Students demand more diversity at New Mexico State University

LAS CRUCES - A group of students called for greater diversity at New Mexico State University in a march organized by the Black Students Association on Tuesday.

About two dozen students marched from NMSU's Educational Services Center to the provost's office, where they delivered a list of six demands aimed at diversifying the campus and also met with Executive Vice President and Provost Dan Howard.

"Today, we had our March on NMSU, and it was kind of like a parallel to the march on D.C.," student Darnicia Holt said, "and the purpose of it was to bring the president's office a list of demands and things we want to see as far as this campus is concerned in terms of diversity."

Holt, the spokeswoman for the Black Students Association, said the list of demands included increasing diversity among administration, faculty and students at NMSU.

In the fall semester, 407 black students comprised about 2.8 percent of the main campus population of 14,432.

"We recognized that we do live in New Mexico, and African Americans only make up 3 percent of the population, but we don't feel like that should a mirror reflection on campus," said Holt, who is studying communications. "We would like to see an increase of that — more than just 3 percent — and not just for us but for other diversity programs on campus as well."

Meligha Garfield, the president of the Black Students Association, said students also called for a "separate diversity council" and asked for a minimum of two university senators to represent diversity programs on campus.

The list of demands also included:

Adequate staffing for the Black Programs department to fund a secretary and recruiter, and adequate pay for peer advisers.

Establish a multicultural/ethnic studies program that would encompass black studies, Chicano students, Native American studies and gender studies. "We currently do not have this on campus," Garfield said.

Create a "pathway" to improve relations between the athletics department and campus diversity programs — particularly with Black Programs, Garfield said, "because the majority of (student-athletes) are African American or African students."

Better promotion and marketing of diversity programs at NMSU.

Garfield, a graduate student studying public administration, described the meeting with Howard was "positive," but he and others want the university to take immediate action to implement their demands.

"Being able to sit down and have that meeting — that's a wonderful thing — but until some of those things are implemented then," Holt said, "as an organization and as student leaders and as students on campus who do represent the diversity programs, we're going to be in a state of unrest until those things are actually implemented."

Garfield said he wants the university to meet the demands during the 2018-19 semester.

Tuesday's march was part of a series of events organized by the Black Students Association in honor Black History Month.

"This week itself is Blackout," Garfield said, adding that the events were aimed at shedding light on "injustices that are happening around in our country" and at NSMU "because many people do not know the other things that are happening on our university because they're not spoken for, especially promotion of diversity."

Carlos Andres López can be reached 575-541-5453, carlopez@lcsun-news.com or @carlopez_los on Twitter.