Plan 2008

COMMENTARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Existing Foundation for Plan 2008

Administration and Governance Committees

Under the 10-year UW System Design for Diversity and the 1989 5-year Madison Plan and 1994 Madison Commitment, the UW-Madison has made progress toward being a more diverse institution. Through administrative re-structuring we have clarified lines of authority and accountability in our campus diversity efforts. Given the decentralized nature of this campus, Minority/Disadvantaged Coordinators have been appointed in every school and college to take a lead role in the programs and delivery of student services. In addition, within UW-Madison's strong shared governance system are campus-wide committees whose charge is partly or totally to track undergraduate diversity issues. Equity and Diversity committees have now been organized in all schools, colleges and administrative divisions to identify, track and lead diversity efforts particularly for faculty and staff. These institutional structures continue to evolve as a flexible framework that allows us to see what has worked best, and how we can improve what is not working as well as desired.

The University has developed an ongoing annual assessment process, resulting in an annual Minority and Disadvantaged report to UW System. The biennial Diversity Update publication profiles all of our diversity initiatives and our infrastructure for implementing them. The LEAD Center has assessed Summer Research Opportunities Programs across campus for the Graduate School assisted with researching and writing the Retention Strategic Plan. Current funding of diversity programs is approximately $6 million.

Taking Leadership and Responsibility for Plan 2008 (Goal 7)

While it is clear that we need to have these campus-wide centers of responsibility, everyone has to share in that responsibility. Developing diversity and a universal respect for difference is not a responsibility which can be easily delegated. Plan 2008 requires the sustained attention of every dean, director and supervisor. To achieve the diverse community our students deserve, the entire university community must work toward supporting the institutional changes envisioned in on-going UW System and Regent edicts, UW-Madison campus initiatives, and grassroots actions by faculty, students and staff. We must direct the efforts of the whole campus to wherever we have failed to achieve what we want. The following recommendations focus on who will lead, who is responsible, and how the inter-connectedness of our campus community can be strengthened to achieve diversity.

Recommendations:

1. Every one of our faculty, students, academic and classified staff is invited to take responsibility for building a community that truly welcomes and values diversity. To achieve a campus respectful of difference, no person can “pass the buck.” Every person on campus should be involved. Students will work to recruit students, faculty and staff will work to recruit faculty and staff. Many academics will take the initiative to visit schools, or be a mentor to a colleague or student, or work with a student. Opportunities to contribute are outlined at the end of this section.
2. Every unit, including departments, will develop by May 2000 a plan for how it will contribute to achieving the goals of Plan 2008, with both benchmarks and incentives for progress. These goals should be integrated into the units' strategic plans. Best practices will be identified from these plans and forwarded to the chancellor. We recommend that incentives include some portion of merit allocations being based on success in implementing their plans. Every dean, director, and chair will take steps to encourage grassroots initiatives among faculty, staff and students, and to identify and disseminate “best practices” within the unit as well as forwarding them to the chancellor.
3. The appropriate shared governance committees¹⁰ and the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs will continue to be actively involved in the implementation, monitoring and outcomes evaluation of UW-Madison's Plan 2008.
4. A Student Advisory Committee will be appointed to assist the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Plan 2008. Students will be appointed to serve in advisory capacities on committees in Undergraduate Admissions, and in the Graduate and Professional Schools. A national UW-Madison Diversity Board of Visitors will be appointed by May 2000 to provide advice, leadership, visibility and support for our diversity efforts.
5. A standing oversight committee of administration, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community representatives will meet at least once per semester and discuss with the Chancellor the progress of the plan.
6. Each semester, the oversight committee will host one or more open forums, with the Chancellor, Provost, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs each participating in at least one of them, to exchange information on the progress of the plan.
7. The Chancellor will include a progress report on the implementation of Plan 2008 in his/her annual report to the UW System President and the Board of Regents, the Faculty Senate and other shared governance bodies on campus. The “report card” will summarize campus efforts and identify the “best practices” across departments and divisions of the University. The biennial Diversity Update will continue to serve as a detailed summary report from the administration.
8. Campus point people and an external review team will complete a thorough evaluative four-year review of Plan 2008 results by no later than June 2003. The four-year review will serve as the basis for charting the following 5 years of UW-Madison Plan 2008, with the directives to be modified by the oversight committee and administration according to the outcomes of the review.

