As minority college graduation rates continue to lag behind peers statewide, a panel of lawmakers attempted to come up with answers to help close the gap.
Nearly 80 people attended a two-hour discussion at Indiana University Northwest’s main library on Wednesday evening.
Much of the public discussion centered on how IUN could better reach out to Gary, both for undergraduate student recruitment and to add more minority faculty.
According to a report issued last year by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, only 18.7 percent of African-American and Hispanic students statewide graduated on time with four-year degrees. That compared to 34.9 percent who graduated in six years.
Overall, 34.5 percent of Indiana’s college students graduated on-time with four-year degrees, compared to 54.2 percent that graduated in six, according to the report.
Suzanne Green, an administrator in IUN’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs office, told lawmakers she had seen a noticeable drop in African-American students in recent years.
Recently, she was assisting a group of 22 new freshman. Not one was African-American, she said.
“It’s troubling,” she said. “We’re not doing something. What our kids need to see is (African-American professors) in the classroom.”
IUN Black Student Union President Toni Dickerson, a graduate social work student, echoed Green’s comments, calling for more minority professors and faculty.
It’s hard to organize “when you have limited students to collect,” she said.
According to university figures, of IUN’s roughly 4,000 degree-seeking students in fall 2016, 55 percent were white, 21 percent Hispanic, 17 percent were African-American, 2 percent were Asian.
That year, the university had about 5,500 students overall.
Many traditional barriers for older students included swing-shift work schedules and sick children, professors and alumni both said.
Ruth Needleman, an activist and retired IUN labor studies professor, argued for the return of a program for adult learners called Swingshift College, which was discontinued in recent years.
That program was designed specifically for shift workers, like steelworkers, and adult learners by offering flexibility with classes -- meeting once per week, or twice per day -- and offered videotapes of classes for students that needed to skip that day.
Students in the program could work toward a labor studies or general studies degree, or could earn credits for other degrees.
The program had about 300 students enrolled in the late 1990s, according to Post-Tribune archives. That number had declined to about 130 by 2003.
Insurance agent Steven Mays said IUN needed to do a better job of reaching out to Gary students to do a better job of recruiting students to attend college and getting Gary natives to return as teachers in the Gary Community School Corp.
“We have a crisis in education, especially in the city of Gary,” he said. “I talk to so many kids, they don’t feel like they are welcome on this campus.”
The job of lawmakers and the community is to “drive some things through that can bridge that gap,” he said. “Let kids know this university exists and they should be a part of it.”
Lawmakers on the panel included Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, and Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Merrillville.