True Colors

When I moved in 1989 I believed that I was through with the pain and anguish of the years I spent working in another state.1 A colleague and I at a university campus became most unpopular when we decided that our school of social work should be more colorful. At that time there were about ten black and Latino students in a school that had over four hundred students. Four years later the undergraduate program was 49 percent black, Latino, Asian, and male, and the graduate program had over forty black and Latino students. One might think that such efforts and successes would be rewarded or at least acknowledged as a positive outcome. With one exception, our colleagues seemed to think that we had single-handedly lowered the quality of the school. Numerous direct and indirect ways were used to denigrate us and the students. Students who had previously performed well suddenly were not producing the kinds of assignments and work expected of social work students. With few exceptions these students were treated as though they were less qualified and unable to master the exacting learning skills required in a social work program. Probably much to the chagrin of our colleagues, these students graduated at a higher rate than the white students. Only two that we recruited failed to complete the programs, and in both cases this was due to personal problems and/or illness. Also galling was the fact that a Puerto Rican applicant had the highest score on the Graduate Record Exam of any applicant to ever apply to the school. The increase in number of these students meant that there were social support networks, that no one need be alone in a class of thirty students, and that there was the possibility of working with other students on projects. As of some years ago, the last of [End Page 121] the students we recruited had finished a degree program. They will do well. Various strategies were employed to recruit and retain students of color. A primary tool we used was to institute an annual reception for students of color held at my colleague's home. These receptions were funded by us; food was purchased and prepared by us. The students in the program were asked to bring friends to the reception who were interested in human services. Those faculty who were sympathetic to these efforts were invited to attend. About thirty people attended the first reception. The last reception I helped with had over one hundred people attending. This was probably our most successful recruitment tool. As chair of the undergraduate program during this period, I made scheduled visits with the student organizations on campus most likely to have significant numbers of students of color as members, such as La Raza and the Black Student Association. When my turn came on the agenda, I would talk about human services, social work in particular, and ask attending students to consider our program for their major. I distributed and left with the organizations' officers extra applications and program materials during the meeting, my business cards, and relevant program brochures. I encouraged those attending to please send any of their friends to see me who might be thinking about social work. Since the campus had regular visits by groups of students from a major city nearby, I was asked to give a brief presentation to those attending. This way we had contact with prospective majors before they started college. My colleague attended meetings of social work organizations where he recruited graduate students. Both of us met with juniors and seniors who might be considering continuing on for their master in social work (MSW) degrees. The students already in our programs wanted to help increase the numbers of students of color in the programs. They concentrated their efforts in three primary ways. They referred possible applicants to

Anguish · Graduation (instrument · Medical education · Political science · White (mutation · Color perception and design · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Work

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