Pre-college Preparation and Programs (Goals 2, 1, 3)

The University has an extensive array of pre-college programs ranging from college preparation to sports camps. We are aware that these programs provide unique opportunities for preparing and identifying prospective students. A recent report called for strengthening the connections between pre-college programs and undergraduate admissions, to increase enrollment of students of color and other students, through effective tracking mechanisms, closer working partnerships between pre-college programs and the Admissions' Minority Applicant Services and the Office of Student Financial Services. The most comprehensive initiative in Plan 2008 is the PEOPLE program, a partnership with Milwaukee schools to build the pool of qualified students. This initiative will be built into the existing pre-college programs infrastructure.

Recommendations:

1. All units of the campus will enhance and strengthen the many existing linkages that connect the University faculty, staff and students to K-12 education in Wisconsin.
2. The offices of the Chancellor and Provost will seek to provide an additional $1.2 million funding by the summer of 2001 to support the establishment of the PEOPLE (Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence) program in Milwaukee. With successful fundraising, the PEOPLE Program will provide three years of summer enrichment and year-round study skills development a new cohort of 100 inner-city Milwaukee high school students every year, then a bridge program for newly matriculating freshmen, followed by a commitment of up to five years' tuition scholarship. The first of successive cohorts will start in summer 1999 (see Appendix B). This program is in partnership with the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).

Undergraduate Students

Recruiting and Financial Aid (Goals 1, 2, 4)

The Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs will continue to implement the 1997 Minority Undergraduate Recruitment Strategic Plan and 1998 Update in developing an integrated recruitment strategy across campus involving students, and coordinated and led by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions and other offices will coordinate with students at all stages of recruiting, using enthusiastic students to help recruit new in-coming students. Each of the positions responsible for ethnic focused recruitment efforts will establish a student advisory committee to assist with the refining and implementation of the Recruitment Strategic Plan. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions will continue to develop a comprehensive program for the recruitment of transfer students, including from 2-year and technical/vocational colleges.

Recommendations:

1. The campus will continue to improve recruitment of both new freshmen and transfer or re-entering students of color qualified for admission to UW-Madison, until the proportions of entering in-state students of color minimally equal the corresponding racial/ethnic proportions of the Wisconsin high school graduation class qualified for admission. We will use our ability to recruit out of state to further enhance the racial/ethnic diversity of the campus. Details are in the Recruitment Strategic Plan.¹¹ This is a long-term and complex endeavor, with the out-of-state recruiting the most costly and difficult. See Appendix C for undergraduate enrollment, retention, and graduation profiles. At the same time, we will work to bring the pool of qualified high school graduates of color in Wisconsin up to the state proportions of all high school graduates of color.
2. Continue to bring recruiting procedures up to the highest level of involvement possible, including individual meetings with students and/or their parents, paid visits to UW-Madison, participation in pre-college programs when possible, and consistent follow-up calls from recruiters, area alumni, faculty, staff, and students. Alumni and student participation is critical, for example, student visits to their high schools.
3. Students continue to host prospective students and work with them through SOAR (Student Orientation, Advising and Registration), providing them with early information on multi-cultural activities and with contacts to UW students with similar backgrounds and interests.
4. Raise the entry-level status of recruiting officers, and fill vacant recruitment staff positions promptly with at least a temporary appointment.
5. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions will seek permanent funding for a Southeast Asian Student Recruiter position.
6. Fund four new paid positions for UW students to help with recruiting, with one slot assigned to Multicultural Student Center recruitment efforts.
7. Over the next three biennial budget cycles, the offices of the Provost and Chancellor will seek an additional $3.4 million to provide undergraduate scholarships and financial aid for minority and disadvantaged students participating in the Chancellor's Scholars, Powers-Knapp, FASTrack and PEOPLE (starting in 2003) programs.
8. Consider the establishment of tuition scholarships for American Indian students.
9. Build the pool of pre-science majors through pre-college programs.

Retention, Climate, the Freshman Experience, and Curriculum (Goals 3, 6)

The University has invested a significant amount of resources toward excellence in the quality of undergraduate education for all students. Funding from the university established the SOAR program and Welcome Week, which has a strong multi-cultural focus. The campus has made substantial investment in improving academic advising particularly through the establishment of the Cross College Advising Service. The Madison Plan provided funding to establish an Interim Multi-Cultural Center as a social and cultural resource center, where students of color could gather and interact with all students on campus. In early 1999, the Multi-Cultural Student Center (MSC) opened the doors to its new and permanent home in the Red Gym, which was recently renovated after a successful fundraising initiative led by the Dean of Students. Resources have also been provided to expand the Multi-Cultural Fund, which provides speakers, lectures and performances to enrich life for everyone on campus.

