Mentors assigned with scholarships

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville is stepping up its efforts to get minority students in college and keep them enrolled, UA officials said Wednesday.

The university named 24 Arkansas freshmen as the first to receive Razorback Bridge Scholarships, which will provide $3,500 annually and match the students with on-campus mentors.

“We intend to do a better job in growing our diversity here,” said Charles Robinson, UA vice provost for diversity. “We hope to give them a real chance to be successful.”

The scholarship supports Arkansas students of anyrace but also considers which groups are underrepresented at UA. That can mean by location in the state or field of study, Salazar said. Often those students are also minority students, said Veronikha Salazar, UA Multicultural Center assistant director.

“For a lot of them, this is the opportunity to go to college with this money,” Salazar said. “We are trying to provide the kind of environment where cultures are melting, in a way.”

Robinson said minority students are often the first in their families to attend college, come from lowerincome homes and have trouble adapting to univer-sity life. Often that means students, who are not emotionally or financially supported by their families, have trouble connecting with the university and struggle to balance work and study, he said.

Students from minority groups - including blacks, American Indians and Hispanics - drop out of college more often than white students. Statewide, the sixyear graduation rate for public four-year universities was 27.8 percent for black students compared with 50 percent for white students, according to a 2009 report from the state Department of Higher Education. At the Fayetteville campus, the six-year-graduation rate was 42.5 percent for black students, compared with 60.1 percent for white students, the report said.

The Razorback Bridge Scholarships are different from the university’s other diversity scholarship, the Silas Hunt Awards, because the Bridge scholarships require students to meet with mentors, Salazar said. The university will match students with mentors of the same race, help them with professional development and pay for trips to visit historically significant sites. So far, 22 faculty and 24 students have signed up to be mentors, she said.

Salazar hopes the program will help students like Rachel Batson, 17, of Fayetteville stay in college. Batson, a Cherokee Indian, plans to lean on her mentor to help her stay motivated about school. She is the first person in her family to attend college, and she watched her parents work hard. They have helped keep her focused, and now that she will be living away from them, she worries about losing momentum.

“It’s my first year of college. I think everybody needs somebody to reach out to,” Batson said. “Having mentors there, it gives you somebody that’s going to be proud of you.”