The opening issue of the Beacon for the 1964 school year generously notes the “unofficial enrollment of the class of 1968, numbering about 600”. The number is approximate because there is always some melt in the first weeks of the frosh year; the Admissions Office records 434 first-year students that fall. However, the tally of 253 who crossed the stage four years later receiving Baccalaureate degrees on May 11, 1968 is also a precise number. The completion rate is an unenviable 60%. At UP during the 1960s, the perception of low graduation rates was widespread and accurate; the disparity between enrollment numbers and the number of degrees granted after four years was a cause for general concern.
Vernon Chatman, a Pilots basketball fan, spoke directly and specifically to the president about that drop-off, proposing several programs to support Black and minority students through to graduation. Rev. Paul E. Waldschmidt, CSC, then University president, swiftly hired him for UP to implement his plan for student assistance and retention. Mr. Chatman became an adviser to the president, students, a community liaison, and even a student himself (M.Ed ’72). Already in 1968 when he approached UP, Mr. Chatman was active in the Urban League of Portland, where he served as director of education until 1987 (pictured here in 1978).
Mr. Chatman’s leading initiative was the Project 21-Family Away From Home Program. This and other programs reached into local Portland area high schools to promote recruitment of Black students for college, including pre-college counseling, SAT prep, and following up with career counseling and job-fairs such as the Urban League’s Career Awareness Day hosted for many years at the University; and then once students arrive at the University continuing support was offered by participating in a host-family mentoring-to-success program**. Here retention and recruitment programs were aligned. Also, he was a skilled Scholarship matchmaker, encouraging dreams and assisting to provide the opportunity and means to achieve dreams.
In 1968 he is listed as advisor to the president; later, as his programs took regular shape and began to be implemented his office was housed within the Counseling center, in the Division of Student Life. By 1973 his title in the faculty directory is Black Student Advisor. From then until the present, under evolving nomenclature, labels, and titles—Minority Student Advisor, Coordinator of Minority Services, Director of Minority Programs, Multicultural Coordinator — the University has maintained and funded initiatives in the area of Student Services to encourage, promote, facilitate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts at UP.
Prior to the 2018-2019 school year the Office of International Education, Diversity, and Inclusion was established with the charge to implement recommendations of the University’s Vision 2020 Strategic Plan to create, coordinate, and facilitate intercultural endeavors and opportunities. As in 1968, a Presidential appointment responding to community-raised concerns. This office and the directing Associate Provost, Dr. Eduardo Contreras, continue to address priorities of opportunity and access and support that are central to the University’s mission though—even after fifty years– not thoroughly realized in University life.
** “A Crisis in Black and White?”, Portland Magazine, Summer 1986, p. 7, reports a 95% graduation rate for the athlete mentoring program.
Supplemental Exhibits from the University Archives (click to enlarge):
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DEI: Gateways & Opportunity
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