Parents and Friends
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For our Alumni, Parents and Friends |
| Spring 2006 |
 Senior Kamala Hill is president of the Multicultural Student Association at CNU. |
Welcoming all students
Minority recruitment gets a boost at CNU
By Roopa Swaminathan
A meeting with his high school guidance counselor proved life changing for Curtis Davidson. His advisor encouraged him to drop out of the college preparatory track and directed him toward vocational training – to be an auto mechanic. As an African-American, Mr. Davidson didn’t think that the counselor’s advice was racially motivated, but it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He was determined to get a college degree and used his excellence in athletics to do just that. That experience instilled in him a passion for higher education and a dogged determination to prevent any counselor from ever telling high school students that they cannot go to college.
Mr. Davidson graduated from the University of Findlay in Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts degree in business. He was the director of admissions and assistant football coach at his alma mater before becoming senior associate director of admissions at Christopher Newport University. Now he fulfills an important role in helping minority students find their niche at CNU. He is excited to see the University’s aggressive efforts to recruit minorities who strive to be successful and need the support of a strong university to get them started.
“It’s a team effort that has led to this,” Mr. Davidson said of the rise in minority recruitment in the past several years at CNU. He added that he was “blown away” by President Paul Trible’s vision that has led to the University’s dramatic growth and increase in minority recruitment.
“It’s so heartening to be in a place where you are part of its growth, and you can help build the customs and traditions that contribute to the creation of a great institution: an institution that will stand in the community for hundreds of years to come,” he said.
Recognizing the need to reach out to the minority community, President Trible set up a task force in 2002 that consisted of members of CNU’s Board of Visitors, administrators, faculty, staff and current students as well as local community leaders. This diverse group meets throughout the year to discuss strategies to increase minority enrollment at CNU.
Thaddeus Holloman Sr., Board of Visitors member and a prominent leader in the Newport News community, said he felt the urgent need to help minority students overcome perceived barriers before, during and even after the application process. As senior vice president of Old Point National Bank in Newport News, Mr. Holloman has been instrumental in establishing the successful Captains for Excellence program at CNU.
The program’s purpose is to increase minority enrollment in colleges and universities. It is not meant necessarily to encourage students to choose to attend CNU, but to encourage first-generation minority students to find an institution of higher learning that best suits them. The two-year mentoring program supports high school juniors and seniors in their endeavors to attend college by helping with financial aid and preparation for the SAT and ACT tests. These students’ fees for taking the tests are paid through the program. Students also are taken on tours to various college campuses.
Mr. Holloman said that Captains for Excellence is at a pilot stage with 20 juniors and seniors. He said that he hopes that with more funds, the program’s true potential can be realized, and more minority students can be included. Two students who graduated from the program are now attending CNU, and Mr. Holloman hopes they will form a bond with newer Captains for Excellence recruits, who in turn, would also choose to attend CNU.
Guidance counselors from public schools in Newport News recommend minority students with a high level of academic potential for Captains for Excellence, and the program is supported whole-heartedly by the superintendent of Newport News Public Schools, Dr. Marcus Newsome.
“Programs like the CFE are a tremendous help because it establishes a mindset in minority students that they too can attend college,” said Dr. Newsome, whose son is a high school senior and a member of Captains for Excellence. “The CFE helps them prepare for a life beyond high school by taking them on tours to various colleges in the state and introducing them to other minority student role models who are now in college.”
Among other minority initiatives in place at CNU are student organizations such as the Multicultural Student Association, designed to deal exclusively with problems facing minority students. CNU also hosts two events each year for minority students to visit the University. They tour the campus, learn about CNU and spend valuable time with current CNU students. Many of them stay overnight as guests of current students.
Kamala Hill, student director of Captains for Excellence, participated in one such campus tour in fall 2001 and picked CNU as her college of choice. Kamala is currently a senior majoring in communication studies, the president of the Multicultural Student Association and a member of CNU’s President’s Leadership Program.
Kamala explains that minority students often are exposed only to historically black colleges and universities – if they are exposed to college life at all. Many parents of minority students did not attend college and know very little about the application process. Kamala said that her family was convinced they didn’t have enough money to send her to college, and that most minority students don’t realize that if they look hard enough, there is money available to attend college.
Kamala said she feels the need is urgent to match minority students and their requirements with the privileges that non-minorities enjoy. Minority students need the same opportunities to look at their options early, she said. CNU’s minority initiative changed that for Kamala. She realized a college education was a possibility.
“I didn’t know much about CNU before I was invited to an Honors Visit Day,” she said. “That visit also proved to be the deal-sealer. I fell in love with the beautiful campus, the cost, the small class sizes, the community atmosphere and the location. I used to be terribly introverted. But CNU was small enough for me to feel like I could find a niche here. I filled out many applications, but only turned in CNU’s.”
 Stacy Davidson meets with students. |
Stacy Davidson, assistant director of student life for multicultural affairs, explains why CNU is an ideal college to nurture minority students. The University is set in an intimate urban area; it has all the advantages of a big school even though it has fewer than 5,000 students. That means that faculty members have fewer students in their classrooms, unlike other state-funded colleges, and students have the full attention of their teachers. Many of the buildings are new, and facilities are top-notch. CNU is by far one of the most “personalized” colleges out there, Ms. Davidson said. In addition, it is located in Hampton Roads, one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the United States.
But are programs like Captains for Excellence and the Multicultural Student Association enough to foster a feeling of security among minority students on college campuses? Mr. Holloman points out that it is incredibly important to make sure minority students not only come to CNU but also stay to graduate.
“While mentoring programs like Captains for Excellence are a great start, we also need to be proactive,” explained Kamala. Stressing the need for a support system for minority students in colleges, she said, “There were so many times I felt out of place just because I couldn't find a brown face anywhere near. I didn’t have people who could share some of my experiences as a minority and for some students, that’s enough to leave.”
Stacy Davidson agrees with Kamala, which is why Mrs. Davidson is passionately involved in trying to bridge the gap between the different races and promote multicultural diversity at CNU. She animatedly describes an ideal utopian world where she could have open and honest debates between students from different races and communities and where issues could be dealt with in a forthright manner.
Mrs. Davidson feels that much headway can be made by introducing aspects of pop culture into students’ lives, which in turn could spark intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking debates about diversity issues in the world. She would also love to show movies such as “Crash,” which tells stories about people from different races: blacks, whites, Latinos, Iranians, Koreans, the rich and the poor and deals head-on with an American society that is still plagued by racism.
According to Mrs. Davidson, diversity in colleges is of utmost importance because it helps students to associate with others unlike themselves, which is critical to their growth. Mrs. Davidson keenly believes that students need to have meaningful interactions with people of different races, religions and sexual orientations if they want to be successful after college.
There is more work to be done with minority recruiting and ideals to achieve, Mrs. Davidson said. She said that she would love to organize smaller get-togethers for new minority students with many more trained diversity counselors. As for Mr. Holloman, if money were not an issue he “would increase scholarships for minorities so that more students wouldn’t have to stress about being faced with debt.”
If passionate leaders such as President Trible, community members such as Thaddeus Holloman, administrators such as Stacy and Curtis Davidson, programs such as Captains for Excellence and students such as Kamala Hill are any indication of CNU’s support for minority students, the future is filled with amazing possibilities for students as well as colleges and universities everywhere.