The following article was printed in the Brown Daily Herald on Wednesday, March 5, 1997.
This article discusses steps which Brown University has taken in order to increase the numbers of students of color.  The author interviewed Hermano Wilson Quezada, who at the time was student co-coordinator in the Multicultural Recruitment Office.

Recruitment Efforts Help U. Minority Numbers Rise
By Megan Tracy
STAFF WRITER

Over the last decade, the student population at Brown has become more ethnically diverse, according to this year's Registrar's report. Last year, students of color represented 24.9 percent of the University's overall enrollment, in contrast to 16 percent in 1985-86.

However, while Latino and Asian enrollments doubled, black enrollment remained approximately the same.

The increased diversity corresponds with a growing effort in the Admissions Department to recruit students of color. According to Wilson Quezada '98, student co-coordinator in the Multicultural Recruitment Office, programs such as the Black Experience, the Third World Weekend and the Ambassadors Program are designed to "let people of color know that Brown is a place where they can achieve, where they can succeed."

The Ambassadors Program, said Quezada, was started this year to formalize a system that has been operating unofficially for "a long time" -- that of Brown students recruiting applicants from their own high schools and neighborhoods.

"We give undergrads information about Brown and send them off to their old high schools to expose Brown and make it more visible," said Quezada, noting that any Brown undergraduate can be involved in this program. "We also do call-outs [to students who have been accepted into Brown], and we encourage students to call their own hometowns. That's open to the whole Brown community too, and there will be more information [about it] in April."

Quezada also cited the Black Experience and Third World Weekend as factors in Brown's increasing diversity.

"The Black Experience is a program in October where African-American high school seniors who have been nominated by their guidance counselors are selected to visit Brown," said Quezada, adding that approximately 50 percent of the nominated students are selected to attend on the basis of their academic and extracurricular achievements.

"These are students who haven't applied yet, so we want to work even harder to get them interested in applying," he said.

The Third World Weekend focuses on students who have already been admitted and are "checking out Brown to see if they're comfortable," Quezada said. "Our job is to make Brown seem like somewhere they want to be for the next four years."

The weekend features faculty and student panels, financial aid workshops and an extracurricular fair, among other events.

"We try to expose as much of Brown as we can in a short weekend," said Quezada, adding that the program seems to be effective in doing so. "That weekend was what made me first decide that I wanted to come to Brown."

Specific groups of minority students at Brown sometimes get involved in recruiting as well. According to Angela Tolosa, spokesperson for the Asian American Students Association (AASA), the organization has recently focused on the local population of Southeast Asians in Providence.

Tolosa, who also represents the Filipino Alliance, added that Director of Multicultural Recruitment Larry Griffith allotted money to the Filipino Alliance for the production of a brochure to be sent to accepted Filipino high school seniors.

Tolosa also attributes some of the increase in minority enrollment to "the fact that a large segment of the Asian-American and Latino-American communities is getting to the age where they're college-bound."

Stephen Ram, spokesperson for the Latino-American Students Organization, agrees.

"You can't just look at how many people are accepted, how many matriculated -- there are other issues. The numbers [of minority students at Brown] are increasing, but they are also increasing nationwide," he said.

Tolosa cited need-blind admissions as crucial in encouraging the matriculation of students of color, saying that "it may not guarantee an amazing [aid] package, but it would give Brown a new image of accessibility.

"Brown doesn't seem like a reachable goal for many families, in terms of money," Tolosa continued. "The University needs to realize that it's fruitful and productive to [use need-blind admissions] to attract a greater variety of students."

Quezada expressed a desire to "encourage more students to participate and get involved" in programs sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Recruitment.

"It's our opportunity to try to increase our own numbers at Brown," he said. "There's lots of opportunities to volunteer."