History and Context

Indiana University was intimately involved in advancing educational opportunities for African Americans long before diversity was in vogue. Thanks primarily to the vision of President Herman B Wells, the Bloomington campus was among the first large American universities to integrate residence halls, dining facilities and athletic teams. Because state universities in the south were legally segregated, there were no opportunities for graduate study there.  Indiana University stepped into the breach, welcoming hundreds of blacks to graduate programs in education, business and other disciplines. In fact, the Bloomington campus was so successful in attracting Black graduate students who went on to assume the presidency at Black colleges that it became known as the “mother” of Black college presidents.

These positive accomplishments notwithstanding, IU was in a relatively advantageous position of being able to diversify without spending any of its own money. Its influx of graduate students was subsidized by southern states’ tuition funds, for example, and it had little institutional aid available for black students, above and beyond what was already offered through the Office of Student Financial Assistance.

That finally changed in the late 1960s with the arrival of the student protest movement and the establishment of special programs and strategies to recruit minority students. Chief among these were the Afro-American Studies Program and the Groups Student Support Services which began in 1968 with 43 students. Other programs were added through the advocacy of Vice Chancellor Herman Hudson, IUB’s first senior Black administrator. These programs included, among others, the Strategic Hiring Initiative for faculty, Summer Faculty Fellowships and the Minority Achievers (later Hudson & Holland ) Programs. Throughout the decade of the 1970’s and 1980’s, IU was considered an innovator among Big 10 schools in its efforts to diversify its student body, faculty and staff. However, it has never allocated the necessary base financial resources to ensure continuation or growth in these programs.

In 1998, the Bloomington campus responded to what was generally perceived as a decline in the success of its diversity efforts by unifying all programs under a single administrative unit, the division of Academic Support and Diversity. Indiana University became the first major research university to hire a vice president to lead its diversity efforts. At the same time funds were allocated to expand recruitment, retention, campus climate and K-12 multicultural outreach. The dedication of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center in 2002 was a significant hallmark in the present era of growth.

Left unanswered ae questions of financial need and of what is now commonly known in marketing circles as “branding.” While IU has made considerable strides in recent years we have found an effective ceiling of undergraduate black enrollment at about 4 percent. Our partners in the Big Ten, with the exception of Michigan , are doing little better. We believe that all the pioneering efforts IU has made should have produced better results, and still can do so, with a more comprehensive, forward-looking approach.

While the campus’s K-12 outreach activities introduced over 3,500 minority and first generation students to the Bloomington campus last year via a wide array of academic enrichment activities and the fall 2005 freshman class recorded the highest percent of African American students in the history of the campus, clearly we must do more if we are to enroll a critical mass of underrepresented minorities. In order for the campus to significantly increase minority enrollment, strategic investments must be made in the areas below.

Goal: Increase from 6.8% (2612) to 14% (5315) the number of underrepresented minority students enrolled on the Bloomington campus by 2013-14.

1.  Minority Student Marketing                                                                   

IU has always had difficulties with its image among blacks. This is due in part to the location of the campus in southern Indiana , longtime acknowledged as a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity. The whites-only reputation of Martinsville , which is gradually changing as that town becomes more of a commuter location for Indianapolis workers, has also been an historic hindrance to the migration of blacks to Bloomington . Focus groups professionally commissioned over the past decade have continued to reaffirm the disadvantage of reputation that Bloomington suffers, despite the university’s best efforts.

The emphasis in recent years on a single unified marketing campaign by the university has not helped the situation with black students, parents and community influencers.  Marketing initiatives have focused on a single Bloomington concept, a “storybook college community” – without doubt an advantageous positioning among traditional recruiting audiences, but not the most welcoming to urban blacks and Latinos.

Thus, the first part of the comprehensive strategy has to be to implement a strong, targeted marketing campaign in the black and Latino communities. All that has been said so far explains the historic context of why Indiana University has trouble recruiting black students. That context forms an unstable foundation that is easily shaken by public controversy. 

In recent months, there have been several such challenges:  the faculty uprising against the university’s only African-American president; the resignation of the only black head coach in the university, and in its most visible sport; the brief reappearance of controversy about the leader of the only all-black team in the Little 500; and in the week leading to Little 500, a racially-motivated attack in downtown Bloomington. Reminders in the campus newspaper of the KKK mural that sits in Woodburn Hall occasionally reignite controversy.  Taken together, these news stories, though they may not be related, appear to be threads of a fabric to a sensitive public and therefore must be countered with a targeted and persistent marketing campaign. 

2.      Pre-collegiate Programs                                                                         

IU was able to achieve a relatively steady increase in the percent of undergraduate minority students in the 1970’s and 1980’s due in part to a lack of competition. Today, every university in the country is competing for a limited pool of academically prepared minority students, while every campus in the state of Indiana is competing for excellent Indiana residents. Accordingly, IU must continue to enhance its burgeoning efforts to grow the pool of eligible students by actively engaging the various academic units on the Bloomington campus. With few exceptions, most of our current K-12 outreach programs are general in nature rather than discipline-focused. Future pre-collegiate programs must include information technology and the life sciences, journalism, business, environmental affairs, teacher education and others. At the same time, we must enter into strategic alliances with selected schools in East Chicago/Gary, South Bend , Fort Wayne , Evansville and Indianapolis . These alliances must focus on dual credit enrollment, Advanced Placement courses, science Olympiads, and professional development for teachers via the School of Education .  In brief, the Bloomington campus of Indiana University must assume a more active role in helping to increase the pool of minority students prepared for college. Without such investments, 20 years hence, Indiana University will still be decrying the lack of minority enrollment on its flagship campus.

