‘Incomplete’ for CSSM on Ethnic Enrollment : College: After first year, the fledgling university in San Marcos scores poorly compared with other colleges in attracting minority students. School officials say they need more time and support.

The first line of Cal State San Marcos’ mission statement emphasizes the education of a “diverse population,” but in its first year of operation, the university finds itself falling short.

The ethnic-minority enrollment at the new university of 428 students this semester is at 13%, contrasted with 34% for the Cal State system as a whole and 25% at San Diego State University.

“These are definitely not numbers we can live with, not in a community that has a strong ethnic-minority population,” said Ernest Zomalt, dean of students.

“It was reported in the last month or so that, from Los Angeles south, the Anglo community is no longer a numerical majority, and if that is our service region, then we should ensure that our population reflects the composition of that region,” Zomalt said. “That’s a difficult job to do.”

Still, university officials have few concrete plans for meeting that goal until they begin accepting freshmen in 1995.

By then, Zomalt said, there will be a greater opportunity to attract an ethnically diverse student population because there will a larger pool from which to draw them. Proportionately few ethnic minority students transfer from two-year to four-year colleges, he said.

“Until we have freshman, we are only going to make marginal progress towards the goal (of ethnic diversity),” he said.

The campus also is stymied by a shortage of money, its incomplete academic program and small staff. But specialists in college recruitment agree that, even with the best of plans and money, recruiting minority students is a tough job.

Cal State San Marcos’ lone recruiter, Bridget Bailey-Meier, said that “other than one-on-one outreach,” no specific programs exist to attract ethnic-minority students to the campus.

Furthermore, Bailey-Meier said, she has received little guidance from the Cal State system for recruiting ethnic-minority transfer students.

“The difficult part is that these outreach programs are sometimes tied to certain disciplines and, until we get all (of our disciplines) up and running, we can’t really tie into them,” Bailey-Meier said.

Tim Johnston, assistant director of student outreach at UCSD, said that Cal State San Marcos officials cannot be blamed for the school’s slow start toward ethnic diversity.

“I would suspect that they don’t have much of an outreach program at this point, and it takes a while to get all the contacts set up and get their outreach program going in a way that’s going to be effective. They are probably just getting into that process,” said Johnston, who used to work at San Diego State.

Money, or the lack of it, will play a major role in how soon Cal State San Marcos can develop a diverse student population, Johnston said.

“Their ability to draw students is going to be related to their ability to get information out to prospective students,” he said. That will be a hard task without money for publications and staff for student advisers, he said.

Even if there were extensive programs to attract ethnic-minority transfer students, the university doesn’t have the staff to implement them, Bailey-Meier said.

The state’s dismal fiscal condition prevents the university from hiring more recruiters, Zomalt said.

But, even if the university could attract more ethnic-minority students now, Bailey-Meier said, it lacks the services such as tutorials, enrichment programs and cultural programs to help keep them.

At least some ethnic-minority students think that support services can wait until 1995 when freshmen arrive.

“There is a limited budget, and I don’t think they’ll really need minority services until 1995 when they recruit freshman,” said Derjen Su, a 22-year-old Asian-American senior majoring in business management.

He is not the only one who thinks support services can wait while other aspects of the university are enhanced.

“I think people are just trying to find out where you fit in this system before you have a MEChA or BSU,” said one Latino student, referring to the two ethnic-minority clubs. “Also, there are older students here, and we have lives other than school.”

The average age of a Cal State San Marcos student is 30, and nearly a third of the students are over 35.

Even with the right programs, services and staff, recruiting ethnic-minority students would be a tough job, Bailey-Meier said, partly because many don’t seek out colleges and universities.

“Minority students know the counseling center at their school is there . . ., but for whatever reason, we (minorities) don’t utilize those services in the same numbers that our white counterparts do,” said Bailey-Meier, who is black.

Many of the students at the university, which only accepts juniors and seniors, are transfers from the two local community colleges, Palomar and Miracosta, where ethnic-minority enrollment is 26% and 23%, respectively.

But a study conducted by San Diego State University of Southwestern Community College confirmed Zomalt’s assertion that proportionately few minority students tend to transfer.

The study showed that ethnic-minority students were half as likely to plan a transfer to a four-year college as other students, said George Hutchinson, director of student outreach services at SDSU.

Hutchinson said their studies have shown that the two largest barriers to attracting ethnic-minority transfer students are money and a lack of understanding by students of the importance of a college degree.

“We have a lot of work to do in terms of briefing people, because in some way we are not putting out the word as to what degrees could lead to what careers,” said Hutchinson. A majority of the students in one class Hutchinson visited at Southwestern Community College thought an engineer dealt with trains.

Cal State San Marcos also has begun recruiting for its 1995 freshman class, distributing information to local seventh- and eighth-graders.

“You have to talk to them about why college at all, how do you go about picking a college, and just get them thinking about college,” Bailey-Meier said. “A lot of minority students may not know what it takes to become college eligible, and we’ve got to start early with them.”