The National Park Service will continue to work on attracting diverse people, both among its employees and visitors, the director of the bureau said Tuesday morning while visiting with a group of Little Rock Central High School students.
Jonathan Jarvis, director of the Park Service since September 2009, toured Central High School in the morning before visiting with state leaders in the afternoon. He also spoke Tuesday night during a panel discussion and town hall regarding Black History Month at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.
Senior Alyssa Smith asked Jarvis about a lack of diversity in the Park Service during Jarvis' discussion with students enrolled in the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site's Youth Leadership Academy.
"What are some things that you ... want to see done to make sure [the Park Service] is more diverse so kids like us are more exposed?" Smith asked.
"You're absolutely right," Jarvis said. "The Park Service is not very diverse. It is not reflective of the diversity of our nation.
"I deeply believe the Park Service needs to reflect the diversity of the nation. Not only in the stories we tell and the places we manage but in our workforce as well."
The Park Service, a bureau under the U.S. Department of the Interior, manages 409 national parks, national monuments and other sites that cover more than 84 million acres. Jarvis oversees a bureau of approximately 22,000 employees.
He said one of his priorities has been recruiting young people from diverse backgrounds to work for the Park Service and developing them into positions of leadership.
"We're not there yet by a long shot," Jarvis said. "We still got a lot of work to do."
The 18th director of the Park Service, Jarvis began working for the bureau in 1976 as a seasonal interpreter in Washington, D.C.
He talked about his early days in the bureau and discussed leadership with the students, saying a definition of leadership he's always liked is "someone who wants to help and is willing to step into a role sometimes that just comes."
"I've always considered myself what I call a student of leadership," he said. "I think you're always learning about leadership throughout your life."
Jarvis' visit coincided with Black History Month and was intended to highlight the role of the Park Service in telling diverse stories. He is scheduled to visit the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Dayton, Ohio, and New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park in the coming weeks.
Jarvis is distributing Every Kid in a Park passes to fourth-graders during his visits as well.
The stop also was part of this year's National Park Service Centennial, which celebrates the 100-year history of the Park Service.
"We've been out sort of celebrating many of these sites across the nation," Jarvis said. "It's our centennial, so we're spotlighting these lesser-known parks. The big parks get all the attention."
Central High, a school for about 2,400 students, has been a Park Service national historic site since 1998. The Little Rock school was integrated in 1957 by a group of nine black students. Until then, segregation laws barred black students from attending Central.
Jarvis' visit meant "a lot," said Robin White, superintendent for the historic site.
"It helps us to expose people to the National Park Service because a lot of people ... still call [the site] the museum," White said. "It helps to highlight [the site] as part of the National Park Service."
State Desk on 02/03/2016