The Birth of a University

My name is Matt Potesky, I am a senior at Eastern Washington University. The purpose of this project is to show that Eastern Washington University is an island for diversity within the greater Spokane area. The maps I have created below manifest just how much that the university stands out in a not-so-racially diverse area of the country. To many students, it feels as if the university, as an institution, ignores this. There has been numerous voiced statements by students that identify as people of color that they do not feel safe outside of campus (or even sometimes on campus). Why is this?

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Eastern Washington University has had a total of ~$7 million dollars cut from its budget in 2019 and the upcoming 2020 budget cut. Many local news articles attribute this to the lack of enrollment at Eastern Washington University. It is true that the retention rate at this university is dropping because in the 2017 and 2018 school years there has been a 4% drop in students returning for a second year. Could it be that the retention rate is dropping because students that are people of color do not feel completely safe attending Eastern Washington University? This seems to be a common theme among students that I interviewed for this project and a factor that the university seems to be ignoring.