Prepared for Success

Retaining and Graduating Minority Students in Chiropractic Colleges

By 2050, it is predicted that racial minorities will account for more than half of the U.S. population, according to the United States Census Bureau. However, the chiropractic profession is not representative of the national population regarding sex and race—92 percent of chiropractors are white males, and only approximately 25 percent of chiropractors are females, although 60 percent of the patients chiropractors serve are females.

Since the topic of retaining and graduating diverse students is a current concern that will affect the future of education in chiropractic colleges, Natacha Douglas, MBA, vice president of admissions and financial aid and a student in Logan’s Doctorate of Health Professions Education (DHPE) program, said the need for more diverse chiropractors is clear. She is conducting research to help increase retention of diverse chiropractic students because she believes the only way to have more diverse chiropractors is to not only recruit them to chiropractic colleges but also to graduate them.

Currently, among chiropractic students there is an overwhelming discrepancy between white students (about 90 percent) and the diverse student population (about 10 percent) despite recruitment efforts by educational institutions to increase diversity in student admissions.

Natacha believed that research was needed to validate the lack of diversity within the chiropractic profession as well as the major role educational institutions play in developing a more diverse health care workforce through recruitment, retention, curriculum development and campus environment. “By using best practices, chiropractic college administrators will be able to better implement strategies designed to support a diverse student body to successfully complete a Doctor of Chiropractic degree,” Natacha said.

To do so, she examined support systems at 14 chiropractic colleges in the U.S. to determine how effectively they increased retention to graduate more diverse students. In her assessment, only nine chiropractic colleges had strategies in place to retain diverse students, which included campus diversity and inclusion councils, multicultural club support and targeted recruitment. Other strategies that were highly rated included a designated employee to work on diversity initiatives as well as alumni mentor partnerships, academic support programs and diversity scholarship programs.

As both a student and a staff member, Natacha understands that educational institutions play a major role in promoting, recruiting and cultivating diverse chiropractors. Her research shines a light on the need for diversity in the classroom to improve learning outcomes for all students. She said more diversity in faculty, curriculum, cultures and opinions enriches the institution and its students. By the time a student graduates, Natacha maintains they should already have experience interacting with peers from different cultures and ethnicities as a part of their education.

“It’s not just about graduating diverse students,” Natacha said. “It’s about everyone benefiting from seeing diverse classmates to prepare for populations in the real world.”

Natacha believes most colleges are not fully aware of these issues. She hopes to share her research findings with the colleges that participated in the study so they can improve their recruitment and retention of diverse students.

“I hope my research pushes institutions to play a bigger role in implementing strategies to further increase the diversity of the profession,” Natacha said. “We have to start somewhere by getting diverse students interested, keeping them engaged and giving them the resources to succeed as a student and as a chiropractor.”

TARGETED RECRUITMENT

MULTICULTURAL CLUBS

DIVERSE CURRICULUM DESIGNATED EMPLOYEE FOR DIVERSITY INITIATIVES

WAYS TO RETAIN DIVERSE STUDENTS

INCLUSIVE CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT

OFFICE OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

ALUMNI MENTOR PARTNERSHIP

DIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS ACADEMIC SUPPORT PROGRAM

Natacha Douglas