Campus delivers diversity plan to regents

University officials delivered to the Board of Regents Thursday, April 15, a proposed strategy to attract more minorities over the next decade.

Plan 2008 seeks to increase the number of students, faculty and staff of color through expanded pre-college programs, stronger recruitment and retention measures, curriculum changes and other initiatives.

Plan 2008 report

“We must continue to make diversity at all levels of campus a high priority,” says Chancellor David Ward in the report’s introduction.

The plan, created in response to a regent mandate last year, builds on past and present UW–Madison diversity efforts, says Paul Barrows, associate vice chancellor for academic services and campus diversity.

“We’re not starting at ground zero,” Barrows told the Faculty Senate Monday, April 5.

One of the main elements of UW–Madison’s Plan 2008 is the PEOPLE Program (Pre-College Enrollment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence), a new initiative to recruit Milwaukee students of color.

The program will provide on-campus training during three consecutive summers for groups of 100 students after ninth grade, to acquaint them with the university and prepare them to compete for admission. A bridge program in the fourth summer and scholarships will be awarded to students who enroll at UW–Madison after high school.

Another key initiative is the possible creation of a freshman seminar, which would further introduce new students to the UW–Madison culture and opportunities available on campus for them.

The plan also calls for adding scholarships for undergraduate, graduate and professional students of color and hiring more minority faculty, including three to teach ethnic studies. The university’s ethnic studies requirement would also be updated.

The campus administration will require colleges and departments to establish diversity plans and will create an oversight committee to track progress.

“For Plan 2008 to succeed, faculty, staff and students must all contribute their time and energy,” says Ward, who added he is personally interested in the PEOPLE program and the freshman seminar.

Securing funding for Plan 2008 will be an ongoing challenge. Gov. Tommy Thompson’s proposed 1999-2001 budget earmarks $732,000 for university diversity programs, while the UW System requested $17.5 million, which includes cost-of-living increases for existing scholarships. Barrows says the goal is to build support for diversity in the next four state budgets.

The Faculty Senate, the Academic Staff Assembly and Associated Students of Madison have all endorsed the principles of Plan 2008. At the April 5 senate meeting, senators defeated a proposal by W. Lee Hansen to adopt an alternative plan.

Hansen, professor emeritus of economics, prepared his own plan after concluding that UW–Madison’s diversity efforts have not succeeded in the past three decades. His plan focuses on strengthening the K-12 system and providing financial aid to disadvantaged students of all backgrounds.

“We must rethink what we do,” Hansen told the senate.

Barrows countered Hansen’s argument at the meeting by saying that for every African-American student admitted to UW–Madison under affirmative action criteria, five white students are admitted under other special-category guidelines.

The UW System will review the campus diversity plans and submit them to the regents for consideration in June. Plan 2008 can be reviewed at http://www.news.wisc.edu/misc/plan2008/.