Freshmen class has more minority students, higher ACT scores
This year's freshman class has 295 more minority students on campus than last year.
The 10.8 percent increase in multicultural students is something Steven Johnson, associate vice president of Enrollment and Student Services, expects to continue. This year’s freshman class is 22 percent multicultural. In total, 5,398 minority students are enrolled at Central Michigan University.
"Our current (freshman) class is 22 percent multicultural students," Johnson said. "That’s the highest it's ever been at CMU," Johnson said.
With a growing population of multicultural students, Shaun Holtgreive, executive director of student affairs, said it is even more important to offer resources for minority students to help them be successful and keep them at CMU until they graduate.
"We have been a historically white campus, and we need to prepare to deal with changing demographics," Holtgreive said. "Having the critical mass of students of color here does more to debunk myths and make it more welcoming for them than anything else we can do."
A new orientation program called "Impact" was implemented this year for multicultural and first generation students. The program helps acclimate students to campus and transition them successfully into college life.
"Just like (Leadership) Safari, it helps students identify people outside of their class and outside of their residence hall that they could be friends with," Holtgreive said.
Impact lasted three days before Leadership Safari. Facilitators of the program were multicultural students and recent alumni. Afterward, participants were required to take part in Safari.
"Current students (who volunteered at Impact) said how much they wished the program would have been at CMU when they were starting school," Johnson said.
As the demographics of the student body changes, Johnson said retention is a critical area the university has tried to improve upon for the last three years.
"We really need to make sure we weren’t just bringing in a class and exhausting individuals and leaving them up to their own devices," Johnson said.
Impact has helped provide multicultural students with more support at CMU, said D'Wayne Jenkins, assistant director of Multicultural Academic Student Services.
"More multicultural students adds value to a learning environment," Jenkins said. "People want to go where they feel included."
Jenkins said there are services and resources available for minority students through the MASS office and other departments on campus, but improvements can always be made.
"(CMU's student body) matching the diversity of the state of Michigan is important," Jenkins said. "But so is keeping up with the diversity of America."
ACT score increase
In addition to the spike in minority students, the freshman class has an average ACT score higher than last year, with a score of 23.
"The average across the nation has held at 21," Johnson said. "It’s not just that we’re part of an overall rising score, it is rising relative to the national score."
The number of Centralis and merit scholarship awards has increased over the past three years. Johnson attributes it to a rise in the average GPA of incoming students.
Centralis Scholarships vary in amount awarded, with the highest covering 100 percent of the cost of tuition, room and board and general expenses for four years.
"We do believe that is a direct relationship because we’re able to actually put some type of incentive out there for those students with academically strong credentials," he said.
Large decrease in transfer students
The other main shift in the freshman class demographic is a substantial 11.3 percent drop in new transfer students.
"The biggest culprit appears to be declining enrollment for the last four or five years at the community colleges," said Dave Patton, interim associate vice president of enrollment management. "They're our No. 1 source for transfer students, so if those are down, then we’re down."
The amount of people living in Michigan is decreasing, Johnson said, which potentially plays a role in the lower number of students transferring to CMU.
"It is pretty dramatic how rapid the loss in community colleges has happened in four or five years," Johnson said. "It’s almost scary."
