FAYETTEVILLE -- After earning his diploma from Springdale High School, Benetick Kabua Maddison enrolled at Northwest Arkansas Community College.
But only a few Marshallese classmates from high school have followed a similar path. An event today at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville will bring prospective Marshallese students and families to campus with community grassroots efforts aimed at increasing the number of Marshallese students attending college.
"This will be the first time the UA hosts something like this for the Marshallese students and parents, so it's a big deal," said Maddison, a staff member for the Springdale-based Marshallese Educational Initiative.
Springdale is about 10 miles from Fayetteville, and the nonprofit organized a bus ride from Springdale to the UA campus, said April Brown, the group's executive director.
Only three Marshallese students are enrolled at UA, according to the university, though Brown said the number is down to two. At Northwest Arkansas Community College, 26 Marshallese students were enrolled this past fall, according to the college.
The Springdale School District enrolled more than 2,400 Marshallese students this academic year, according to a district spokesman, with the numbers increasing in recent years.
"I saw that there were a lot less Marshallese students in college," said Maddison, 21, founder of the Manit Club, a cultural organization for Marshallese college students like himself. A political science major, he said he expects to finish his associate degree next year and would like to earn a doctoral degree.
Maddison said he came to the United States with his family in 2001 from the Marshall Islands, which are located about midway between Hawaii and Australia.
The Marshall Islands have a history with the United States dating back to World War II, and an agreement allows Marshallese to live and work in this country. Northwest Arkansas has long been a favored site for Marshallese in the United States.
"One of the reasons why we moved here from the island is education," Maddison said.
As a group, however, about 55 percent of Marshallese in the Northwest Arkansas metropolitan statistical area are considered to have limited proficiency in English, according to a 2014 report from Empowering Pacific Islander Communities and Asian Americans Advancing Justice. About 54 percent of adults have a high school degree or GED, according to the report.
Maddison said work and family obligations lead to very busy lives for the college students in his group, which he said has grown from fewer than 15 members in 2014 to about 30 now.
"You have to understand, most of us are first-generation college students, and it's basically something new to us," Maddison said. "We're still learning."
Brown, a history professor at Northwest Arkansas Community College, in 2013 helped found the Marshallese Educational Initiative, which assists families in navigating the financial aid and college application process. On April 30, the organization and the Manit Club will host a Marshallese Youth Empowerment Day in Springdale at the Jones Center. The event will provide information about college and other educational opportunities, including English as a second language classes and opportunities for adults interested in college or technical training.
The event today is aimed at changing the perception that UA is not committed to Marshallese students, said Luis Restrepo, UA's assistant vice chancellor for diversity and community. Current UA Marshallese students are expected to talk to the visitors, along with top admissions and diversity officials.
"We think that we're so close, but there are students that live nearby the university and still perceive it as other people's university," Restrepo said.
Metro on 04/23/2016