CMU sees 11 percent increase in minority student enrollment since 2010
The draft of Central Michigan University’s Diversity Report Card shows progress has been made toward recruiting underrepresented students.
Denise Green, associate vice president of the Office for Institutional Diversity, gave a presentation summarizing CMU’s current diversity report during the Academic Senate meeting on May 1.
Minority student enrollment has increased in the past two years, she said. Reports from the Registrar’s Office show enrollment of minority students increased by 11 percent from 2010 to 2012.
Kevin Williams, associate director of admissions, said this year has seen the largest underrepresented student population on CMU’s campus.
“We have been very dedicated to getting out to high schools with large underrepresented populations,” he said.
Williams said diversity has been one of the strategic plans of the university for the past five to six years, he said. Former CMU President Michael Rao started the diversity plan, which has been continued by the current president, George Ross.
CMU’s recruiting for students of diverse backgrounds concentrates on schools in cities such as Detroit, Flint, Lansing, Saginaw, Muskegon and Grand Rapids, Williams said.
“For the state of Michigan, that’s where you’re going to find underrepresented students,” he said.
Shannon Jolliff, director of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Questioning services, agreed that CMU has worked hard to make its campus more welcoming, but she said that there is still more work to be done.
“We still have incidences of folks not feeling safe on our campus, and we can do better,” Jolliff said. “We cannot become complacent just because great strides have been made.”
Programs CMU offers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics have been drawing large numbers of underrepresented students to the university, Williams said. The College of Medicine has attracted more international students, he said, who have been starting undergraduate careers at CMU in preparation for attending the medical school that is about to open.
“We’ve been leading the way nationwide in putting things in place to showcase CMU,” he said.
