In the last five years, Texas Tech University has seen a 6 percentage point increase in the percentage of undergraduate minority students, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The minority groups include African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian/Alaskan Native.
The percentage of Hispanic undergraduate students at Tech has grown nearly 5 percentage points to 18.58 percent of the total undergraduate enrollment, and that of African American undergraduates has grown almost 1.5 percentage points to 5.75 percent. However, the percentage of Asian enrollment is down 0.2 percentage points to 2.86 percent, while that of American Indian/Alaskan Native is down .29 percentage points to 0.39 percent. See the total figures and those for Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin here: EthnicityEnrollment
While Texas Tech minority enrollment has grown, the Tech campus fails to proportionately represent Lubbock County. According to the 2010 Census, the county of Lubbock is made up of nearly 33 percent Hispanics, nearly 8 percent African Americans, just over 2 percent of Asians, and just over 1 percent of American Indian/Alaskan Native.
Paul Frazier, assistant vice president of the Division of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, recognizes the success but realizes the need to do more in recruiting local Lubbock students.
“I think we do a lot of good things but I think we can do a whole better,” Frazier said. “You’d be surprised how many kids go to the mall, to the movies, Main Event, go back home, pass this university now on the Marsha Sharp and never stop.”
After working with Lubbock Independent School District for 24 years, Frazier understands the need to expose students to the university.
“I think we need to bring them out here more so than just to a sporting event,” Frazier said. “Because even with a sporting event they’re just going to go to the football game, go to a basketball game and then they’re going to go home. So the academic side of that is what we have to expose them more to – that this is a possibility.
With groups like Hispanic Scholarship Fund active on campus, some attribute part of the Hispanic enrollment growth to student organizations like it.
Former HSF President Blanca Llamas said in the 2012 – 2013 year they had been in contact with Estacado High School. Each year it varies how many schools HSF works with.
“It’s really more about the schools that reply to us because we try to reach out everywhere and it’s just whoever contacts back,” Llamas said.
Ricky Sherfield, unit coordinator of the Cross Cultural Academic Advancement Center and faculty advisor of HSF, hopes other Lubbock schools will follow the Estacado example.
“They were all for us coming out and I think starting with them, other high schools will see what we’re doing and they’ll be more open,” Sherfield said. “Because I think you have that hesitation as far. There are different boundaries, guidelines when you go into the school system.”
While the local Lubbock outreach is a focus point for HSF, one teacher in El Paso, who asked not to be identified, doesn’t think the Tech HSF Chapter is doing enough to raise awareness of the organization in the rest of West Texas.
“We’re concerned with the whole West Texas area,” Llamas countered. “Because we’re the only scholar chapter in this area and there’s not another one, there’s one in UT, and then in terms of going West I don’t think there’s another chapter until California. So we try to do as much as we can.”
WATCH: HSF Celebrate Five Years At Texas Tech
The percentage of American Indian/Alaskan Native population in Lubbock is nearly triple that of undergraduate enrollment at Tech.
“I think its harder for those students to come to Texas Tech maybe more so than for others,” Frazier said. “Living on a reservation it’s just so isolated area and they’re really protected. Their surroundings are very familiar.”
Currently the Division of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement is in the early stages of possibly adding an office within the division dedicated to Native American recruitment, enrollment, and retention. This would go a step further than the Native American Summer Bridge Institute, a summer camp dedicated to teaching graduating high school Native American students about how to apply for college and what to expect.
“I don’t know, and I just haven’t had the opportunity to visit and talk about and discuss how we’re going to actively recruit those students,” Frazier said. “Once we get them here, how are we going to actively retain those students? I think that position will play a big part in doing those things and maybe accomplish those goals.”
Frazier recognizes that universities in New Mexico and Arizona are far more appealing, as they tend to be closer to Native American reservations.
“I’d be interested to know how we’re going to enter those recruiting wars,” Frazier said. “How we’re going to get those kids to come and like I said, more importantly, how we’re going to get them to stay.”
Other universities across the state are facing the same issue where their undergraduate enrollment doesn’t proportionately represent the city in which the university resides.
Having been a former coach, teacher and assistant principal for both middle school and high school, Frazier understands the need to expose students at all levels to the university.
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“That’s why I think it’s important that we have outreach programs that reach out on a lower level and make them feel a part of it at earlier stages of their life,” Frazier said. “So they think, I don’t want to go anywhere else, that’s where I want to be.”
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