The Whitworthian

Issue date: 12/4/07 Last Updated: 12/7/07

The ethnicity subcommittee of the Intercultural Relations Committee (ICRC) will meet Dec. 10 for the third and last time this semester to discuss how Whitworth's diversity compares to other educational institutions and to the community at large.

Esther Louie, chair of the subcommittee and assistant dean for intercultural student affairs, said so far the meetings of the ethnicity subcommittee have been helpful.  The meetings on Oct. 22 and Nov. 20 were an opportunity to gather information about the Whitworth campus, Louie said.

Among the subcommittees sources was the Tenth Day Report, she said.

“What we wanted to do was get all the relevant numbers and data,” Louie said. “We’ve met twice, and it’s been good.”

Director of institutional research Gary Whisenand said the Tenth Day Report is an annual state of the campus report conducted on the 10th day of each semester, the last day to add or drop classes.

Louie said there is a gap between the 14 percent of ethnic minority students accepted to Whitworth and the 10 percent who enroll. The subcommittee wants to figure out why, Louie said.

“In the committee we have a lot to do,” Louie said.

The ethnicity subcommittee would suggest not only recruitment, but retention as a model for the campus community, Louie said.

Compared to other schools’ policies, Whitworth is pretty progressive, she said, adding that the Core program is being redesigned progressively.

“There are discussions that push the boundaries of what we’ve done before,” Louie said.

Whisenand said Whitworth has been growing rapidly, but the enrollment rate of minority students has been slower.

"Once students are here, historically, students of color have not persisted or graduated at the same rate [as white students]," Whisenand said.

At Whitworth, the "white" student category had a graduation rate of 75.6 percent for the last three years. The "other race" student category had a graduation rate of 66.4 percent, according to institutional advancement data.

Whisenand said the relatively low number of minority students means the statistics have to be taken with a grain of salt. If even one black student does not return to Whitworth, for example, the percentage drops significantly,Whisenand said.

The "white" category of students showed an 88.3 percent retention rate in the 2006-07 school year, while 83.2 percent of the "other races" returned to Whitworth, according to the data.

Whisenand said much of these data can be found in the Tenth Day Report.

"Whitworth has been doing this for as long as it's been in existence," he said.

Contact Grady Locklear at grady.locklear@whitworthian.com.

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