Minorities to receive grants

JMU Admissions and Financial Aid will hand out full-cost grants to 50 “ethnically under-represented” students next year. The grants cover tuition, room and board, textbooks and other fees as part of the JMU Centennial Scholars Program.

Daniel Wubah, special assistant to the president for diversity, said that the Centennial Scholars Program and full-cost grants address “the barriers for minority students to come to JMU.”

Beginning with 50 students in the fall semester of 2004, the CSP will grow to accommodate 200 students by 2008, JMU's centennial year.

The CSP for the 2004-'05 academic year will include 46 undergraduate students and four graduate students, Wubah said. Only incoming students are eligible for grant consideration.

“As we have it now at JMU, there is no way we can diversify our campus,” Wubah said. Wubah added that, while these institutionally funded grants would be paid for by JMU, the diversity initiative will seek supplemental grant money from state and national sources.

Despite criticisms and concerns, Wubah said, “This is not free money.”

Centennial scholars will be required to complete 10 hours of community service to “give back to campus,” Wubah said.

Additionally, a newly created position of academic recruitment specialist will create lists of outstanding minority faculty candidates for vacant positions, Wubah said.

Wubah said the movement toward greater diversity “is going to impact students in a positive way.

“Every JMU student, at one time or another, is going to interact with someone of a different background.”

Wubah said the CSP and diversity initiative are needed to fulfill the JMU mission statement — specifically in preparing students to be leaders in the real world.

“Look at the real world. It's not like JMU,” Wubah said.

He added that if JMU is to fulfill its mission statement, students will have to be educated in an environment that is reflective of the diversified real world.

“Even though I will not be getting money, I think it's important to attract more minorities to JMU,” Powell said. “I still wonder what is being done to help current students still struggling with costs.”

General education courses cover skills that students must master and increased diversity will help students develop “the skills to interact with people who don't look like them.,” Wubah said.

President Linwood Rose, in response to the initiative, said, “Diversity will be a strategic focus for the next four years.”