LETTERS: MINORITY STUDENTS SEEK BEST DEAL

To the editor:

Back in August, when Southeast Missouri State University announced the formation of a commission to study the causes of a declining minority student population, I read the article with a mixture of curiosity and bewilderment. I was curious because I had both personal professional acquaintances with various university employees and local alumni who had never mentioned this unusual phenomenon in recent conversations about the university. I was bewildered from an inability to understand why over 35 persons were needed to analyze why particularly African Americans were choosing to either attend other colleges or leave the university before graduation. The minority student retention problem, whether real or illusory, would seem to warrant a specific and tightly controlled group of persons with past or current affiliation with the university and who are knowledgeable about its status and structure.

The Southeast Missourian's follow-up article in September concerning the commission's first meeting clarified this for me. First, the comments of the student participants seemed to convey a pervasive sense of alienation and frustration with what they perceive as a lack of respect from the university. Quotes from these students showed betrayal and disillusionment with their college experience in not offering an enriching period of academic and personal learning as well as growth, but something else entirely different and unpleasant. The students' negative opinions may have seemed shocking, even outrageous, to readers unfamiliar with the state of minority relations at Southeast, but they merely confirmed other comments by other students in the school newspaper and, recently, during television coverage. That an entire commission was needed to confirm what had apparently been an ongoing problem among more than a few minority students meant that countless former students showed their displeasure with their experience at the school by either leaving before graduation or terminating any alumni contact.

Past-president and now state commissioner of higher education Dr. Kala Stroup was purportedly recognized for her efforts to recruit and retain minority professors, administrators and students in an attempt to achieve a visible presence around the university as well as the community and region. Yet the article's quotes from students seemed to show dissatisfaction and frustration even in the midst of the increased presence of minority administrators and faculty for students to identify with and have reasonable access to. A more telling sign of probable conflict between appearance and reality was the admission that only $25,000 was allocated for minority scholarships at $500 to $2,000 each. As a personal aside, my yearly cost for textbooks and supplies when I completed graduate school a few years ago easily exceeded $500 exclusive of tuition and miscellaneous academic fees, so I am confident that the costs have continued an upward path along with tuition at Southeast. The point is that many students must contend with inadequate financial resources to complete their education, and a fair portion of those students also bear feelings of misplacement and isolation as an added burden.

The rising cost of a college education has undoubtedly contributed to many minority students who might have considered attending Southeast to decide to either attend a school closer to home as a cost-saving measure or, more importantly, attend a school that offers ample scholarship opportunities for academic achievement besides the scholarships for the athletically gifted few. Today's prospective college student, whether minority or not, can ill afford to be uninformed about whether he or she will receive a solid economic return on a four-year investment at any college or university that he or she wishes to attend. Such a student will research the schools to determine which offers the education he or she desires within the best academic and social environment possible and, last but not least, at the best value possible. Perhaps those minority students currently not attending Southeast chose to treat their college education as if it were a first-time new automobile or home purchase. They shopped around until they found a better deal.

One of the commission members, Karla Cooper, made an excellent observation when she stated that the perceived low minority student enrollment at Southeast did not spring from racial disparity alone but from economic and social disparity too. It is a given reality that the southeastern region of this state has suffered a continuous series of economic setbacks in the past few years from plant closings to the decrease in viable agricultural opportunities. This reality can only affect the ability and opportunity of any person, minority or not, to pursue and achieve a college education if he or she has not been given an adequate community and personal background that not only emphasizes hard work, sacrifice and academic discipline, but also an environment that provides accessible examples of the success of family members, neighbors or local businessmen and businesswomen adhering to these attributes.

A four-year college is a two-sided tower that must balance lofty academic ideals with pressing concerns such as fund raising, the win-loss records of sports teams, strict adherence to affirmative action rules, increasing faculty research output for grants and increasing enrollment, even in a period of tuition and fee increases alongside a decreasing availability pool of high school graduates able to read, write, add and subtract at a minimum high school level. The low minority enrollment and retention issue is only one of several other issues that Southeast and other universities must grapple with on a daily basis. Rarely does a school succeed in resolving these issues to the total satisfaction of the persons affected by the outcome, no matter how many commissions are appointed, how many so-called pro-minority administrators and faculty members are hired and how many full or partial scholarships are made available.

Southeast is not bulletproof from social and cultural pressures, but it is compelled to deal with the same intractable problems facing modern society outside its classrooms. The commission's work on improving minority enrollment is only one element in a cultural dynamic named the color bar. The commission may achieve significant and long-term results in addressing the issue before disbanding -- until the next perceived minority problem reaches what is deemed a crisis level appropriate for another study group. But the searing impact of a 400-year-old dynamic on the culture and society outside the university halls will always remain present. It is an ongoing dilemma which I believe can and should be better dealt with outside the university than within it.

ELLSWORTH D. WARE III

Cape Girardeau