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Adam
F L I N T O I D
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http://media.www.michigandaily.com/media/storage/paper851/news/2008/06/16/UAdministration/Admit.Data.Released.By.u-3382037.shtml?reffeature=textemailedition
After the passage of the 2006 ballot initiative banning race- and gender-based affirmative action, University officials said they braced for a significant decrease in the number of underrepresented minorities in this year's freshman class but that they were delighted to report a relatively low decline.
Underrepresented minorities, which the University defines as black, Hispanic or Native American, will make up 10.5 percent of the Class of 2012. The class from the previous year was comprised of 10.8 percent underrepresented minority students. The Class of 2011 were admitted during an election cycle place partially after the affirmative action ban took effect. The Class of 2010, the last to be chosen prior to the ban, was made up of 12.6 percent underrepresented minorities.
Despite fears that minority students would feel unwelcome on campus in the wake of the ban, 48 percent of those students offered
admission paid enrollment deposits, the same percentage of students who accepted admissions offers overall.
Ted Spencer, associate vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admissions, said the number of minority applicants and enrolled students for this year was good, "relative to the fact that we were working under the constraints of the proposition."
"We're not happy where we are," Spencer said. "But we're happy they didn't drop off as drastically as they did in other places."
After race- and gender-based affirmative action was banned in California, the University of California at Los Angeles saw a more than 50-percent decrease in the enrollment of underrepresented minority students.
The 2008 admissions cycle was the most competitive in the University's history. After receiving 29,794 applications, 12,533 students - about 42 percent - were offered admission. Of the 2,771 underrepresented minority students who applied, 47 percent were offered admission.
Despite an 8.6-percent increase in the number of students who applied to the University, the number of underrepresented minority applicants decreased by 1.9 percent.
University officials said the drop in minority applications could be attributed to
perceptions
that the campus isn't welcoming in the wake of the affirmative action ban - an image University officials and recruiters are working to dispel.
So far, they've been successful, according to School of Education junior Kim Weidl, president of the Multicultural Greek Council. Weidl, who works in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to recruit Latino students, said students she worked with this year weren't concerned about the impact of the affirmative action ban. They were more concerned with things like financial aid and leaving home to attend school.
Spencer predicted the decline in applications would only be temporary. He pointed to the decrease in applications from underrepresented minorities after the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Gratz v. Bollinger that made the University stop awarding points based on race in the admissions process.
Minority enrollment numbers dropped in 2004, but rose the next year to surpass 2003 levels, peaking at about 13 percent in 2005.
University officials predict the decline in underrepresented minority applicants is temporary. They said they have increased outreach efforts targeting middle school and high school students in Michigan and throughout the country.
"We have many tools to achieve a diverse university community and proposition 2 does constrain our use of some of them, but it has caused us to redouble our efforts using others," Spencer said.
Supporters of the affirmative action ban, like LSA senior Chris Irvine, former chair of the University's chapter of the College Republicans, said the University should be targeting students based on socioeconomic status.
"A decrease in underrepresented minorities is not what we were shooting for," Irvine said of the affirmative action ban. "The goal is not to have more overrepresented groups."
In an effort to recruit students from groups currently underrepresented on campus, including first-generation college students and those from lower-income families, the University uses the College Board's "geodemographic tool" Descriptor PLUS. The program collects data from census information and College Board testing programs to sort students into 30 neighborhood and high school clusters and provide the University with information about the socioeconomic, educational and racial breakdown of the applicant's community.
Spencer said Descriptor PLUS has been an important mechanism to target underrepresented communities without considering race, but said it was just one of the ways the University is working to maintain diversity on campus.
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions reassigned one employee and hired three new outreach interns to help recruit students. The University opened the new Center for Educational Outreach and Academic Success in May, which coordinates community outreach efforts.
"We look at this year and certainly we've lost an important tool, and it has had an impact on our numbers, but we're hoping that in the future we can develop new measures to identify students and encourage them to enroll," Spencer said.
Steve Grafton, president of the Univerity's Alumni Association, said he found the enrollment numbers encouraging, as they weren't as low he had feared.
"However, if we think we are over the hurdle, we are wrong," Grafton said. "We must be diligent if we have any hope to restore previous levels and ultimately grow diversity at Michigan." |
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Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:43 pm |
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