The visitors who slipped into a pew at a mostly black Baptist church in Denver weren’t seeking a more soulful religious experience.
They were looking for students of color to apply to the University of Colorado.
The round of visits to black and Latino churches by CU president Hank Brown and assistant vice president Carmen Williams is part of a vigorous campaign to improve campus diversity by reaching out to minorities on their turf.
The strategy was among the recommendations of a 46-member community panel that studied diversity at the Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs campuses for most of a year.
The commission holds its final meeting today, but Brown wants members to review the university’s progress annually.
Other recommendations include ramping up scholarships for low-income students of color and building more flexibility into Boulder admission standards to reach more minorities.
Brown attributes an increase of 29 American Indian students on the Boulder campus this fall – a 112 percent jump – to a new scholarship solely for Native Americans.
And the president credits a boost of 33 black students on the Denver campus – a 122 percent increase over last year – to a vice chancellor who has been knocking on doors in predominantly African-American neighborhoods.
“It’s a good first step, but we have a long way to go,” Brown said, adding that he thinks it will take two or three years to make major strides in diversity.
Boulder is the least diverse of CU’s three campuses at 1.5 percent African-American and 6 percent Latino.
CU-Denver is 4 percent African-American and 10 percent Latino, while the Colorado Springs campus is 3.8 percent African-American and 8.9 percent Latino.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on Diversity, made up of community members of several races and professions, created a network for university leaders to link to minorities.
One panel member, African-American attorney and CU alum Gary Jackson, sends letters to students of color who are admitted, encouraging them to enroll.
“We’re underrepresented on the faculty, on the staff and with respect to the student body, and there has to be a concerted effort to make a change,” he said.
Another panel member, grassroots organizer Charles Robertson, encouraged Brown to make the church visits and has accompanied him to three predominantly black churches and one Latino church, with plans for more next month.
After a service at Montbello Catholic Parish Church of the Ascension, Brown accepted an invitation to coffee at the home of a parishioner whose daughter is interested in CU.
The commission “would like to see diversity dealt with at the highest level,” Robertson said. “You can’t get any higher than the president.”
University fundraisers have raised $2.6 million for scholarships in the pre-collegiate program, which is for first-generation-college, low-income and minority students who take college classes while in high school.
The commission’s recommendation to make admissions requirements more flexible has caused some uneasiness on the Boulder campus, which “doesn’t want to be seen as lowering academic standards,” Brown said.
Colorado universities use an index score – a number based on high school class rank, standardized tests and grades – to determine admission.
CU-Boulder’s index requirement is 103, but the campus can admit up to 14 percent of its students with numbers below the index by considering leadership or high school course work.
Students of color make up 25 percent of those admitted below the index, but only 12.5 percent of students admitted within the index requirement.
