Minority enrollment continues rise at UT
Heavy recruitment in Memphis and Nashville, which have the state’s largest African American populations, targeted scholarships and on-campus support to keep minorities in school are changing a campus still under a desegregation watch from a 1968 lawsuit.
Five years ago, black students railed against a perception of racism at UT-Knoxville — graffiti on a dorm wall, a rebel flag painted on a large rock that’s a kind of campus bulletin board and a misguided student art project of hanging nooses. Public forums were held to soothe tensions and improve understanding.
Then in 2002, six white fraternity members were caught partying in “blackface” at an off-campus bar. The university denounced the action.
“I don’t want to call that a myth, but I think we are starting to knock down some of those barriers that students used to say, ‘Knoxville is not a friendly place to be,'” said Richard Bayer, dean of enrollment services.
“I think you can see everywhere you go on our campus that there is a true commitment to diversity. And as we continue to increase (minority enrollment), even though modest in numbers, … that translates to a good feeling that we are serious about what we are doing,” he said.
The numbers suggest the trend is taking hold. Nearly 8 percent of the 19,500 undergraduates at UT-Knoxville in 2004 were black, up from 5 percent in 1997. Figures for 2005 aren’t yet in.
Still, blacks make up 16 percent of the state’s population.
“When you first come from Memphis, it is really, really intimidating. Especially if you are the only black person in one of your classes,” said Atina Sims, 19, a sophomore majoring in pre-pharmacy. “But pretty soon you get comfortable.”
She credits a Black Cultural Center, opened in 2002, that offers academic tutors, a computer lab, a textbook library and a sense of community.
“It makes you feel like home,” Sims said. “You can come here if you have any problems and they will be willing to help you.”
Alaka Hoskins, 19, a sophomore from Nashville looking to major in biomedical engineering, said he attended a small majority-white Christian high school and wanted to go to a big university, “so it wasn’t really like a culture shock” coming to UT-Knoxville.
“At the same time, as soon as I got to UT, it was so easy to find black students and black professional organizations. It wasn’t like I had to hunt for them. They were there for you. It just makes you feel like it is not necessarily a white campus. It is like slowly closing in with diversity to where I don’t even notice.”
For freshman Quentin Tuckette of Lewisburg, race wasn’t a factor.
“I thought they had a good academic program,” the political science major said. “It is a large university, and it didn’t cost that much, either.”
About 700 of the nearly 4,200 freshmen who arrived at UT’s 26,000-student (graduate and undergraduate) Knoxville campus last week are minorities. That’s 16.5 percent of the freshman class, up from 14.8 percent last year.
About 430 of those new freshmen are black or 10.3 percent of the class, compared to 321 students or 9 percent last year. The black percentage in 2003 was 7.4 percent.
“It is a real increase in head count and percentages, and it has been trending upwards every year since 1999,” Bayer said.
There also are about 138 Asians and 78 Hispanics in this year’s freshman class.
Academics haven’t suffered. This class has an average ACT score of 25.6 and a 3.54 grade point ratio from high school — the highest scores of any UT freshman group.
Nationally and across the South, black enrollment grew twice as fast as overall college enrollment over the last decade. In Tennessee, black enrollment has grown four times faster, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.
Lottery-funded HOPE scholarships are playing a role. But a 2001 consent decree in Rita Sanders Geier’s 1968 lawsuit, which accused the state of perpetuating a dual system of higher education for blacks and whites, may be doing more for minorities.
Under that accord, which comes up for review in 2006, the state was required to spend $75 million over 10 years to make amends.
While much has gone to historically black Tennessee State University in Nashville, UT has used its “Geier money” to put recruiting offices in Memphis and Nashville, provide special scholarships and services to black students and augment salaries to attract black faculty and administrators.
“The concern that we have is that the support that the Geier consent decree mandated from the state has driven a lot of the progress that we have made,” said Theotis Robinson, vice president for equity and one of UT’s highest ranking black administrators.
“You know what that tells me?” said Nashville attorney George Barrett, who brought the Geier lawsuit. “It tells me they are not ready to fly on their own, not ready to leave the nest.”
Since 2000, the number of black faculty throughout the five-campus UT system has inched up from 3.7 percent to 4.5 percent — a gain of 27 professors, still far short of overall goals. And the number of black administrators has slipped from about 9 percent to 8 percent.
Barrett said UT’s minority student gains are commendable, but to end Geier will require a greater state financial commitment to higher education.
“Somewhere along the line you have got to say we have reached some kind of understanding where race really doesn’t make a difference,” Barrett said. “But unfortunately we are not there yet.”
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University of Tennessee: http://www.utk.edu/