Miami Student

Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Campus

President David Hodge says Miami aims to increase the university's minority undergraduate population from eight percent to 15 percent.

Miami University President David Hodge and Vice President for Institutional Diversity Christine Taylor were optimistic about the future of diversity at the school in speeches delivered Wednesday night.

The two-hour meeting, the final meeting for the Diversity Affairs Council for the school year, centered around ways to improve the state of diversity on campus.

While only eight percent of Miami's undergraduate population is a minority, Miami's administration is confident that diversity and diversity awareness will increase in the future.

Hodge explained some of the steps that Miami will be taking to improve cultural awareness in an effort to increase Miami's minority undergraduate population to 15 percent.

Hodge said Miami is currently teaming with target high schools to form "deeper meaningful relationships" with minorities on campus.

"We want them to begin to know Miami," Hodge said.

However, Taylor said that it is important to remember diversity is more about race.

"There are multiple areas that one could look at diversity: gender, race, age," Taylor said. "From that you can add socio-economic background, where you are from, and so on. Diversity isn't about other students. It's about all students."

Hodge explained that in 2007-08, there were 241 new Miami Access Initiative recipients. Two-thirds of those students were the first to go to college in their family.

The Miami Access Initiative is a scholarship program for Ohio residents designed to help make Miami accessible to all academically qualified students, regardless of income.

Incoming full-time first-year students whose parents' combined income is $35,000 or less are considered for the scholarship. The initiative scholarship was first awarded to members of the class that entered Miami in 2007.

Taylor also spoke on the progress of the 2008 Campus Climate Survey, which is distributed every six years to "assess the progress (Miami) has made in building a welcoming climate."

"The survey will give us data about diversity," Taylor said. "We're going to form discussion groups and then we can develop a plan for the fall."

Continued...

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