A recent study released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the nation's Hispanic population booming. As of last year, Hispanic population in the United States reached 41.3 million - roughly one in seven Americans.
Robert Bernstein, spokesperson for the Census Bureau predicted that by 2010, one in four Americans will be of Hispanic origin. The large growth in Hispanic population will greatly affect the students at the University.
To help augment diversity, the University released the Diversity Task Force report last year,
Mamta Motwain Accapadi, assistant director of the Multicultural Information Center, said report has provided a wealth of suggestions, sparked campus-wide dialogue and created the office of Vice Provost for Inclusion and Cross-Cultural Effectiveness.
"This signals hope of having such an upper level official leading the vision," Accapadi said.
Despite the progress, the task of better representing Hispanics at UT remains as difficult as ever, said Augustine Garza, deputy director of admissions, referring to the difficulties UT has had in recruiting Latinos.
Under the Hopwood Decision, the 5th Court of Appeals made it illegal for Texas public universities to use race as a consideration in admissions. The 10 percent rule was created in 1998 as an attempt to increase diversity.
"Hopwood prevented all race recruiting, so we went to high schools that were underrepresented at UT," Garza said.
Some tactics the admissions office use to overcome these obstacles was to create the Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship Program and to target under-represented high schools with personalized visits, he said.
In comparison to the 2004 national 2004 census, The University is consistent with the 1 in 7 ratio, with Latinos making up 13.4 percent of total Hispanic student. However, the University lags behind in state statistics, since Hispanics made up 32 percent of Texas' total population as of 2000. The state and county estimates from the 2004 census will be released in August.
According to Garza, fierce competition among out-of-state schools for students in the top 10 and 15 percent especially for minority students.
"You got Ivy League schools and West Coast Universities that are aggressively competing with UT for the same pool of students," Garza said.
Mamta suggests building trust in Hispanic communities and making UT a welcoming center.
"Highly qualified Latino high school students often see UT as unwelcoming and decide to attend another university," she said.
Mamta cited the UT Young Conservative's proposed "Catch an Immigrant Day" last spring as one cause of Latino students feeling unwanted at UT.
Though there was no such event on March 2, and representatives from YCT denied planning it, the idea caused uproar and protest from multiple organizations on campus, including the Latino Leadership Council.
"Latinos need to feel they belong, feel that they are Longhorns," Mamta said.
Be the first to comment on this article!