Morehead State Budgets $1 Million for Efforts to Increase Racial Diversity on Campus

Morehead State University is a predominantly white university located in a rural part of northeastern Kentucky, an area with a small black population. As a result, only 3.5 percent of the students at the 7,700-undergraduate campus are black. Only 36 percent of the entering black students go on to earn a bachelor’s degree. There are 15 black faculty members at the university. They make up less than 4 percent of the total faculty.

But Wayne Andrews, the new president of Morehead State, is mounting an effort to significantly increase racial diversity on campus. He has budgeted nearly $1 million to recruit black students, offer scholarships to low-income undergraduates, increase cultural activities on campus geared toward black students, and to offer incentives to black faculty to come to Morehead.

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