3.      Student Financial Assistance                                                                   

If the Bloomington campus is to succeed in capturing more of the limited pool of high achieving minority and first-generation entering freshmen, we must increase immediately the competitiveness of the scholarships awarded. At the same time, the university must increase the amount of money budgeted for financial assistance for high need students. Research by Tom Mortenson, a scholar at the Pell Institute, demonstrates a national shift in the amount of money invested in merit-based scholarships versus need-based awards. There are two programs that account for approximately 75% of all underrepresented minorities admitted to the Bloomington campus each year. These include the Hudson & Holland Scholars Programs (HHSP) focused on high achieving minority students and the Groups Student Support Services program focused on first-generation college students.

In the last twenty years, IU has endowed Wells, Kelley and Metz aid at a level that now makes our campus competitive with the best scholarship programs nationally for the very best students. Now is the time for the campus to base-fund the Hudson & Holland Scholars Programs, as well as the Groups Student Support Services program. Given the demonstrated success of HHSP students, the university should double the number of underrepresented minorities entering the program annually (from 125 to 250 students), increase the value of the scholarship to cover 100% of resident tuition, and introduce academic incentives for students who major in math, science and technology. In addition, given the uncertainty of future federal funding for the Groups Program, along with the constraints imposed by the government, the campus should provide base funds to cover the funds lost from discontinued university participation.

4.  Enhancement of Student Academic Support Services                                      

We provide a wide array of “behind-the-scene” programs, such as strategic mentoring and resources for professional and graduate school test preparation.  We also offer support for students who participate in study abroad programs and multicultural job fairs.  Though these and other academic support services may go largely unnoticed by the public, they are vital for the long-term success of countless IUB students.  IU Bloomington has a right to be proud of the progress we have made over the past several years. We have gone from a palpably chilly climate in 1997 to a much more welcoming campus where diversity is more frequently practiced than it ever has been.  Many of our efforts toward diversity, recruitment, and retention have been well grounded in our own nationally respected and funded research. We must always support a culture of continuous improvement, but there is little need at this time for reorganization of our menu of services.

5.      Strategic Hiring Program                                                                       

Over the past two decades, the Strategic Hiring Program (SHP) has brought to IU approximately 150 outstanding faculty of color and senior women. This program, so widely copied by many institutions, has enabled us to remain competitive for faculty of color despite our low salaries and relatively isolated location. We have learned that many of the faculty we seek are hard to retain, and that we must work continuously to keep our areas of strength while building up new ones. Approximately 50% of the faculty of color hired since the inception of SHP are no longer affiliated with the university. While the reasons they cite for leaving are varied, often heard complaints include a lack of colleagues of color with whom to work as well as inadequate support from departmental colleagues. The allocation of additional resources will enable the campus to address the issue of critical mass while leadership and accountability will enable us to address the chilly climate experienced by those we recruit.

6.  Establish a Strategic Hiring Initiative for professional staff of color    

Currently, approximately 75% of all professional and support staff of color are concentrated in the division of Academic Support & Diversity or they work in the diversity related areas within the campus. There are no professional staff from underrepresented minority groups in most academic units; none in Career Development; none in Counseling & Psychological Services; none in the Provost’s Office; none in the College of Arts & Sciences; none in Student Financial Services, the list goes on. While resources are a problem, the lack of commitment on the part of those who lead these units is far more challenging. To address the problem, we must hold vice presidents, the provost, deans, directors and chairs to higher levels of accountability and we must provide incentives to effectuate changes in behavior.

7.   Establish a Collaborative Undergraduate Research Opportunity and Faculty Exchange Program with five Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

This initiative is designed to acquaint prospective minority graduate students with the wide array of opportunities available at Indiana University in informatics, the life sciences, education and business. Each summer 25-30 undergraduate students will be invited to work with IU faculty on research projects. In addition, Indiana University will assist HBCUs in increasing faculty expertise in selected areas with the hope that these individuals will be referral sources for prospective graduate students.

8.   Minority Graduate Student Outreach                                                     

Indiana University , like many other major research universities, does not have an office devoted to minority graduate student recruitment. Working with department heads and chairs in departments that have historically enrolled minority graduate students, the outreach staff will visit selected HBCUs, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), tribal colleges, and predominantly white institutions to acquaint undergraduates with opportunities on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University .          

9.  Additional Staff and operating costs for HHSP                          

10.  Cost associated with discontinuation of Groups federal grant

Our goal is to restructure the federally-funded Groups Student Support Services Program by making it an early identification pre-college program (grades 9-12) with a bridge between high school graduation and the freshman year of college. Federal guidelines permit only a bridge program combined with support during the first year of college.                                                  

Conclusion

As we take an objective look at where IU Bloomington stands relative to its peers, it is fair to say that the historic advantage we once had is largely gone, but that we do have in place one of the most comprehensive arrays of services of any major institution. Where we fall short is the commitment of funds to ensure that our population of minority students, faculty and staff are recruited and retained here; we also are losing the “image” battle, which is why we lose many outstanding prospects to other universities. A coordinated strategy of better marketing, growing the pre-college pipeline, offering outstanding services, meeting financial needs of students, and expanding the strategic hiring program will make IU once again a national leader in this vital field, and will ensure that our university truly is a leader for the state of Indiana