Starting next semester, NIU’s CHANCE program will be left without any black counselors for the 264 black students enrolled in the 451-student program.

The program’s two black counselors, Frank Minton and Martha Palmer, both will leave the university before the beginning of next semester.

Minton, a CHANCE counselor of four years, said he has resigned from his position effective today for “professional reasons.”

Palmer, a CHANCE counselor for three years, will leave NIU in December because the NIU administration has failed to renew her contract.

The CHANCE program, offered by the Department of Educational Services and Programs, is designed to recruit minority freshmen students who do not meet the NIU requirements in high school grade point averages and SAT/ACT test scores.

Data compiled by the NIU Department of Institutional Research states that of the 451 students currently enrolled in the CHANCE program, 264 are black, 64 are oriental, 64 are hispanic, 46 are white, two are American Indian, and five fall into an “others” category. The department is missing data for six of the students, a report states.

Todd Ellis, vice president of NIU’s Black Student Union, said that if most of the students enrolled in CHANCE are black there should be black counselors in the program. “Minorities need minority counselors to relate to,” he said.

Tendaji Ganges, director of Educational Services and Programs, said the absence of black counselors “will make some difference” to the black students, but “it is not true that black students need a black staff.

“Diversity for only black students is a racist thought,” Ganges said. He said it is a “serious misunderstanding that black faculty only are hired because of black students.”

Ganges said minority faculty are hired because “it is absolutely critical” that white students interact with minorities. He said it is not critical that minority students interact with white faculty because minorities “always” will have to interact with whites.

Of the 12 staff positions within the CHANCE program, six positions are filled by minorities, four positions are filled by whites and two positions are vacant, Ganges said.

“We have a black director, a white admissions clerk, a black financial aid counselor, a white secretary, two white counselors, two black counselors (Palmer and Minton), a latino counselor, and a black admissions recruitor,” Ganges said. He said that ethnically, CHANCE is a “very well mixed” program.

The empty positions, which all were previously occupied by minorities, will not necessarily be refilled with minorities, Ganges said. “We can’t overlook a qualified white male for an underqualified black female,” he said.