Jeff Charis-Carlson

jcharisc@press-citizen.com

In an effort to improve its recruitment and retention of minority students, the University of Iowa is planning to offer a new living-learning community this fall that is open only to students who identify as black or African-American.

“Young, Gifted and Black” is one of 35 living-learning communities available to first-year UI students for the 2016-17 academic year. Joining one of those communities, which are designed to help provide new students with a support system within the 32,000-student university, is a requirement for all first-year students at UI.

The idea for the new community came out of recent debates and advocacy about diversity and inclusion efforts on campus.

“This was a completely student-led initiative,” said Amy Baumgartner, assistant director for residence education for UI’s office of University Housing and Dining. “A group of students last year wrote a pretty comprehensive proposal for us.”

At UI, the six-year graduation rate for racial/ethnic minorities was 62.8 percent — 7.8 percentage points lower than for non-minorities, according to the most recent report from the Iowa Board of Regents. The rate was 49 percent for UI students identifying as black or African-American, 49.6 percent at Iowa State University and 42 percent at the University of Northern Iowa, according to the regents’ report.

Plans are to have the new UI community fill a floor of Slater Hall, which is located on the west side of campus and near UI’s Afro-American Cultural Center. That location would leave enough room for about 40 students to join the mixed-gender community.

With participation limited to students who identity as black or African-American, Young, Gifted and Black would be the first identity-based community on the UI campus. For examples of such communities on other campuses, the organizers list the Huntley House for African American Men community at the University of Minnesota and the Black Male Initiative community at Southern Illinois University.

“That’s something that came through strongly from the students’ proposal,” Baumgartner said. “Because these students already are marginalized, we would be giving them a place of support and empowerment.”

A student who helped develop the original proposal said that limiting the new community to black students was essential to its goals.

“It is something we have been fighting for and we are still fighting for,” said Matthew Bruce, a UI sophomore is who studying sociology and African American Studies. “We have had to do a lot of back and forth with the university so that this would even be allowed. … There is really no other space on campus where these students can go to talk about the issues and problems that only exist for African-American students.”

If more than 40 students apply to join Young, Gifted and Black, any students turned away would still be able to take part in the programming and academic offerings for the community.

The university is looking to add academic components to each of the communities, Baumgartner said. As such, Young, Gifted and Black will be associated with UI’s African American Studies program, with a required course eventually being selected for the community members.

Students do not have to be enrolled in the African American Studies program to participate in the new community, Baumgartner said.

The university is hiring staff for the new community, including a residence assistant who will live on the floor, a hall coordinator and a residence education coordinator.

Bruce said he hopes the students who initially proposed the new community would be involved in the hiring decisions for the new staff members.

Young, Gifted and Black is one of two communities being added to the roster for 2016-17, Baumgartner said. The second is the Sports and Recreation Management community.

“We are in a holding pattern at this point,” Baumgartner said of the list of living-learning options. “We haven’t taken anything away, but we’ve added a handful of communities.”

She added that there probably will be an overhaul of the community offerings for the 2017-18 school year.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @jeffcharis.