Dive Brief:
- Janet Dudley-Eshbach has overseen a marked rise in student diversity as president of Salisbury University over the last 15 years, though she has found it harder to increase faculty diversity.
- Dudley-Eshbach writes for University Business that the admissions office has gotten creative, offering an SAT optional application program for high school students that many minority applicants take advantage of, and going to high schools in the Baltimore-Washington corridor to offer admission on the spot to qualified students and counsel others about their options.
- Once underrepresented students are on campus, the Office of Multicultural Student Services provides support programs that have helped increase the retention rate for minority students overall to a higher portion — 83% — than the class as a whole, and increased African American retention, specifically, to seven points higher than the national average for peer institutions.
Dive Insight:
Offering test-optional applications has worked to attract a more diverse pool of students at a range of institutions. Black and Latino students from low-income backgrounds and families where no one else has gone to college often do not have the resources to pay for expensive test prep or even know that is something they should do. The SAT and ACT have been criticized for failing to adequately predict college success, prompting some advocates of test-optional admissions to push for heavier consideration of GPA.
As schools find success increasing the number of underrepresented minorities on their campuses, however, it is important to keep faculty in mind. This metric is harder to improve and students seem to be catching on, with many of the recent campus protests featuring demands to significantly grow this population.