AURORA — The University of Colorado has commissioned Denver Bronco Daniel Graham to help recruit minority students.

CU is providing high schools with Spanish brochures to outline what classes students need to take to be college-ready. And the university added members to its outside panel that advises top officials on diversity issues.

Diversity czars updated the Board of Regents on outreach efforts Wednesday, and provided them with new statistics that show while the Boulder campus enrolled the largest number of freshman minorities this fall, the proportion of students of color has remained at 15 percent since 2005.

Minorities this year make up 11 percent of the graduate student enrollment, and that percentage has not grown over the past five years.

Graduation rates of minority students lag behind those of their white peers. Sixty-eight percent of white students earned their degrees within six years. That compares to 49 percent for American Indian students, 53 percent for African-American students and 60 percent for Latino students. For minorities, overall, 61 percent graduate within the six-year time frame.

CU Regent Pat Hayes, R-Aurora, said she wants to make sure the university retains and graduates its minority students at higher rates.

“It’s so important that they get the support they need once they step on campus,” she said.

Sallye McKee — CU’s vice chancellor for diversity, equity and community engagement — said the university has a dozen academic programs that reach out to minority and first-generation students enrolled in the different colleges and schools. Minority and first-generation students enrolled in those Lead-Alliance programs have higher graduation rates, she said.

CU President Bruce Benson recruited Graham, a former CU Buff who is now a tight end for the Broncos, to speak with college-bound minorities. Graham signed autographs and talked with about 550 Colorado high-schoolers at a recent event, and he may be working with CU at future outreach programs.

“His topic was not football,” said Michael Poliakoff, the CU system’s vice president for academic affairs and research. “It was about academic preparation.”

The diversity updates given to CU regents now include data about low-income students — measured by the number of students receiving federal Pell grants, which are the most common form of financial aid for low-income students.

This fall, 16 percent of in-state undergraduates and 5 percent of out-of-state undergraduates are Pell recipients. There are a total of 3,001 Pell recipients working toward degrees at CU.