Taran McZee

Taran McZee
Director of Multicultural Affairs
Office of Student Life, Andrews Hall
740-376-4464; taran.mczee@marietta.edu

The Office of Multicultural Affairs at Marietta College provides a broad range of programs and opportunities to enhance the student cultural experience. Dedicated to positively influencing students, the staff develops and supports activities that increase awareness of cultural difference by educating the campus and local community with the histories of African American, Hispanic/Latino American, Asian American, and Native American cultures.

T.E.A.M. Success

The minority retention rate at Marietta College has doubled over the past year, jumping from 35 percent to 70 percent in one year.

Taran McZee, director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Marietta, credits the increase to a mentoring program that he created while a graduate student at Central Michigan University. Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM) Mentoring pairs a freshman minority student with a sophomore, junior or senior minority student.

Funded by a grant through the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges, the program trains mentors for a week before classes begin in the fall. Those students are paired with incoming minority freshmen who are interested in participating in the program. McZee determines the mentor/mentee pairing through a personality questionnaire the incoming student completes.

Minority mentors are required to spend at least four hours each week with their mentee, with half of that time being spent doing something educational. “I had 100 percent retention for this program this year,” McZee says.

In 10 years, he hopes to see Marietta College with 1,800 full-time undergraduate students—and have at least 350 of those students be American minorities. McZee says as of the Spring 2008 semester, there are 126 American minorities enrolled at Marietta.