Alabama recruitment fall-out

[Hartofsec]

Originally Posted by LAblondeGPhi

Wow. Ok. First - look at the student demographics at ASU - it's 65% + white, and an additional 8% is "unknown", and 7% is "International", so those numbers could be even higher. The student population is only 3% African American. You forget that in the southwest and west coast, demographics represent large Asian and Hispanic populations, not African American populations. (SOURCE)

Those numbers appear to be old stats regarding degree distribution by race – these may be more up-to-date and detailed:

ASU
1.8% American Indian/Alaskan Native
6.1% Asian
5.3% Black/African-American
20.1% Hispanic/Latino
3.1% Multi-race (not Hispanic/Latino)
0.3% Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander
62.2% White
1.2% Unknown

International Students
3.9% from 93 countries
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg06_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1096

University of Alabama
0.4% American Indian/Alaskan Native
1.1% Asian
12.1% Black/African-American
2.9% Hispanic/Latino
1.7% Multi-race (not Hispanic/Latino)
0.1% Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander
81.3% White
0.3% Unknown

International Students
2.3% from 47 countries
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/c...l?schoolId=469

Originally Posted by LAblondeGPhi

Second - the point being made was that PNMs are not being turned away due to blatant race issues, although I concede that there may be some soft discrimination - we all have biases in favor of people who are similar to ourselves.

I think the assumption has been (based on the assumption made and spun by authors of news articles) that the young lady of attention last fall at Bama was released by all chapters. She dropped out of formal recruitment, thus the assumption, but perhaps not because all chapters released her.

Originally Posted by LAblondeGPhi

The point is that at many schools, minority women of all stripes and shades have very little difficulty getting bids, and the top minority women are going to the top chapters.

FWIW, there are also women of other minorities in chapters at Bama. Even in the chapter most often featured in the press for releasing the trustee’s granddaughter.

Also FWIW, Alabama colleges and universities within an hour’s distance of Bama also have minority members in their NPC chapters – all of these campuses have AA NPC chapter members: University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham Southern, Samford, University of Montevallo, and the University of West Alabama – that I know of. And so do universities in other regions of the state. I don’t know if onlookers in other areas of the country realize that.

So in my mind, this seems less a state of Alabama issue (or less a problem persisting in the south, as some have generalized), and more an issue involving the huge intensive recruitment at Bama – and AA women as the minority underrepresented.

Originally Posted by LAblondeGPhi

But, none of this addresses the larger issue of the demographics who are being attracted to recruitment, which arguable skews whiter than overall student populations.

I agree – I understand as few as 2 (and at most 4) AA PNMs participated (at some point) in NPC recruitment at Bama last fall. Even with a COB round implemented specifically to recruit and pledge minority women, relatively few AA women joined. Unless far many more register for recruitment, I don’t know how the goal of “complete integration,” as recently passed by the SGA , will be accomplished. (not that I read the resolution, but it seems a lot like grandstanding after the fact)

I feel like any racial barriers to the NPC recruitment process have been moved aside as much as is institutionally possible. The question I have raised, however, is . . . will this be enough to accomplish that goal?