By Adriana Rangel – Vallo Vision News
Montevallo is home to people of all races, ethnicities, orientations, and walks of life. However, the school holds the label of being a PWI.
PWI stands for Predominantly White Institution. A school is considered a PWI if the majority of student attending it are white.
According to Montevallo, for the 2021 Fall Semester, 2,184 undergraduate students were enrolled. Out of those two thousand students, 1,459 were white. This means over half of students enrolled were white.
About 70% of students are white- leaving the other 30% to be composed of different races and ethnicities.
For the 2021 fall semester, 370 of students were Black, 131 were Hispanic, and 16 were Asian.
This chart does not account for students whose race was unknown or students classified as non-resident aliens.
We can go further back in time to compare the school’s enrollment from 20 years ago.
In the 2001 Fall semester, a total of 2,559 undergraduate students were enrolled. Out of that number, 2,034 of students were white. This means over 83% of undergraduate students were white.
This is a 13% increase from 2021’s percentage. Hispanic students only made up 1% of the school’s undergraduate students compared to 2021’s 6%.
Tracking the school’s undergraduate enrollment over the years, we can see the ratio of white students to minority students.
We can see that the percentage of white students to minority students has roughly stayed the same but has decreased a bit in recent years.
However, white students have always made up 85 to 70 percent of the amount of undergraduate students.
Despite Montevallo being a PWI, there are still many opportunities for all races and there are many groups made for minority students.
According to Montevallo sites, M.A.D.E is a program that helps minority students in “overcoming the social, emotional, academic, and professional challenges that come with college.”
M.A.D.E provides minority students coaching, hosts events and monthly meetings, and provides a scholarship for students involved.
Another program is the Hispanic Student Organization.
According to Montevallo’s site, the program’s purpose is to “serve as a general support network for its members and all undergrad and graduate Hispanic or Latino students at the University of Montevallo and to educate its members and the university community about the diversity in Latin American cultures.”
One of the ways Gregory L. Samuels, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Montevallo, encourages minority students to enroll is through a Teacher Education Program. The program provides the Minority Educator’s Scholarship.
This scholarship is for both new and currently enrolled minority students in the education programs who want to become an educator.
When asked if Montevallo being a PWI would be a deciding factor for minority students in their college search, Samuels says, “I think there are a significant amount of white students that do not choose a Historically Black College and Institution for a few reasons, however, I think students of color have a slightly different and more complex selection process for choosing their college.”
Samuels says, “One level of unpacking this may be students of color live in a world where we are mostly in spaces similar to a PWI, so our choice may be solely whether or not we meet enrollment standards and if the school can provide us with our needs as a student, athlete, or both.”
Samuels says with the prevalence of PWI’s in the country, “White students and their families do not have to choose or create a selection process between the two as Black students and families in America may have to.”
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