Most effective in enhancing the retention and graduation rates of students of color are the Chancellors Scholars and Powers Knapp Programs which provide participating students with scholarships and strong and positive mentoring relationships. The Wisconsin Emerging Scholars (WES) Program is another successful effort which has helped many students of color attain strong skills in their calculus courses. The University has also been successful in obtaining millions of dollars in external funding for many important programs which contribute to the identification and retention of students of color such as the TRIO Program, Upward Bound, and the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program, and several Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs funded by the National Science Foundation.

While it is clear that these initiatives have raised the University's retention rate for students of color above all UW System institutions and the national average¹², retention rates for students of color continue to lag behind that of majority students on this campus. For the 1997-98 academic year, the administration established a campus-wide planning effort which documented how well we are doing in the retention and graduation of students of color, and developed a strategic plan for improving efforts in this area. The most significant finding from this process is the fact that students of color—in particular, African-American and American Indian—feel less safe and less welcome on our campus than majority students.

The high school students we recruit, both students of color and majority students, expect to find the diversity to which we say we are committed when they come to this campus. The keys to recruiting students of color lie in establishing meaningful contact with them well before or as soon as they apply to the university, and making our campus so attractive to them that a large fraction of those offered positions will be eager to come here. The key to ensuring the success of the students, faculty, and staff of color we bring to this campus is to follow through by going out of our way to make them feel welcome and valued.

With its vision of invigorating and transforming the learning experience, UW-Madison seeks to “help students to develop an understanding and appreciation for the complex cultural and physical worlds in which they live... embody[ing] through its policies and programs respect for, and commitment to, the ideals of a pluralistic, multi-racial, open and democratic society.”¹³ Our students' educational experience is enhanced when our curriculum includes the rich diversity of experiences offered by all cultures, and when there are ample opportunities to interact with a diverse community of faculty, staff and students. Plan 2008 provides the clarity and focus to set strategic directives and generate the actions that will bring substance to our Campus Vision for the Future.

The University should implement the recommendations in the Minority Retention Strategic Plan with the goal of reducing the gap in retention and graduation rates between students of color and majority students by 50 percent by 2008.

The University will initiate broader efforts to develop a respect for and appreciation of diversity, focusing on everyone in this community. Faculty in every discipline—not just Ethnic Studies—need to be given support and encouragement to consider ways to incorporate diversity in their curricula where appropriate, and in their teaching styles. Nationally and in the CIC (see Appendix D), an increasing number of institutions have developed freshmen seminars or orientation courses to help students adjust to life on campus, including such important topics as teaching diversity and intercultural communication. We recommend consideration of freshman seminars to determine whether we have, or can develop, the base of freshman courses to provide the benefits of this experience to all freshmen.

Now in our tenth year of the Ethnic Studies Requirement, it is time for us to step back and evaluate how well we have done, and to determine what needs to be changed to achieve its purpose more effectively. The criteria for defining which courses adequately fulfill the Ethnic Studies Requirement need to be reviewed. The responsibility for developing and offering courses meeting the Ethnic Studies Requirement needs to be spread out more evenly across Letters and Science and extended to other Schools and Colleges as well. The following recommendations will enhance efforts to build diversity in our learning environment.

Recommendations:

