Posted on 08/29/2005 3:58:18 AM PDT by Shawndell Green
Editor's note: This is the first story in an occasional series looking at Texas A&M University's efforts to recruit and retain minority students. Colleges and universities across the state are grappling with how to enroll 600,000 new students, mostly minorities, by 2015 to mirror the state's changing demographics.
COLLEGE STATION - Jacob Tadesse arrived eight days before the start of classes at Texas A&M University and, like many freshmen, soon felt alone. So he left the sterile coolness of his dormitory room that first night without a destination in mind.
Wearing a baggy T-shirt and shorts, with his black hair in braids and beads, Tadesse started walking around campus about 10 p.m., hoping to cross paths with someone like him.
An hour later, he saw a friend from Houston. They slumped into chairs in a dormitory lobby and said, ''Howdy," the university's official greeting, to passers-by. Some stopped, others didn't.
After midnight, Tadesse counted those around him: Three blacks, three Hispanics, two Asian-Americans and seven whites. ''I wasn't expecting that," he said later.
What he expects is to succeed despite his surroundings. Texas A&M is a place where roughly 80 percent of undergraduates are white, where the 2,000 members of the quasi-military Corps of Cadets wear uniforms to class, where tradition is everything.
Tadesse, who graduated third in his class from the nearly all-black Jack Yates High School in Houston, is part of Texas A&M's bold effort to increase its minority enrollment without considering race in admissions. The goal is a student body that reflects the diversity of Texas.
The state's second-largest university has invested millions of dollars to attract students who didn't have the luxury of wealth or the best schools. The campaign reversed a seven-year decline in the number of black and Hispanic freshmen last fall, and the university is projecting big percentage increases again as classes start today.
Officials are pleased with the numbers, but realize that recruitment is a first step. Retention is another. For years, a lower percentage of black and Hispanic students have graduated within six years from Texas A&M than their white classmates.
The university is staking a lot on Tadesse, knowing his success could help draw more minority students. He is resilient and earnest and does not plan to leave without a bachelor's degree.
"People change in college because they haven't seen things in life," he said. "I feel right now that I'm a grown man."
Hard to explain
The folks who live and learn in this rural college town tend to say the same thing about Texas A&M: From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. From the inside looking out, you can't explain it.
Here in Aggieland, the students practice yells at midnight before football games at Kyle Field. No one walks on the grass outside or wears a hat inside the Memorial Student Center. And students and alumni worldwide gather every April 21 for the roll call of their dead, known as the Aggie Muster.
The traditions, and the almost religious devotion to them, have long served as selling points for the university. But many prospective minority students equate the rituals to an earlier time.
Texas A&M began as a military-training school and excluded black and female students until 1963.
Earnestine Randle, a former counselor at Yates, often heard students complain about the traditions after visiting the campus. Before Tadesse and another student arrived this fall, only one Yates graduate had enrolled at Texas A&M in three years.
"It's a tough sell," said Kenneth R. Poenisch, acting director of admissions. "Historically, there haven't been a lot of students who have come to A&M, so they don't know A&M."
The image problem is not lost on university administrators, who are grappling for ways to lure more minority students. That Texas A&M cannot close the deal with many minority students is evident in the percentage of admitted students who enroll.
Texas A&M launched the recruiting push in December 2003 after about 44 percent of black students and 48 percent of Hispanics admitted actually attended the university, compared with 63 percent of whites.
This fall, the university officials expect about 49 percent of blacks and 53 percent of Hispanics to accept admissions offers, while whites will enter at the same rate as before.
"I'm optimistic in 10 years that everyone will be accepting offers of admission at the same rate," said Mark H. Weichold, associate provost for undergraduate programs.
To get there, Texas A&M has opened recruiting centers in targeted areas throughout the state and pumped more than $8 million into new scholarship programs.
The university also has transported minority students in SUVs to campus as part of the "Very Important Prospects" program. Tadesse missed his official ride from Yates last spring but found a friend to take him. Tadesse also considered the University of Texas at Austin and Baylor University, but Texas A&M's honors program made the decision easy with a scholarship award of $5,000 a year.
Before Tadesse left Houston, friends and acquaintances in his poverty-pocked neighborhood peppered him with the same question: Why go to school where the white folks go?
"Because they let me in, and they paid me to go to school," Tadesse said in a defiant tone. ''What are you doing?"
