Minorities
education rates climb
By
Tanya Payne
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
The enrollment of under-represented populations, traditionally called minorities,
in graduate school has slowly increased at Cal State Long Beach, and in the
California State University system as a whole, with non-white students comprising
41.6 percent of master’s degrees awarded in 2002-03, compared to 32.4
percent in 1996-97, according to the official CSU Web site.
Latinos have had the most significant gain, with a jump from 751 master’s
program graduates in 1997 to 1,377 advanced degrees conferred in 2003. Native
American and black student populations, on the other hand, have not made any
noteworthy improvements, with neither population making any gains over the
same period.
What is happening in graduate school is mirrored in undergraduate studies as
well, and with so many other minority populations growing, Alosi Moloi, chairman
of the black studies department, interprets the lack of growth in the black
population as a decline.
Moloi said he believes “more needs to be done, our students need a more
nurturing environment.” He said CSULB should recruit more heavily and
needs to have a “real talk about diversity, not just pay ‘PC’ lip-service.” He
also voiced distress about the lack of diversity among the faculty on campus.
He said, with so few black professors on campus, some students “may avoid
the other departments for their lack of diversity.”
Though the numbers may be discouraging to some, CSULB has been recognized as
one of the most diverse campuses nation wide. The Beach ranked eighth overall
in Black Issues in Higher Education’s “Top 100,” a list of
American universities that confer the most bachelor’s degrees on people
of color.
According to Clara Potes-Fellow, the CSU director of media relations, “The
CSU system is very proactively working with under-served communities to increase
enrollment, especially undergraduates.”
She noted two programs specifically designed to address the recruitment of
minority students, the availability of financial aid and the diversity of faculty:
The Forum and the Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive (CDI), formerly known
as the Forgivable Loan Program.
“
The Forum is a graduate school workshop available to outstanding minority students
by invitation,” Potes-Fellow said.
Each school selects students to represent them at the workshop, which includes
information about financing graduate school, and students hear from doctorate
students and faculty in their chosen profession.
The CDI program, as described on the CSU system Web site, is designed to provide “student
loans to a limited number of individuals pursuing full-time doctoral study.” The
program repays 20 percent of the loan for each year of full-time postdoctoral
teaching. The program’s duality provides incentives for minorities to
enter doctoral school and encourages a more diverse teaching faculty in CSU
campuses.
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