Fighting Dropout Rate : CSUN Broadens Effort to Recruit Minorities

California State University, Northridge officials called on faculty members Wednesday to actively participate in a minority-recruitment program developed at CSUN and adopted by the California State University system.

The CSUN program is intended to reduce the high minority dropout rate in the state university system and to encourage greater minority enrollment, CSUN President James W. Cleary said.

At CSUN, enrollment of blacks and Latinos has not increased significantly over the last seven years, according to the report by CSUN’s Educational Equity Advisory Committee.

Comprehensive Goals

Although minority recruitment has been an admissions goal for about 20 years, the new program’s objectives are more comprehensive, Cleary said.

“Educational equity will not rest only with the office of special admissions,” he said. “We’re formally launching a program to make this a major all-university commitment.”

At a meeting at CSUN, university officials asked faculty members to form committees to carry out various facets of the plan.

To increase minority graduates in the university system, focus for minority recruitment and retention will be shifted to faculty members and administrators and away from specialized offices, such as the Student Affirmative Action Project and the Equal Opportunity Program, Cleary said.

To reduce the minority dropout rate at the elementary and high school levels, faculty members and administrators will visit area schools to encourage minority youths to pursue college studies, said Herbert Carter, vice chancellor of administration for the university system.

CSUN’s program was selected out of 19 proposals--one from each California State campus--because it had already established several successful services for minority students. They include specialized counseling of minority students and a program in which faculty and student leaders help minority students adjust to university life.

CSUN also has established programs for minority students in engineering, business, science and math.

Some professors maintained at the meeting that educational equity can best be achieved if more money is allocated for minority programs.

“We’re disappointed that we haven’t heard any real promises as to what the administration is willing to put up in the way of resources,” Ron Davis, a CSUN history professor, said.

Carter said university officials have requested major increases in funds for loans, fellowships and school programs, adding that about $31 million a year is spent on minority programs systemwide.

Also, CSUN officials have recommended that some state lottery money be earmarked for remedial programs and for more counseling services for minority students.