By Shanda Kersey
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
When Joshua White, a graduating senior, entered Towson University in the fall of 2014, what he saw on campus was noticeably different than what he is seeing as he leaves.
White, who is outgoing president of the Black Student Union, is from Prince George’s County, Md., a predominantly black county near Washington, D.C. Coming to Towson, a predominately white institution (PWI), was a very new experience for him.
“It was a unique culture shock,” White said. “I never felt the pressure of being a minority and the immediate danger that it could have on both your mental and physical well-being. It was very draining my freshman year seeing as the Freddie Gray uprisings were a focal point of my first year here at Towson. I didn’t feel safe talking about these events in class or in my dorm with non-black individuals.”
Many people experience a culture shock when traveling to new countries. However, it is common for minorities to go through this when going to PWIs. In the fall nearly four years ago when White began at Towson, there were 3,035 black undergraduates enrolled (16 percent of its population). By the time he started his senior year last fall, the number had risen to 4,070 (21 percent of the population). An analysis of Towson’s diversity data shows that the number of black students increased roughly 43 percent during this time — the biggest jump in recent school history.
White said he noticed this upward trend without having to see the data. One of the reasons for the increase is a concerted effort by the university to recruit and enroll minority students.
“I think we’re just doing a better job getting students from racial/ethnic minority groups to come to college and a better job as an institution advertising to those populations,” said Joel Bolling, the senior director of student retention and development at Towson.
The chart below shows the percent increase by race from 2001-2 to 2017-8.
Bolling noted that the Center for Student Diversity, where he works, has a lot of programs to help students of color at Towson, including Students Achieving Goals through Education (SAGE) and the College Readiness Outreach Program (CROP), which sends Towson staff and students to public high schools in Baltimore City and Baltimore County to get them thinking about college and life after high school.
“We work intentionally with ninth graders, we’re expanding to 10th graders, to help them start thinking about college and life readiness,” Bolling said. “These are students that are predominantly low-income in terms of families. These are schools that historically don’t send a lot of students to college overall. We’re working with them to say ‘hey you can go to college, but you can’t wait until you’re in 11th or 12th grade to make that decision.'”
Having these kinds of programs in place creates a relationship with these communities — and the payoff for Towson has been evident.
“It’s this pipeline of not just recruiting them, it’s not just retaining them or graduating them, but making sure that they’re getting to wherever they want to be and I think when you start doing that intentionally, the results of that start speaking to the larger community,” Bolling said. “Families and communities know that they can send someone here and they’re going to get results.”
These programs are put in place to minimize the culture shock that many of the minority students are expected to experience. They offer a sort of safe haven for these students to go when they feel homesick, out of place or lost.
“The Black Student Union at Towson University gave me a place to call my home,” White said. “I would’ve been so lost, I feel, if Towson BSU wasn’t an outlet for me to not just express my blackness but also grow in it, as both expression and knowledge. Also, having a SAGE mentor at Towson that came from a similar background as you was invaluable. These two organizations and programs were intertwined in my freshman year experience and that was quite beneficial for me.”
White Towson has seen a substantial growth in black student enrollment, the same cannot be said for other minority groups. For instance, Hispanic students still only represent 8 percent of Towson students and Asian students are 6 percent. While these groups account for the among the largest percent increase, the actual enrollment numbers remain comparatively low.
As the share of minorities increased, the share of white students decreased — from 78 percent in fall 2001 to 57 percent in fall 2017. Over this time, Towson’s total undergraduate population increased. In the 2001-02 school year, there were a total of 13,959 undergraduate students, while this school year there were 19,596 students, a 40 percent increase.
Like many public institutions in America, Towson has a very consistent split between women and men. From 2001 to now, the data set showed a trend of about 40 percent men and approximately 60 percent women each school year.
“On this campus in particular, that demographic isn’t surprising because we were started as a teacher’s college,” Bolling said. “In history, teachers are found as predominantly, as a profession, women,” Bolling said. “As the university continued to grow, we already had women coming to Towson as their first choice because of the College of Education. As our demographics have shifted in terms of majors, we still have only added a lot of majors that still tend toward women.”
Compared to the University of Maryland-College Park, the largest institution in the University System of Maryland, Towson is more diverse in some areas — including the share of black students. However, College Park has more Asian and Hispanic students.