1. Continue to determine and use successful strategies for improving the retention and graduation rates from the Minority Retention Strategic Plan, to reduce the gap in retention and graduation rates by 50 percent by 2008. Benchmark with other universities that have very high levels of success to learn from their programs.
2. Provide $1.3 million to expand the (pre-freshman) Summer Collegiate Experience bridge program in Letters and Science to serve 100 students by 2001 and to start the PEOPLE summer bridge program in 2002.
3. Develop an integrated database for tracking students from pre-college through undergraduate and graduate and professional school.
4. Appoint a committee from among the Undergraduate Education Committee, the Curriculum Committee of Letters and Science, other curriculum committees, and others, to fast-track researching and if appropriate planning for a freshman seminar experience as a way to improve academic performance, retention, and multi-cultural understanding for all students. This is the first recommendation of the 1998 Minority Undergraduate Retention Strategic Plan. Other universities are finding that such seminars help all students in their transition to university life and improve freshman retention. We suggest that at least one component should address issues of race and diversity.
5. It is intended that each student of color be assigned a mentor who can be a “lead resource contact” person, from among faculty, staff, or student peers. The mentor should be knowledgeable about student services and resources on campus and be responsible for referring the student to others for assistance and support.
6. Evaluate the Speak-Up program in the Dean of Students office to determine ways it can be more effective in meeting needs of students who suffer from discrimination.
7. Appoint a committee to discuss the establishment of a residential college with an international, multi-cultural living/learning focus and report by May 2000. This is intended to provide students with an opportunity to live in an environment which fosters respect and appreciation for students from different national and cultural backgrounds.
8. Encourage faculty, staff, and students to join Music Professor Richard Davis' R.A.P. (Retention Action Project) discussions on creating a welcoming campus and classroom environment.
9. Try to provide dedicated space for students in an informal academic rather than social setting, so they can be near professors, for example within the Ethnic Studies programs' homes.
10. Expand informal and formal programs for developing student leadership in the improvement of the campus climate. Coordinate with students in all aspects of student life to use their enthusiasm to draw in students of color to full participation.
11. The committees on Undergraduate Education and the Letters and Science Curriculum are requested to review the learning outcomes of the Ethnic Studies Requirement along with all other courses during the 1999-2000 academic year. We recommend that the LEAD Center will be involved in assessing the requirement, if funding can be obtained. There is need for more courses that reflect the histories and cultures of our fastest growing communities of color in the United States. We strongly recommend that such strengthening in those areas be accomplished through a phased process of curricular development linked to faculty and instructional staff expansion and development. In addition, consideration should be given to the purpose of including those courses now part of the “e” ethnic studies category that deal with religion and other cultures. The committees will conduct a regular review of the approved “e” courses, to ensure that these fulfill the purpose of the Ethnic Studies Requirement.
12. Schools and colleges other than the College of Letters and Science are strongly urged to develop ethnic studies courses for their majors, where appropriate.
13. All faculty and instructional staff are encouraged to develop creative and challenging ways to incorporate diversity-related content into their courses and disciplines, where appropriate. A previous grant from the Ford Foundation provided seed money for development of ethnic studies courses. With more resources needed in this area, the deans of the colleges, particularly Letters and Science, are strongly urged to initiate and coordinate application for faculty development funding.

Graduate and Professional Students

Recruiting and Financial Aids (Goals 3, 4)

During the first ten years of the Madison Plan, our progress in the recruitment of graduate and professional students of color has been uneven. The enrollment of students of color in the Graduate School has increased from 5.8 percent (545) in 1988 to 8.6 percent (760) in 1997 with Hispanic students representing the most significant increase of all targeted groups. Significant progress has been achieved in increasing the percentage of students of color in the professional schools—particularly in law and medicine. Currently, the enrollment of students of color in the professional schools is 19%, an 11 percent increase from 1988. For the period 1988-1998, the number of African American increased from 53 to 144; Asian American from 44 to 105; American Indian from 15 to 45; and Hispanic/Latinos from 40 to 105 (see Diversity Update). Efforts that have aided in our progress are the commitment of additional funds for fellowships by the Graduate School, funding which allowed for the expansion of the inter-institutional linkages program with Black, Hispanic and American Indian colleges, the C.I.C. Summer Research Opportunity Program, the provision of more non-resident tuition remissions and funding for recruitment travel and publications. However, we note with concern that some Graduate School programs, particularly in the biological and physical sciences, have made little or no progress.

Recommendations:

1. The offices of the Provost and Graduate School will continue to develop and enhance inter-institutional linkage programs with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions and American Indian Colleges and Universities within and outside the State of Wisconsin. These linkages include collaborative research initiatives, faculty development, and recruitment of transfer, graduate and professional students of color.
2. We will work to raise additional funding from extramural sources to expand undergraduate research programs for students of color to attract more promising prospective graduate and professional students to the University.
3. We will work to provide $3.7 million in new funding over the next 3 biennial budgets to support Advanced Opportunity Fellowships (AOF) for graduate and professional students, and use these funds to leverage other institutional funds (teaching assistantships, research assistantships, project assistantships and training grant awards). The AOF program has been very successful in recruiting, and there is a large unmet demand for these fellowships.
4. We will enhance existing and develop new recruitment initiatives which focus on the biological and physical sciences.

