Wednesday September 9, 2009
{The Blue Banner}
Continued from Page 3
Exchange
of kids that go to A&T are from the Pied
mont, they’re from Greensboro, or they’re
from Durham or they’re from Raleigh, that
general area,” Foote-Hudson said. Their
cultural experiences will vary, being that
they’re African-
American,going
to a dominantly
African Ameri
can school, versus
going to a white,
liberal arts school
-the background of
students here ver
sus the background
of students there.”
UNC Asheville’s
2008-09 enroll
Evan Foote-Hudson
ment consisted of less than 3 percent
black students, only a 1-percent increase
since 2005, the second lowest minority
percentage in the 17-school UNC sys
tem following UNC School of the Arts in
Winston-Salem.
White students made up less than 4 per
cent of N.C. A&T’s enrollment.
“What’s going to come out of this is
not only will it be a great experience for
the A&T students that come here and the
UNCA students that are here and will in
teract with those students, but it will also
be a great opportunity for UNCA students
to go to A&T to interact in that situation,”
Bucher said.
The Diversity Action Council and the
SGA Executives are trying to find ways to
make sure that students feel welcome at
both schools, Foote-Hudson said.
“We’re going to set up video chats for
the exchange students to communicate
with each other so they can,talk about
their experiences,” he said. “We’ll also
be setting up workshops for students and
faculty to know about how the program
will work.”
Even though the application process has
not started, there are a lot of people show
ing interest in the program, Foote-Hudson
said.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunity here
to make it really successful, but it depends
on how much the community gets behind
it,” said Student Body President Cortland
Mercer.
This year’s freshman class only had 16
African American students, which is why
connecting with A&T is preat wav to heln
Ian Hayes - Staff photographer
White students made up 87 percent of UNCA’s 2008-09 enrollment. The
exchange program with NC A&T aims to increase diversity of UNCA’s pre
dominately white campus.
raise that number, he said.
“We did not specifically say that we
wanted to go and set up a program with
A&T. This came as a result of a con
versation that Dr. ’ '
Calvin Kelly had
with an administra
tor at A&T a little
over a year ago and
was just kind of an
idea that came up,
‘Wow, wouldn’t
this be great. Let’s
try this,’ so that was
the extent of the
brainstorming that
lead to it,” Bucher
said.
Exchanging UN
CA’s liberal arts ed
ucation with N.C.
A&T’s science-
based curriculum
should be interest
ing, Foote-Hudson
said.
“You’re talking
about basically an
engineering and
agriculture school.
Everything is very
'‘We’re going to set
up video chats for the
exchange students to
communicate with
each other so they
can talk about their
experiences.”
-Executive of
Multicultural
Affairs,
Evan Eoote-Hudson
science-based and
so that’s what their curriculum is based
around. It will be a bit of a challenge to
vi^brk out what credits transfer, but those
students who might have an interest in
more of an engineering route may have
some real onnortunities in exchange, with
The Blue Banner
Student rat
A&T beyond just the cultural aspect of
it,” Bucher said.
The intent of this program is for edu
cational purposes, and not necessarily fo-
ciised on increasing per
manent racial diversity,
Foote-Hudson said.
“But there was no
agenda in terms of what
school we wanted to have
this program with, it just
kind of happened upon
us because we had a re
lationship with somebody
there,” Bucher said.
Mercer said he believes
the program will be well
planned out and benefi
cial to both schools.
“There’s nothing like
this currently in place
anywhere in the system,”
Mercer said. “This is
pretty ground breaking as
far as what the system’s
doing, and this is going
to be a pilot semester, so
there’s a lot of stuff that’s
got to be worked out.”
N.C. A&T has partici
pated in a rural-urban faculty and student
exchange program with Western Carolina
University since spring of 2002.
WCU’s 2008-09 enrollment consisted
of six percent black students and three
percent black faculty members, according
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