The latest report on Plan 2008 came out this June, detailing progress in increasing diversity at the University of Wisconsin.

The plan, now at its midpoint, began in 1998 to promote more system-wide racial and ethnic diversity.

Since 1998 there has been a 9 percent increase in total student-of-color enrollment on the UW-Madison campus, according to the most recent report by the UW System Office of Policy Analysis and Research.

The system-wide average increase thus far is 16.38 percent.

The ratio of men to women has remained roughly the same across the board, with a slightly higher percentage of women enrolled. In the fall of 2003, 444 African-American men enrolled at Madison, as did 522 African-American women. For Latinos the numbers were similar, with 494 men and 536 women.

Marilyn Rhodes, UW director of the Multi-Cultural Affairs unit and system-wide coordinator of Plan 2008, said she and university administrators are unsure why more women than men enroll.

“That’s something that’s on everyone’s mind right now,” she said.

Rhodes said perhaps men tend to enter the workforce whereas women see education as a more viable option for career building. She also said UW could be failing to reach males, especially males of color.

“It’s all really theoretical,” she said. “We are trying to change that. We have to do some restructuring.”

Rhodes expects the upward trend in minority enrollment to continue.

“We have some projections for high-school graduates for the next 10 years and we do know there will be significant increases in the number of Hispanics and Asians, especially Hispanics,” she said.

Rhodes attributes the success of the plan thus far largely to the increase in pre-college enrollment, which has tripled. She also said recruiters have worked closely with families and communities to promote the value of higher education.

“Recruiters have gone the extra mile in talking to students one-on-one and expressing the importance of considering school,” she said, adding this interaction is often influential. “We have a better understanding of the communities and their values. There have also been improvements in financial aid and in the campus culture, but we still have a long way to go there.”

Michael Thornton, a UW professor of African-American studies and sociology, said he thinks progress comes from solid efforts to recruit and retain students of color.

However, he sees the need to improve the plan.

“There are a lot of areas that could be improved, one being retention,” he said. “While we need to do a better job recruiting, we really need to improve in retention. We get them here, but we have trouble keeping them.”

Thornton listed a sometimes-hostile campus climate and a lack of preparation as barriers to students of color.

UW-Milwaukee is the most ethnically diverse school in the UW System, consistently having the highest percentage of African Americans. It is also the school that has had nearly the smallest percent change in student of color enrollment. From 1998 to 2003, UW-Milwaukee experienced only a 4.75 percent increase.

“Milwaukee is the center of the state’s diversity,” Rhodes said. She noted Milwaukee is a target area for recruiting students.

University colleges are the 13 two-year institutions in the UW system. Student-of-color enrollment in the two-year colleges has skyrocketed, up 75 percent since 1998.

“They are a transfer point, a very important gateway for our students of color in providing access to higher education,” Rhodes said.

The UW receives preliminary data on its incoming class early in the school year.

UW-Madison will host a conference Oct. 18 and 19 “to discuss the best practices for the retention of students of color at all UW colleges,” Rhodes said.

Thornton said he believes most students of color do well once they arrive in Madison and he hopes the trend will continue.