutional analysis, said the lower number of black students is largely attributable to a bigger- than-normal class of graduating black students last year, 87.
CU has struggled with diversity issues in recent months after numerous well- publicized incidents, including racist fliers posted on campus and an attack on a CU student in 2005 after the attacker yelled a racial epithet.
Partly in response to these issues – as well as in response to a growing concern over the low minority enrollment figures at the school – CU officials formed a Blue Ribbon Commission on Diversity, which is scheduled to release its final report Friday.
Several minority students at CU said they haven’t seen an improvement in the campus climate. This semester, a snowboarding club made up mostly of white students hosted a “gangsta”-themed meeting that it advertised with fliers featuring the pictures of slain rap stars and bullet-hole graphics, said Mebraht Gebre-Michael, a former student government leader on the Blue Ribbon Commission.
“I’d like to remain optimistic and say we’re making progress,” said Gebre-Michael, who last year received a profane and epithet-filled death threat via e-mail. “But until I see a drop in racial incidents on campus or a change in the racial climate on campus, I can’t say that.”
Yoshinaga-Itano said one of the problems CU faces in recruiting minority students is that minority high school graduation rates in Colorado lag behind those of white students, leaving proportionately fewer students who apply for college.
Overall, students of color increased by 20 percent, nearly doubling the increase in white students. The number of American Indian students in the freshman class doubled compared to last year’s. Latino, black and Asian freshman enrollment all grew at a greater rate than the class as a whole.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
