University of Wisconsin faculty representatives presented multiple annual reports on campus diversity and undergraduate admissions for consideration to Faculty Senate members Monday following challenges to university budgets and independence.
Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of education policy studies and sociology, presented the annual reports from the past three academic years for the Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions and Financial Aid, which made two recommendations to the group on faculty involvement and affordability.
Goldrick-Rab said their first recommendation is for the UW faculty to play a more prominent role in administrative actions to generate greater levels of equity and diversity on campus, including socioeconomic, racial, gender, sexual preference, disability and more.
She also urged the Faculty Senate to advocate for enhancing the affordability of education.
“Dramatic cuts by the state Legislature put education at this flagship university out of reach for students,” Goldrick-Rab said. “We encourage you all to become informed of the true costs of college attendance.”
The committee is also having conversations with the University Committee about appropriate ways to bring faculty new information regarding affordability. She added they are hoping to have more information in their fall semester report, since this past year has been the committee’s most active yet.
Goldrick-Rab also said they have met with Financial Aid Director Susan Fischer about need-based financial aid, which has increased following funding from the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates.
“Nationally, merit-based aid has overtaken need-based financial aid,” Goldrick-Rab said. “UW-Madison actually bucks that trend. It doesn’t give out so much merit-based aid as much as need-based aid.”
Timothy Shedd, a UW associate professor of mechanical engineering, also presented the reports from the past two years from Campus Diversity and Climate Committee, which cited delays on projects due to challenges to members convening.
Shedd said the committee attempted to draft an institutional definition of diversity that could be referenced throughout UW, but was put on hold because they were not able to reach a consensus on what should be covered in the definition.
Shedd added they planned to develop a plan for “Data Chats,” which would attempt to create conversations with top-level administrators and help the committee form recommendations. These plans were also put on hold because of the political protests last spring, as well as uncertainty over the New Badger Partnership proposal, he said.
“Some issues we discovered, we don’t always have the right people to provide advice or the right background,” Shedd said. “So we are going to gain as much expertise and experience as we can as a committee to be able to be in a position to provide advice to the community as that becomes available.”
Shedd said now the committee is focusing on three issues: benchmarking diversity initiatives at other institutions, bringing together efforts of other diversity groups on campus and creating a forum for faculty to provide a “clearinghouse” of information throughout campus.
“We’re trying to lay the foundations of information-gathering, then work on disseminating the information throughout campus, like the Internet, but also through … face-to-face conversations,” Shedd said. “Then we can be in a better position to provide advice to campus.”
