A&M, Wake Up! Diversity is an Artificial Concept

A TURNING POINT: PATH TO DIVERSITY
Deeply rooted in tradition, Texas A&M is investing millions of dollars to win the trust of minority students
By MATTHEW TRESAUGUE
Aug. 29, 2005, 5:32AM
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Editor's note: This is the first story in an occasional series looking at Texas A&M University's efforts to recruit and retain minority students. Colleges and universities across the state are grappling with how to enroll 600,000 new students, mostly minorities, by 2015 to mirror the state's changing demographics

COLLEGE STATION - Jacob Tadesse arrived eight days before the start of classes at Texas A&M University and, like many freshmen, soon felt alone. So he left the sterile coolness of his dormitory room that first night without a destination in mind.

Wearing a baggy T-shirt and shorts, with his black hair in braids and beads, Tadesse started walking around campus about 10 p.m., hoping to cross paths with someone like him.

An hour later, he saw a friend from Houston. They slumped into chairs in a dormitory lobby and said, ''Howdy," the university's official greeting, to passers-by. Some stopped, others didn't.

After midnight, Tadesse counted those around him: Three blacks, three Hispanics, two Asian-Americans and seven whites. ''I wasn't expecting that," he said later.

What he expects is to succeed despite his surroundings. Texas A&M is a place where roughly 80 percent of undergraduates are white, where the 2,000 members of the quasi-military Corps of Cadets wear uniforms to class, where tradition is everything.

Tadesse, who graduated third in his class from the nearly all-black Jack Yates High School in Houston, is part of Texas A&M's bold effort to increase its minority enrollment without considering race in admissions. The goal is a student body that reflects the diversity of Texas.

The state's second-largest university has invested millions of dollars to attract students who didn't have the luxury of wealth or the best schools. The campaign reversed a seven-year decline in the number of black and Hispanic freshmen last fall, and the university is projecting big percentage increases again as classes start today

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Assimilation not a goal

The sun was high above a drill field last Tuesday as hundreds of Aggies converged for horseshoes and shaved ice. A country radio station, broadcasting live from the gathering, played Redneck Yacht Club .

Before the party ended, two cadets in overalls summoned the students to practice the traditional yells for football games. In unison, they hunched forward with hands on their knees to project their voices.

Tadesse watched with a dozen black students from beneath an oak tree. One of his new friends wanted to join the yellers, but he did not budge from his spot in the shade. ''It's too hot," he said.

Assimilation is not a goal for Tadesse, who also did not attend Fish Camp, a summer program that indoctrinates freshmen to the university's traditions. Instead, he sees Texas A&M as the means to a lucrative career and maybe the wherewithal to create jobs for people from places like the Third Ward.

These jerks don't want to be a part of A&M, they are just leeches. It is pointless to make special set-asides for minority students, if they don't respect the school. Diversity is an absurd concept. People will naturally associate with those with whom they feel most comfortable. That is fine, if blacks and other minorities don't wish to be apart of the school traditions, the law entitles them to do so, but it is pointless to spend millions to recruit them. There is no discernable benefit in diversifying populations if it is going to lead to the destruction of the traditions of these institutions. Let Tadesse go to TSU and someone who wants to be at A&M go there.

Full Story: Disrespecting A&M

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