Despite the efforts being made in recruiting students from diverse backgrounds in the Honors College at Westminster, it is somewhat unreasonable to expect more than two racial minority students in an honors classroom. Being a minority myself, I wanted to explore whether minority students have a different experience than their white counterparts in an honors program. Rigsby, Savage, and Wellmann, in their 2012 research called “African Americans in Honors Programs” claim that African American students in the Honors College at Western Kentucky University (WGU) are less engaged in their Caucasian counterparts due to lack of support from within the Honors College. If their claim is true, how do we make Honors Colleges more inclusive in order to improve minority participation and experiences?
In their research, Rigby, Savage, and Wellmann interviewed five African American young adults of the Western Kentucky University (4 women, 1 man, age range: 18-21) in the residence hall of one of the researchers. One of the participants was interviewed by all three researchers and had a 5-item interview that lasted approximately four minutes, because of their schedule limitation. The rest of the interviewees were interviewed together by two researchers and had a 13-item focus group interview that lasted around 55 minutes. The interviews were transcribed and data was coded manually for both groups, and transcripts were analyzed for prevalence of theories used, and recurring themes among the feedback from participants themselves.
The researchers claimed to have found that African American students are less likely to identify with being an Honors College student than their white counterparts because minority students tend to have multiple, segregated aspects to their identity. Moreover, they also found that African American students benefit from social integration and involvement, and that they tend to engage in environments that they feel supports them. By the way, this is how involvement and support are defined in the study:
Involvement: the potential for these [minority] students to partake in Honors College initiative.
Support: the perception of there being students and faculty who physically resemble the participants concerning race and the ability of the Honors College to meet their needs.
The researchers believe that, and talk extensively about the need to increase the number of minority students in Honors Colleges, by recruiting more students of color. The finding suggest that the students interviewed want more minority representation in the student body in order for them to feel a part of the Honors College like their white peers. The study concludes that the most important step in improving African American students’ experience and participation in the Honors College would be to increase their visibility in Honors College through brochures and other media outlets like Honors College website and social media pages.
I believe that increasing the enrollment of African Americans in the Honors College might be one way to increase involvement and help minorities identify with the program. In the interview process, it was revealed that none of the students interviewed knew each other. If there had been a significant number of African American students in Honors, it would provide more room for friendships to blossom and might lead to a more inclusive community within the program. However, the study does not truly access the reasons of a non-inclusive community and the implications of using a non-existent diverse group of students to attract incoming students.
First, the researchers claim that African Americans have low involvement in the Honors College, and do not identify with the program like their white counterparts do without using any statistically significant evidence. Nor are any white students interviewed to show higher levels of involvement in the program. The study looks at a difficult question, but provides an oversimplified solution to it. If we take the researchers’ word for it and assume that there is a discrepancy in the participation and inclusion of white students and African American students in the Honors program, the study claims that increasing the percentage of minorities would be improve inclusion within the program, and hence motivate minority students’ participation. However, there are other issues evident in the study that don’t get addressed just by increasing enrollment. The study mentions how African American students feel the need to prove their academic merit to their white counterparts, “disprove negative…stereotypes to their peers and professors”, and defend their ethnicity because they are often the only minority in the classroom. Moreover, the participants also claim that they do not feel supported or included by their white peers in the Honors College, and hence tend to participate in activities outside of the program where there are more people of color. These are the implications of societal structures being replicated within the Honors College: the African American population is a minority in regards to income, wealth, and representation in most institutions. Though I don’t know what the solution might be, this issues does not get the attention that it deserves in the study.
Additionally, just increasing the percentage of minority students might not increase the solidarity within the group. In the study, none of the participants knew each other. As it often happens, there might be competition among minority students to be the only one included in the elite, majority of privileged students. Similarly, the study suggests that using minority students in brochures and social media platforms to falsely advertise to potential students and attract them into the program is ethical. Diversity does not happen overnight, and even if the number of minority students does go up, without the former mentioned structural change, these new students will still be in a non-inclusive community. I get the feeling that the researchers might not care that much about minority experience in the Honors College, but only want to increase their presence statistically. I believe that minority student participant is highly dependent on the experience they have in the Honors community, and without making the community more inclusive, participation cannot be expected to grow.
Resource used:
Data/Society/Decision-making Spring 2019 