OPINION & EDITORIAL
Go Aggies
Looking for a print version?
Simply choose ‘Print’ on your computer and a printer-friendly document will be generated.
Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
- A security fee-for-all (December 11, 2007)
- Farewell, Chancellor (December 10, 2007)
- $$FC (December 6, 2007)
- In a bind (December 5, 2007)
- Entitlement Town (December 4, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Surf's totally up, dude! Cali not UW's answer (September 1, 2004)
- Summer preview: Affirmative-action ruling (May 8, 2003)
- Holistic admissons advance UW goals (March 7, 2007)
- Shades of diversity (April 4, 2003)
- Education system fails black pupils (October 8, 2007)
by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
As universities nationwide continue to confront the problem of increasing the diversity of students, Texas A&M should be applauded for innovative programs fostering minority enrollment. University of Wisconsin should heed this example.
As individual schools struggle to bolster the number of minorities enrolled, they are also forced to make difficult choices about how to do so. The debate over affirmative action — its advantages and its drawbacks — is one into which every institution of higher education must enter.
However, schools finding ways to increase student diversity while also side-stepping exclusively race-based practices are working to increase minority enrollment without racial preferences. Thus, the innovative programs initiated by TAMU President Robert Gates to foster increased diversity outside the realm of affirmative action should be applauded.
Gates’ “hour glass” — which promotes intense minority recruitment while also supplying increased scholarship awards for first-generation college students (a population heavily composed of minorities) — has resulted in a huge leap in minority enrollment at the university. In only one year, the number of black freshmen jumped by 35 percent and the number of Hispanic freshmen increased by almost 26 percent, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education
Initiatives like Regional Prospective Student Centers, a Very Important Prospects program and the use of minority alumni as recruiters have all been successfully used at TAMU to find suitable minority applicants for the school and convince them to enroll at the university. Approximately $8 million was set aside for scholarships geared toward specific populations heavily comprised of minorities.
However, the middle-part of the “hour glass”, the application review process, remains untouched at TAMU. The school increased the number of minorities enrolled without actually considering race when admitting students.
Most programs instituted by universities to foster increased minority enrollment while circumventing actual admissions preferences are good things. If schools can achieve the same results as affirmative action, while avoiding much of the issues plaguing the policy, so much the better.
We hope the University of Wisconsin System increases its own commitment to programs encouraging minority recruitment, admissions and retention on campus, particularly in light of some of the strides TAMU has made using non-race-based initiatives. Similar initiatives are needed to confront and hopefully solve the continuing problem with campus diversity at Madison.
