CG Academy: Outreach pays off in diverse class - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

CG Academy: Outreach pays off in diverse class

The Coast Guard Academy’s incoming class of freshmen is one of the most diverse in school history, according to academy officials.

Of the 290 swabs who started their grueling seven-week summer training June 28, 68 students — or 23 percent — are minorities. That is the second-highest percentage in the school’s history and higher than last year’s 15 percent.

In 1999, minorities made up 25 percent of the freshman class. The class was smaller, so the raw number of minority students — 61 out of 243 — is less than this year’s figure.

Academy officials credit stepped-up recruitment efforts, including a new “completer” program, which helps prospective academy students, especially minorities, follow through with their applications.

In spring 2009, 1,700 people completed applications, including 35 black applicants; only five black cadets were appointed. This spring, the academy’s 2,200 finished applications included 153 from black applicants, said Capt. Stephan Finton, director of admissions at the academy. Out of that pool, the school appointed 22 black cadets.

“There’s more potential for someone to rise up through the admissions process,” he said.

The completer program was important to Andre Jones-Butler, an incoming freshman who is black and Native American. He said if it hadn’t been for his recruiter, he might not have finished his application.

Jones-Butler, of Fayetteville, Ga., said more one-on-one mentoring would boost minority recruitment. “It just needs to be someone to go that extra step to guide you through the process,” he said.

After learning about the diversity of the incoming class, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., released a statement July 1 praising the academy’s efforts.

“Such improved diversity at the Coast Guard Academy is great news,” he said in the statement. “I have consistently asked that the academy work on this matter, and these numbers show they have done exactly that.”

Cummings and other members of Congress have been especially critical of the Coast Guard Academy for not trying hard enough to recruit minorities. Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and James Oberstar, D-Minn., co-sponsored a bill that would require academy applicants to be nominated by a member of Congress — the process used by the other service academies. Cummings said such a move would increase diversity by allowing diverse members of Congress to get involved. The House approved the measure in November.

Finton, who started at the academy in March, said the Coast Guard feels its admissions policy works and that the school does not need a nomination system.

The academy has focused its recruiting efforts in certain “geo-markets” with high populations of minorities, such as Chicago and New York City.

The academy also is working on retention. For the first time, it offered a two-day orientation for incoming minority students and their parents June 25 and 26 so that they could meet with faculty and get acclimated to campus life, said Antonio Farias, the academy’s director of diversity affairs.

Farias, who started in 2005 as the academy’s first diversity director, also instituted “intrusive counseling” this year for minority students. Beginning in January, freshmen met with counselors to assess what challenges they were experiencing and how they could overcome them. Incoming freshmen will have that counseling at the beginning of each semester.

The academy also is working aggressively to attract diverse faculty members. Five years ago, 7 percent of the approximately 125 faculty members were minorities. This year, it was 14 percent.

Minority students “need to see the ladder of success in front of them so even if they hit a speed bump, they can say, ‘Well, if they can make it, I can make it,’” Farias said.

The academy also is trying to groom a future pool of diverse applicants by working with teachers and principals at high schools with higher numbers of minorities. For the second summer in a row, the academy is hosting its Teachers’ Diversity Initiative, which brings teachers to the academy to learn engineering projects they can teach their students. The academy also is hosting principals for the third year in a row through the National Principals Initiative.

“We are involved heavily into the infrastructure,” Farias said. “We are getting our brand out there.”