A One-year Jump in Diversity Comes Only After Many Years’ Effort
SYRACUSE, N.Y.
Nicole Hernandez arrived at Syracuse University recently for freshman orientation, but she already knew the place well. She spent two summers here during high school in a program that gave her college credit, and a program in her New Jersey school district has close ties to the university.
“I feel pretty comfortable,” said Hernandez, who said her earlier time here inspired her to work hard to get here for college.
It generally takes decades for student body profiles to change significantly. But Hernandez, who is Hispanic, is part of a freshman class at Syracuse that looks noticeably different from that of even a year ago. The class of 2009 is nearly 24 percent students of color, up from 17 percent for last year’s freshman class.
It’s a surprising jump, considering last year’s incoming class looked essentially the same as a decade ago. School officials say it is the fruit of years of hard, expensive work on recruiting and retaining minority students.
“I think the jump we saw this year is the happy coming together of seeds planted deliberately over quite some time,” said Chancellor Nancy Cantor, who is starting her second year here.
