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Over the next two days, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will decide if they will allow all state universities to consider non-academic factors — including race — in their admissions decisions.
The regents will meet in Madison Thursday morning atop Van Hise Hall to begin their monthly two-day meeting.
The regents have come under fire from state lawmakers and civil activists since May 2006, when they announced they will consider revising the freshman admissions policy to include race-based criteria.
The debate came to a head in December, when Ward Connerly, founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, came to Madison to protest the use of affirmative action practices at UW System schools.
However, UW System spokesperson David Giroux said the current policy is out-of-date because it strictly emphasizes academics and should be reformed to reflect the "whole" student.
The new system policy would retain academic factors while taking into account added non-academic factors such as leadership, veteran and socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity — factors UW-Madison has been taking into account for the past 12 years.
"There is simply no mathematical formula for admissions decisions," Giroux said, "The policy will allow the admissions committees to look at both the individual as a student and a person."
Though it remains a point of controversy, Giroux said the proposed addition of race as an admissions factor would be one of the smaller components of an admissions decision.
Board of Regents President David Walsh said the board received the public's input on the admissions policy from an open forum last month and hopes to vote on the final admission's proposal Friday.
Walsh added the proposed revisions to the policy regarding race would not particularly affect the Madison campus.
"The policy that has existed for many years [at UW-Madison] has considered race," Walsh said. "We are not proposing any significant changes with regards to race."
According to the UW System website, one of the board's contentions for revising the policy is "to comply" with a 2003 Supreme Court ruling allowing race to be used as a factor.
Mike Mikalsen, spokesperson for state Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, told The Badger Herald if the new policy passes, Nass would ask the attorney general to issue a ruling regarding its legality.
"Even though the university may be open to various forms of litigation (following the admissions policy), this will not be in agreement with what the Supreme Court ruled in 2003," Mikalsen said.
State Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, said the decisions of academic affairs should be left up to the university, but he added the regents appear to be taking a balanced approach to the admissions policy.
"There are certain politicians that like to make this bigger than it is," Walsh said. "A policy regarding race has been in place for years [at UW-Madison], and we are not making any significant changes — just looking at it based on a Supreme Court case."
Giroux said diversity is a key component for all UW schools and added race — the factor that has sparked the most debate — is not the only proposed non-academic criteria for admissions.
Aside from the freshman admissions policy, the regents will hear an informational presentation Thursday on the current state of UW-Madison.
Associate Vice Chancellor Alan Fish said a panel of four students would provide an overview of student life to the Facilities Committee of the Board of Regents.
Fish said students would discuss areas of campus such as Recreational Sports, Housing, the Student Union and University Health Services.
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The UW Regents should forget about admissions policies until the mess at Bascom Hall is cleaned up. Wiley and Farrell need to be replaced ASAP.
Absolutely. The Barrows mess overshadows everything else right now.
No kidding. Why is this story being allowed to die?
Actually, I think there may be a connection here. This tinkering with admissions by the regents is an attempt to distract public attention from the looming Barrows trial.
Really? If that is so then the UW Regents are total idiots. Fixing the Barrows mess has to be the top priority because the whole campus has been traumatized by this folly.
First response has the right idea: replace Wiley and Farrell. They have been just appalling.
Didn’t Barrows retire? What’s the status of his litigation?
Barrows v. Hong will go to trial in the next few months in Dane County court.
……and Barrows will be filing a new lawsuit against the Claims Board.
Rumor has it that the Barrows trial will reveal information extremely damaging to the UW. So, brace yourselves for a major convulsion.
any details about this new information?
It will be really bad.