A sidebar to An Evolving University in a State Diversifying:
Ethan Logan, then Texas Tech University executive director for Undergraduate Admissions, said the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board adopted the Closing the Gaps by 2015 initiative to higher education diversity.
Logan said the plan calls for higher education institutions to represent the community or geographic region they are in.
“In terms of what that population distribution of ethnicity looks like,” he said, “you should try to mirror that in your institution.”
In an October 2012 address, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Commissioner Raymund Paredes said the agency launched the initiative in 2000 because Texas was one of the lowest higher education attainment states.
“This was because Hispanics are simultaneously the least well-educated and the fastest-growing segment of the Texas population,” Paredes’ address stated.
According to the agency’s website, since 2000, Hispanic and African-American college enrollments have doubled as 540,000 more students were given access to higher education.
“Annual postsecondary credentials have increased by 61-percent,” the website reported, “with postsecondary attainment for Hispanics and African Americans at historic levels.”
In the October 2012 commissioner of higher education address, Paredes said among the eight emerging research universities in Texas, Texas Tech is one of two institutions that has achieved significant milestones, such as exceeding high research expenditures and awarding more Ph.D.s annually.
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