University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly talked about the 2004-05 UW System Accountability Report, a grade sheet for the current performance of state-funded post-secondary schools at the UW System Board of Regents meeting. While regents were able to claim success in 12 of the 20 goals previously outlined for the system, some questioned the state of diversity.
Reilly said the UW System needs to enroll more students of color each year, close the gap existing between the retention and graduation rates of students of color and other students, and prepare students for a diverse world.
“We continue to struggle in some areas,” Reilly said. “In many cases, these challenges are directly related to the resources available to us.”
Retention rates for students of color were especially disconcerting for some regents.
“We have nothing to be proud of,” Regent Jesus Salas said during the meeting.
The UW System retains only 30.1 percent of Native-American students and roughly 33 percent of black collegians, according to six-year graduations reports from the study. Additionally, only 65.3 percent of black students returned for their second year at a UW campus.
Board of Regents Vice President David Walsh said diversity is a huge challenge for the UW System, and the state needs to invest to help with the cause.
“If you care about diversity you need to invest in it, you absolutely must,” Walsh said.
Additionally, Walsh said if the state cuts jobs, like advisers and financial-aid counselors, it would not help retain students at UW.
“They want well-rounded students that have understanding and sensitivity to other people’s needs and wants and cultures,” Walsh said. “A lot of the students that arrive here haven’t experienced diversity. That makes it even tougher for students of color coming in.”
Board of Regents President Toby Marcovich said the UW System was making progress, but it was not an easy task.
“We have goals we haven’t yet met,” Marcovich said. “If you do that as criteria, we’re not yet [as] diverse as we want to be.”
Marcovich said much of that had to do with the relative youth of diversity initiatives in the UW System. Pre-college programs started through the statewide Plan 2008 diversity initiative are only six years old.
“The great mass of those students aren’t yet coming into college,” Marcovich said.
According to UW System spokesperson Doug Bradley, diversity benchmarks will continue to be added to the accountability report to help aid regents in scoring the progress the university system is making to increase diversity.
“Back when that report was developed in the mid-’90s, we were in a different environment,” Bradley said. “Now, we’ve heard loud [and] clear about the ground we need to make up.”
In fact, Bradley said he was glad UW did not meet all 20 of its goals.
“Everything’s not perfect,” Bradley said. “If we were 20 for 20, we’d need to get some new measures — we hadn’t set our goals high enough.”
