AU's enrollment of minority students increased between 1997 and 2007, as 51 more students of Asian or Pacific Islander backgrounds and 73 more Hispanic students were enrolled at the university in 2007 than in 1997, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment's yearly Academic Databook.
These statistics reflect a general national trend of higher numbers of minority enrollment in post-secondary education. USA Today reported Oct. 9 that the American Council on Education's newly released biennial report showed a 50 percent increase in total minority enrollment in colleges between 1995 and 2005. The current minority population in U.S. colleges is at about 5 million.
The number of degree-seeking Hispanics, in particular, has nearly doubled in that time nationwide, and an increase in the Hispanic population has occurred at AU between 1997 and 2007.
AU's Latino American Student Organization launched in 1996, a year before AU's Hispanic population experienced this upswing. LASO is an organization which hosts many events throughout the year with a focus on the Latino Youth Conference in the spring, which encourages Latino high school students from the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area to consider college as an option after high school, according to LASO co-president Kathryn Duque, a junior in the School of Communication.
"The founding of LASO in 1996 could have had an effect on the numbers from 1997 to 2007," she said.
Another effort to encourage a multicultural campus is the University Diversity club, which is a group founded this spring. The club is meant to promote dialogue among AU students and encourage people of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds to mingle, according to Katie Beran, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and co-president of University Diversity.
"[University Diversity is] working to make AU a welcoming environment for enrolled ethnic minority students," she said.
Celine-Marie Pascale, a sociology professor in CAS and faculty advisor for University Diversity, said diversity is important.
"If there is little diversity in a group, its limited perspectives decrease its capacity of problem-solving," she said.
Despite these positive efforts, the American Council on Education depicts a remaining disparity in the representation of different ethnicities among college populations.
College-age Hispanics have the smallest percentage (25 percent) enrolled in college, followed by blacks (32 percent) and whites (44 percent). Asians have the highest representation in post-secondary education in America, with 61 percent of that population in college, according to the report.
Racial demographic disparity also remains prominent in AU's population. In 2007, the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment's Academic Databook shows blacks are 6.4 percent of AU's population, Asians make up 5 percent, Hispanics are 5.4 percent and whites make up 54 percent.
Many other on-campus student organizations attempt to combat the statistical imbalance in ethnic representation. For example, AU has the Black Student Alliance, the South Asian Student Association, its own chapter of the NAACP, and many other groups that strive to increase cultural and social awareness of minorities.
"If prospective students see that a school is friendly toward their ethnic background, they will be more inclined to attend that school because they know they will be comfortable," Duque said.
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