Last May, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (CGA) announced that 240 new officers made up its 140th graduating class.

The Academy’s announcement referenced additional, important highlights. Women made up 34% of the Class of 2021, and 34% of the graduates were from underrepresented minority groups. Even more focused was the statement that 22 African Americans “walked the stage,” the largest number in Academy history, and 2021 included the second highest number of Asian American and Pacific Islanders.

To make the ceremony even more memorable, President Biden delivered the keynote address. Indeed, in his remarks, the President noted and commended the Academy’s diverse student mix. He told the cadets, “You’re joining the service that not only serves as America’s front line, it increasingly looks like America.”

The ideal that American institutions should proportionately reflect America’s racial and ethnic diversity is not new, but President Biden’s directives have surely recharged that goal.

This article takes a closer look at minority student recruitment and graduation at the Coast Guard Academy and the state maritime academies. All of the state academies were contacted – as well as the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, in Kings Point, N.Y. – but not all responded.

This report seeks to present a big-picture look within university-level maritime education, particularly among Black students, so specifically referenced within the CG’s graduation announcement. We asked colleges: How have recent recruitment efforts changed? Are future classes trending to reflect America’s mosaic of people and races?

Importantly, state school systems will largely reflect the demographics of the state. Black Americans, for example, make up 13.4% of the U.S. population (2019 U.S. Census estimates). State and regional statistics, however, vary. In Maine, for example, Black people make up 1.7%—about 22,000 individuals— of the state’s population of 1.34 million. With diversity and inclusion, numbers are not the whole story, but still critical for a big picture.

 

SOURCE READ THE FULL ARTICLE

https://www.marinelink.com/news/maritime-academies-work-toward-inclusion-491501