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Olson, a senior secondary English education student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, will see plenty of numbers as a student representative on a team looking at campus diversity.
UW-L is among six UW System campuses taking part in a pilot program called Equity Scorecard. No grades are given: Each campus conducts a self-assessment on how they are doing on providing the same access and education to all students, no matter their race or ethnicity.
Olson hopes to find the stories behind the numbers, such as why students of color are leaving UW-L or why they decide not to come at all.
“Why” is the main question the team will ask during the 18-month process, team leader Al Thompson said.
“We’re not trying to say we want to give students of color special privileges,” said Thompson, who is the assistant to the chancellor for affirmative action and diversity. “We are saying we want students of color to reach the same level of participation as the rest of the population.”
UW-L has 548 students of color from the United States enrolled this academic year, an increase of about 80 students from 2005-06, said UW-L institutional researcher Teri Thill.
That’s 6.1 percent of the student body. UW-L’s diversity plan aims for 10 percent, Thill said, or close to the state’s 11 percent minority population in 2005 U.S. Census data.
Past studies on why students of color don’t succeed often centered on the students, Thompson said. Equity Scorecard flips that to look at what the institution might be doing that could be preventing those students from succeeding, he said.
UW-L biology professor Roger Haro first heard about the Equity Scorecard, which originated in California, during a UW System conference in 2004.
He and associate professor of sociology Enilda Delgado, who were co-chairs of the Joint Minority Affairs Committee at the time and now are Equity Scorecard team members, decided to begin gathering information at UW-L before they were asked to be part of the pilot project.
Four areas — access, retention, institutional receptivity and excellence — will be examined to see if there are institutional barriers for students of color. The results also could show areas where UW-L is doing well, Haro said.
Some factors might be out of their control, Thompson said, such as problems with academic preparation, location or family. They could find ways to improve education for all students, or that socioeconomic status plays a role, too.
Several team members said they are concerned their work might yield no changes. But Thompson said it will be up to the campus community to take action as a group.
Kate Schott can be reached at Kate.Schott@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8226.
