The Board of Regents continued working on their goal of increasing the number of minorities and low income students who are enrolled in the University of Wisconsin System during their Thursday meeting.
UW System President Kevin Reilly said the UW System joined the project Access to Success in 2009 about the same time they began working on increasing the number of graduates in the state.
Reilly said the program includes 378 schools, more than 3 million students and represents almost 20 percent of all undergraduates nationwide.
One of the Access to Success program’s goals is to have the students who attend and finish college be a better representation of the diversity of the students who graduate from high school in the state, Reilly said.
Currently, Reilly said, minorities and low income students do not enroll as much as their white and affluent peers.
“This is not acceptable; we cannot meet our growth agenda goals in Wisconsin and across the nation,” Reilly said.
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Rebecca Martin said early progress reports show they have made modest improvements in enrolling minority groups, but they have not seen any improvements in lower income students.
Martin said they will have more accurate data when they release their Accountability Reports for universities in the spring.
Regent Jos? V?squez said this issue has been given special attention in the past but it is always outside of the mainstream work and is the first to get cut when other priorities come up.
V?squez asked if they could give any assurances this project would not be abandoned in the next few years.
Martin said they have put the Access to Success initiatives and its goals at the heart of the Regents goal of more graduates in the state. She added it is the core of what the UW System will be trying to accomplish.
Also at the meeting, the Capital Planning and Budget Committee approved the University of Wisconsin’s request to build an addition onto the Kohl Center including a new hockey and swimming facility, according to a statement from the Regents.
UW System spokesperson David Giroux said that while the Regents did not take much action at the meeting, they got a lot of good information on initiatives happening across the system.
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells gave a presentation to the Regents on the state of UW-Oshkosh and how they have been working toward meeting the Regents’ goals of increasing graduates in the state, and said they have increased enrollment over the past six years.
Wells ended his presentation by saying he was hopeful for the future in spite of the difficulties the UW System faced in the current economic climate.
“As we commence and begin to work on how to better help people of Wisconsin during these extraordinary hard times, please take inspiration from the words of Norm Lee ‘there are no heroes just circumstances,'” Wells said. “I have come to know many, many UW System students, faculty, Regents and staff over the years. So I can say with great confidence, god help those circumstances. ”
At their Friday Meeting the Regents approved a resolution of support for federal funding for stem cell research after a federal judge issued an issued an injunction on Aug. 23, halting federal funding for stem cell research.
Federal funding has temporarily resumed after a federal appeals court ruled while a motion to stay the injunction is being reviewed, federal funding can continue.
Board of Regents President Chuck Pruitt said the Regents felt this was important because of the research’s potential and the central role the University of Wisconsin plays in the research.
“Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to save lives and it brings in research funding from the federal government,” Pruitt said.