Jumping at an opportunity
Jack Yates High School is along Sampson Street in the Third Ward, where greasy take-out joints serve oxtails, and billboards advertise malt liquor. Even with two universities within walking distance of the campus, the idea that they actually belong in college is lost on many students at Yates.
About a third of the 256 graduates in 2004 started college that fall, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Despite the rough-edged neighborhood and low college-going rate, Tadesse saw an opportunity at Yates and transferred from Crockett High School in rural east Texas as a sophomore.
Because Yates enrolled more students than Crockett, Tadesse figured he had a better chance to finish in the top 10 percent of his graduating class. Under Texas law, the ranking would allow him to attend the state university of his choice.
He is 18 but hardened. After leaving Crockett, where he lived with his grandmother, he moved six times around Houston, following his single mother, who works as an apartment manager.
Still, Tadesse managed to breeze through high school with a straight-A average.
"If I didn't have smarts," he said, "I would be on the streets."
Assimilation not a goal
The sun was high above a drill field last Tuesday as hundreds of Aggies converged for horseshoes and shaved ice. A country radio station, broadcasting live from the gathering, played Redneck Yacht Club .
Before the party ended, two cadets in overalls summoned the students to practice the traditional yells for football games. In unison, they hunched forward with hands on their knees to project their voices.
Tadesse watched with a dozen black students from beneath an oak tree. One of his new friends wanted to join the yellers, but he did not budge from his spot in the shade. ''It's too hot," he said.
Assimilation is not a goal for Tadesse, who also did not attend Fish Camp, a summer program that indoctrinates freshmen to the university's traditions. Instead, he sees Texas A&M as the means to a lucrative career and maybe the wherewithal to create jobs for people from places like the Third Ward.
Tadesse, who is majoring in engineering, fasted on water and juice for a week to clear his mind before arriving at Texas A&M. "He is smart, and he has a plan," said Jeannette Maxie, a Houston-based A&M recruiter.
If Tadesse needs help along the way, he can turn to his older sister, Munit, who graduated from Crockett and is a sophomore at Texas A&M. Even then, university officials intend to pay close attention to him, as they do other minority freshmen. Many educators maintain that students need a sense of belonging to thrive in the first year. So Texas A&M will provide mentors and tutors and ask deans to check midterm grades and intervene, if necessary.
As a condition of his scholarship, Tadesse must maintain a 2.75 grade point average and be part of "a learning community" with other science students.
Still, Tadesse had doubts about the university's commitment.
"They want the (enrollment) numbers, but they don't care," he said. "A&M is still A&M."
"They want the (enrollment) numbers, but they don't care," he said. "A&M is still A&M."
Cry me a river, Tadboy.
"What he expects is to succeed despite his surroundings."
- What the F&^% is this supossed to mean?
I thought the exact same thing. What the F&^% indeed.
What is being done to encourage poor white kids?
The poor white kids are going into the Army and REALLY wearing the uniform. A&M is doing no outreach to the poor rural white student who made the university's traditions.
When and if he graduates will he expect his new employer to provide the same affirmative actions as A&M? Yes, and he should be promoted over those whose job performance is much greater than his 2.75. As a matter of fact, he should be provided with a group of expierenced 3.8 to 4.0 performers to "supervise" to insure his position.
What...a black can't succeed at a mostly white school? What an asshole.
This guy expects the A&M alum out there to give him a job, has this attitude at the school, and but its A&M that does'nt care?
Here's a trick for you, chuck. No one wants to hire an NWA and your behavior in school will mark you as one.
Plenty of smart whiteboys have problems getting a job after college, usually its because they have some type of personality "issue".
Instead of looking around for someone like himself, instaed of feeling lonely, why didn't he f\feel good about going to a reputable school??
These reporters are arse ends....
>>>Texas A&M began as a military-training school and excluded black and female students until 1963.
Did they have a problem getting female students?
Mabye the problem should hold the school accountable then....
Yep. My poor white boys are serving in the US military, and I hope someday that will help them get college educations, when they are ready to be serious students.
I'll bet Neal Boortz is thrilled with this A&M news.
-After midnight, Tadesse counted those around him: Three blacks, three Hispanics, two Asian-Americans and seven whites. ''I wasn't expecting that," he said later.
What he expects is to succeed despite his surroundings.-
Despite the whites being outnumbered by minorities, ya mean? I count 8 minorities to 7 whites. Isn't that good enough? Should we maybe take a few whites out back and shoot 'em?
Finding "those like him" is easy if you're not a racist. Just find other FRESHMEN.
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