National conference at Clemson examines campus diversity

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"We're here about strategy. We're here about planning," Frank Matthews, publisher of Black Issues in Higher Education," told college and university leaders from as far as California and New York who attended a national conference at Clemson's Madren Center on "Best Practices in Black Student Achievement."

It was coincidence that the two-day conference planned a year ago would convene so near April 1, when the University of Michigan case will go before the nation's highest court. The timing polished speakers' presentations with urgency.

"Whether public or private, whatever happens may affect you, may put handcuffs on what your admissions officers can do," said Jay Rosner, executive director of the Princeton Review Foundation and a recent expert witness in the University of Michigan litigation.

Race-targeted financial aid also is at stake, said Arthur Coleman, counsel at the Nixon Peabody LLP, in Washington.

Race isn't the sole factor, but too few minority applicants fit admissions criteria otherwise, said Ted Spencer, University of Michigan undergraduate admissions director. Lawyers for the school are arguing that the value of diversity in higher education is strong enough to justify the use of race.

"The need to educate all Americans, especially those underrepresented in higher education, is becoming more dramatic each year" as the nation's diversity increases, said William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland.

"We must do everything possible to build safeguards into our processes to ensure access to all."

Kirwan described White House opposition to the University of Michigan policy as "efforts to roll back the clock."

It's "ironic" that President Bush stands behind legacy as an admissions factor, Kirwan said and drew applause asking, "How many African Americans have a grandfather who went to an Ivy League school?"

Campus diversity is right morally, necessary economically and socially to prepare students to collaborate with co-workers and neighbors from various backgrounds, and builds the strongest possible learning environment on campuses, Kirwan said.

The conference, held on the 40th anniversary of desegregation at Clemson and higher education in South Carolina, highlighted programs that help minority students succeed, including Clemson's SAT boot camp, Emerging Scholars and Call Me Mister programs, as well as successful programs at other schools.

Without race as a factor in admissions decisions, recruitment tools like pre-college outreach programs and scholarship incentives are critical to a diverse student body, said Nancy McDuff, director of admissions at the University of Georgia, where lawsuits led to suspension of race as an admissions factor in 2000 and focused attention on the Michigan case.

"The University of Georgia managed to maintain diversity — although not as high as we'd like — through aggressive recruitment," McDuff said.

Five years after the loss of affirmative action, the University of Texas at Austin returned to its former level of minority enrollment, said Bruce Walker, director of admissions and associate vice president for student affairs at the Texas campus, which uses a top 10 percent plan favored by President Bush.

"College-going behavior is socially imbedded, and that's what has to be changed, Walker said.

Texas data over the five years shows that students in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class are consistently high performers in college regardless of the caliber of the high school, he said. Making students eligible through public policy doesn't guarantee they they will enroll.

Scholarship money "does talk," and the top 10 percent plan has broadened the university's reach across the state, Walker said.

Minority applications nose-dived after a public initiative eliminated race in admissions, financial aid, scholarships, contracting and employment at the University of Washington in 1999, because minorities felt they weren't wanted, said Tim Washburn, executive director of admissions and records.

"What we have learned to live with in the years since then I would not wish upon any college or university," Washburn said.

The solution there includes "imaginative" admissions programs such as recognition of school and personal adversity factors, leadership and school and community service, and awareness of different cultures, Washburn said.

Clemson's admissions policy is race-blind, said Robert Barkley, director of undergraduate admissions, however the Supreme Court decision could affect the university.

It could affect Clemson's Coca-Cola scholarship program, which gives scholarships to two students in every high school in the state – one to the top minority student and one to the top non-minority student, Barkley said.