Resourceful students find diverse comfort zones

• Darren Carpenter regularly visits the Black Cultural Center at Oregon State
• Jane Burnett often feels singled out at American in D.C.
• Devon Hamilton%2C at University of Wisconsin%2C is acutely aware of his race

Darren Carpenter is used to being called an athlete. It happens at least a few times a term. The problem is, he's not.

Carpenter, an electrical and computer engineering major at Oregon State University in Corvallis, is one of 366 black students on a campus where 27,925 students attend classes, according to Steve Clark, vice president of university relations and marketing.

Because of Carpenter's race and the small minority population on campus, Carpenter says people often assume he's at the school to play a sport.

It wasn't always this way. He originally attended North Carolina State University, which had a much larger African-American population. There were 2,314 black students enrolled at N.C. State in fall 2013, according to the university's fall enrollment report.

Carpenter is from Washington state, and family circumstances led him to transfer closer to home. He chose OSU because of its engineering program and proximity to his family — his twin brother goes to OSU too.

"I was more comfortable there," Carpenter says of North Carolina State. "If you were to meet up in a group (of black students) over here, it would seem ... kind of like people would see it as a threat. Whereas at N.C. State, it was more of a normal thing, nobody really thought twice about it."

Carpenter said he had never joined any black groups at N.C. State, because he never felt like he had to — but when he transferred to OSU and realized how different the population was, he sought out the Black Cultural Center.

At N.C. State, he says, there were usually between three and 15 black students in his classes. At OSU, he says, he's often the only one.

"I kind of faced it head-on. I joined a historically white fraternity, as opposed to a black fraternity," Carpenter says. Though he's one of just four black members, he says he feels completely comfortable with his fraternity brothers.

Although Carpenter would like to see a more diverse population, he says he's gotten to the point where it doesn't bother him anymore.

Clark, the OSU vice president, is troubled by the lack of growth in the black share of the student population.

Although the population has grown in numbers, the overall percentage of black students enrolled in the school has gone down. In the fall of 2009, black students accounted for 1.46% of OSU enrollment; in the fall of 2013 it was 1.31%.

"The university has worked to expand its inclusivity and succeeded in doubling the diversity of student enrollment among U.S. minorities to reach 20% of Oregon State's overall student enrollment. But in the area of African-American students and Native American students, the percentage has basically stayed the same, and we're taking steps to change that," Clark says

Jane Burnett is black, but she didn't didn't grow up around a lot of black people. She was excited to meet more when she came to American University in Washington, D.C., two years ago.

The only problem? American didn't have many black people either. In fall 2012, AU had 391 black undergraduate students, according to the university's records.

Burnett says she hasn't experienced racism firsthand, but she has heard stories of how African-American students get treated. One of the most common stories is of students singled out in class to give the "black perspective."

"Sometimes, you're the only African American in class. Sometimes people look to you for the black perspective, but we are not just one monolithic category. We all have different perspectives and views," Burnett says.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison had more than 43,000 students enrolled in fall 2013, of whom a little more than 1,200 were black, according to the school's registrar's office.

Devon Hamilton, a junior landscape architecture major, finds it's often difficult to be one of the 1,200.

"There are definitely certain areas on campus, certain days on campus and certain times on campus where I feel uncomfortable," Hamilton says.

He lists Langdon Street as one of the spaces that black students feel the least comfortable. The street is lined with primarily white fraternities, and Hamilton has heard stories from female black friends who've had beer bottles thrown at them late at night.

Hamilton says he has found safe spaces on campus such as the multicultural center, classrooms and friends' houses, but the majority of the time, he says, Hamilton is aware of his race.

"If I would just be thrown in the general student body population, I would not be comfortable at all," he says.