The Admissions office is working to bring different cultures to campus with special programs to enhance student diversity.
Admissions office staffers plan to use multiple special campus events, offer multilingual recruiting materials and provide in-class programs to help increase campus diversity
Multicultural Student Outreach Coordinator Maria Cabrera said to increase diversity is to embrace it and to maintain it.
Cabrera said she helps provide support to minority students and her office offers many programs for them.
“We go out to different high schools in Pennsylvania with a group called Meet the MAC. We are a couple of schools that are liberal arts, smaller institutions, we go out to these high schools and we talk to mainly minority students who might want to see a familiar face, and then they talk to us about different aspects about our universities.”
Cabrera focuses on programs that will engage current students from every background.
“I offer support to a lot of minority students, offering some type of mentoring, advice, some type of help with maybe a resume or recommendation,” she said.
Admissions Director Glenn Bozinski said the incoming MU class brings in about six to seven percent minority students. He said the national average is over 10 percent.
“The diversity on campus from an admissions perspective pretty much mirrors the greater community around Northeastern Pennsylvania,” he said.
Bozinski said admissions aims to make university members feel as comfortable as possible on campus.
“We try to make our internal atmosphere as welcoming as possible to all students, to make it a place where any student is going to feel comfortable and we like to think we’re doing a good job with that but we can always do better. You could always be more aware, more sensitive and more focused on these issues,” said Bozinski.
Cabrera said about 75 percent of her work is to create programs for minority students and to educate the campus and community about different cultures or global issues.
Cabrera sais she also has high hopes for the future president because he has ideas about recruitment strategies to increase the diversity with his great deal of experience at previous schools.
“I am hopeful for the increase of diverse students on campus and that doesn’t only include background but also geographically. You have to take in consideration that we are a smaller U, and we have to be mindful of other students,” said Cabrera.
While Cabrera is looking to the future, Bozinski focuses on his current work to recruit, and solicit support from everyone to help bring interested students to MU.
“We rely heavily on staff, be it athletics staff, student support staff, from the Student Success Center, the Insalaco Center. Faculty is also heavily involved in recruitment for us. They will meet with prospective students,” he said. “This comes directly from Dr. MacDowell when he came here. He likes to see all some 400 employees of the university recruit where they can. If you meet a kid in the supermarket who is looking for a college you might want to talk up the institution.”