| Date: May 28, 1999
Copyright 1999, The Chronicle of Higher
Education
Reprinted with permission.
Affirmative Action Without Numerical
Goals
U. of Wisconsin tries new approaches
to recruit minority students
By Jeffrey Selingo
Last year, the Board of Regents of
the University of Wisconsin walked a
legal tightrope in approving a plan
to enroll more minority students. Now,
the system's 26 campuses are attempting
the same balancing act in developing
creative ways to carry out that diversity
effort.
In proposals the regents will review
next month, the campuses would abandon
specific numerical targets for how many
minority
students they want to enroll, and shun
the use of racial preferences in admissions.
Many universities use preferences to
foster diversity, but officials of the
Wisconsin system say they do not.
Instead, campus officials plan to
raise tens of millions of dollars for
minority-student scholarships through
their private, non-profit foundations;
ask the state Legislature for money
to expand pre-college programs aimed
at minority students; and set goals
for applications from minority students
as a way to measure the success of their
recruitment efforts.
A few ideas are unique to specific
campuses, and Wisconsin officials have
urged others in the system to copy them:
- The Superior campus plans to establish
recruitment efforts for minority students
"comparable to the recruitment
models for student athletes,"
including invitations to visit the
campus and an open house for minority
students.
- The Madison campus proposes establishing
a national alumni board to provide
advice on diversity efforts, and the
university would select an independent
group to evaluate its diversity efforts
in 2003, the halfway point of its
plan.
- The Rock County campus plans to
reach deeper into the educational
pipeline than many of its counterparts
by focusing pre-college programs on
students ages 3 through 8 in two local
school districts.
Like the system's umbrella plan, which
makes general commitments to diversity,
the campus documents lack specific numerical
targets for enrollment of minority students.
System officials say they encouraged
campuses to drop proposed "enrollment
goals," which opponents of affirmative
action likened to quotas that could
be the targets of lawsuits.
The Milwaukee campus, with 18,200
undergraduate students, approved a draft
plan in March that called for increasing
the proportion of minority undergraduate
students on campus from 14 per cent
to 25 per cent of the student body by
2003. But a draft released a month later
abandoned those numbers -- and similar
figures for minority professors -- in
favor of less-specific targets tied
to the local population of students,
says Gary L. Williams, Milwaukee's assistant
vice-chancellor for academic and multicultural
affairs.
At least four other campuses had set
enrollment goals, says Tess Arenas,
the system president's assistant for
multicultural affairs. She declined
to name them or say whether they had
abandoned the targets.
"We told those campuses it's
in their best interest if they don't
set enrollment goals," says Ms.
Arenas, who reviewed each campus plan.
"Given the current climate, we
would rather set numeric targets for
applications that indicate a commitment,
rather than put us in a situation where
we're fighting false battles."
But some administrators and students
who worked on the campus plans say numerical
goals are still the best method to determine
if their recruitment efforts are working.
The university system set such targets
in 1988, promising to double within
a decade the number of minority students
in the system. It fell well short of
that goal. Many campuses had similar
enrollment targets, all of which will
now be discarded.
Campus officials say goals based on
local populations are not effective
measuring sticks in most areas of the
state, which is 92 per cent white. Minority
students make up about 7.8 per cent
of the system's 150,500 students. Black
students have posed the biggest recruitment
problem. They make up more than 7 per
cent of the state's 18- to 24-year-old
population, but less than 3 per cent
of the system's students.
"It was a challenge to try to
develop a document to make a change
in how we do business without including
numerical goals," says Mr. Williams
of Milwaukee.
Despite some doubts, most of those
who worked on the diversity proposals
applauded the university's commitment
to recruiting a diverse group of students
and its plan to ask for nearly $7-million
from the state over the next two years
to help with the cause. Neighboring
University of Michigan is mired in lawsuits
over its affirmative-action admissions
practices, and similar policies have
been rolled back through lawsuits and
referenda in California, Texas, and
Washington.
Jeff Robb, president of the student
association at the Milwaukee campus,
says for too long the Milwaukee institution
"watched as schools from Illinois
and elsewhere came here to recruit our
students, and then we sat by as they
left. This plan allows us to
finally compete."
The plans are not without critics.
They say the proposals place too much
emphasis -- and money -- on pre-college
programs. "The students attracted
to those programs are likely to go to
college anyway," says W. Lee Hansen,
a professor emeritus of economics at
Madison, who has done studies of admissions
policies nationwide. He says the regents
should instead focus on improving the
academic quality of the state's public
schools.
But perhaps the biggest battle over
the diversity plans will come in the
Wisconsin Legislature. At issue is how
to pay for the ideas in the plans.
The regents asked for $6.9-million
in their 1999-2001 biennial budget request
to help campuses carry out the diversity
proposals, including $2.1-million for
the pre-college programs. Gov. Tommy
G. Thompson, a Republican, proposed
no money at all for the first year of
the biennium and only $732,600 for the
second, primarily for the pre-college
programs.
Aides to the Governor say the university
system had other "higher priorities"
in the state budget, such as libraries
and student aid. "The Governor
has made a substantial contribution
to this program, and, at the same time,
we're seeing an increased diversity
in the system," says Darrin Schmitz,
a spokesman for Mr. Thompson.
The Joint Finance Committee in the
Legislature is expected to review the
university system's budget early next
month.
University officials want lawmakers
to at least double the Governor's proposed
budget for pre-college programs. The
system wants to triple the number of
students in the programs by 2008. Statistics
show that 92 per cent of participants
graduate from high school, and 65 per
cent go on to college -- but only 1.7
per cent of minority students who are
eligible for the programs actually participate.
Officials at many of the university's
campuses say that the pre-college efforts
are successful because of their small
student-to-faculty ratios. As a result,
they are expensive to operate.
Lisa Reavill, who directs academic
support services at the River Falls
campus, says the pre-college camps encourage
"some students to consider us who
would not have otherwise ever thought
of coming to a campus in a small, quiet
town."
With state financing uncertain, many
campuses have decided to use their foundations
to support a part of their diversity
plans, particularly the financial-aid
portion. Avoiding state money reaps
another benefit: University foundations
raise private funds and, as a result,
may be able to award race-based scholarships
without triggering the legal and political
scrutiny often given to uses of public
money, university officials say.
Milwaukee intends to raise $25-million
for scholarships for minority and low-income
students. River Falls is considering
a fund-raising campaign as well.
"Talented students of color many
times get wonderful financial packages
from private schools," Ms. Reavill,
of River Falls, says. "We're a
good tuition value, but we're not attractive."
She notes that the university gives
only $5,000 annually in total scholarship
money earmarked for minority students.
The number of minority students at
River Falls has remained flat in recent
years, after doubling from 1988 through
the early 1990s. Today, minority students
make up 4 per cent of the 5,600 students.
Increasing those numbers is the best
kind of recruitment tool, Ms. Reavill
says. To spur efforts in the system,
many institutions plan to tie employee
evaluations or departmental budgets
to success in minority recruitment and
retention.
The key, says Ms. Arenas, the system's
multicultural director, is to look beyond
the state's "urban hubs."
"We have sovereign nations, 26
migrant communities, and one of the
largest Southeast Asian populations,"
Ms. Arenas says. "We need to work
harder to get some students."
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Section: Government & Politics
Page: A34
Copyright (c) 1999 by The Chronicle
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