Saturday, Sep. 13, 2008

More diverse students attend WSU Tri-Cities

By Michelle Dupler, Herald staff writer

New statistics show Washington State University Tri-Cities is making strides in recruiting a diverse group of students, officials said Friday.

The campus announced record enrollment for the Fall 2008 semester on Thursday, with 1,376 students attending classes compared with 1,261 last year. That's a 9 percent increase.

Multicultural students represent nearly 15 percent of those enrolled, up from 12.6 percent last fall.

The number of students who identified themselves as Hispanic nearly doubled from 2006 to 2008, rising from 75 to 141.

Chancellor Vicky Carwein said the campus is making an effort to recruit not only Hispanic students, but faculty and staff.

"Studies show you do a better job of recruiting and retaining Hispanic students if you have faculty and staff that are like them," Carwein said.

A significant step toward that goal was the hiring of Jaime Contreras as director of student affairs in June, she said.

Contreras previously was admissions director for Eastern Oregon University in La Grande and associate director for minority recruitment initiatives at Columbia College in Chicago.

He gave a talk about multiculturalism on Sept. 4 as part of a series of events recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month on campus.

Upcoming events include lectures on topics of interest to the Hispanic community, a performance by Charros on Sept. 23, and showing of the film "Frida," starring Salma Hayek, on Sept. 25.

Carwein said Contreras is organizing an outreach event Nov. 8 to let potential students know what WSU Tri-Cities has to offer.

"One of our goals is for our campus to be more demographically representative of the community we serve," she said.

Statistics show WSU Tri-Cities also made gains among black students, with enrollment rising from 7 students in 2007 to 17 students in 2008. Black students represent 1.2 percent of the student body this fall.

The entire WSU system saw record enrollments for the fall semester, officials in Pullman said Friday.

A total of 25,135 students attended classes at the four campuses in Pullman, Tri-Cities, Vancouver and Spokane. That's a 4.9 percent increase from last fall.

WSU's main campus at Pullman has a record-breaking freshman class of 3,411 students, up from 3,208 last year.

"The continued growth of our enrollments and the academic strength of our incoming class are certainly excellent news for our university," President Elson Floyd said in a written statement. "However, bringing these students to our campuses is only the first step. Our job now is to provide them with the tools to gain the world-class education they seek and deserve."

Multicultural students make up 15.1 percent of the student body in Pullman, compared with 14.6 percent last fall.