Retention and Financial Aid (Goals 3, 4)

Over the life of the Madison Plan, the retention and graduation rates of students of color in graduate and professional schools have risen to parallel those of majority students. For most years during the decade 1982-1992, the percentage of targeted students of color who completed their masters degree was actually higher than that for white students (Graduate School Cohort Study, August 1998, Appendix E). Major efforts undertaken in the Graduate School have reduced time-to-degree, and more effectively defined satisfactory progress criteria for all graduate programs. There is also an administrative reorganization taking place to broaden accountability for diversity. The College of Engineering, with funding from NSF, has developed the Minority Graduate Education program, which is run by Professor Doug Henderson.

Additional fellowships support has been instrumental in assisting with the retention and graduation rates of students of color in graduate and professional programs but a gap still exists in the amount of funds available and the need for such funds ($3.7 million in unmet need in the AOF program for 1998, see Appendix F). A major challenge is in establishing a better mix of fellowships and assistantships for graduate students of color. A disproportionate number of these graduate students are funded exclusively by the Advanced Opportunity Fellowship, which constitutes less than five percent of the funding available for student support. In addition to providing financial support, an AOF should be coupled assistantships for access to teaching, research, project assistantships or traineeships. In this way, the AOF will provide for the recipients' full integration into the academic life of their graduate programs, ensuring them a competitive edge in applying for jobs upon graduation.

To enhance retention, efforts need to be undertaken to better connect graduate students to faculty mentors and to promote the development and healthy interaction of graduate student organizations (i.e., the Black Graduate and Professional Student Organization, the Latino Graduate and Professional Student Association, and the American Indian Graduate and Professional Student Association).

There is a critical need for funds to assist graduate students of color with travel for research, professional meetings, and to deliver papers at conferences. The Summer Institute at the University of Michigan is a model program which the university will study, to determine the feasibility of adopting it on this campus. The program invites all new graduate students of color to arrive at campus the summer before they begin their graduate work. These students are given a stipend on top of the fellowship they have already been awarded and are allowed to design a summer academic program tailored to meet their needs (some take refresher courses in calculus or statistics, some take language study, others elect to start work early in their professors' labs). The bonding that takes place between these students is just as important as the academic enrichment they receive.

Recommendations:

1. We will address the $3.7 million dollars in unmet need to assist with the retention and support of graduate and professional students by seeking Advanced Opportunity Program (AOP) funds from the state, federal (minority supplements, for example from NIH and NSF) and private sources (Graduate School $100 Million Dollar Fellowships Endowment Initiative) over the next three biennial budget cycles.
2. We will develop a mentor program that links all new graduate and professional students of color to a faculty or staff member at the University to help in their adjustment to the University and their academic program.
3. We will continue to leverage for mixed funding packages combining fellowships with assistantships, which serve to give students broader experiences, mentoring and integration into the academic life of their departments.
4. Increase funding for research and professional development, for example travel support, for graduate and professional students of color.
5. We will work to provide funding to strengthen graduate and professional student of color organizations.

Faculty and Staff

Ethnic Studies Department and Programs (Goals 5 and 6)

The one ethnic studies department and three programs, through their scholarly and curricular offerings, and particularly their contributions in the service area, have played a central role in the evolution of diversity initiatives on our campus. Despite this, their development has been uneven. Our Afro-American Studies Department is one of the nation's first such departments to be established, and its growth in the number of distinguished faculty and curricular offerings has been notable. Our programs in American Indian Studies, Chicano Studies, and Asian-American Studies were established at different periods and, unlike the Afro-American Studies Department, have not been able to enjoy a similar level of growth and maturity.

Although these Programs do not have dedicated faculty lines, distinguished and committed faculty from other departments have contributed to strengthening their curricular offerings. But their efforts to recruit faculty jointly with contributing departments have by and large been unsuccessful. Given this, it is clear that other new and creative strategies must be considered and undertaken if we are to have more success in strengthening the scholarship and faculty of these Programs. Internal discussions and external review would help to highlight these programs' needs.

These academic units have also been instrumental in servicing the campus need for courses that fulfill the Ethnic Studies Requirement, which was incorporated into the curriculum at UW-Madison even before the Design for Diversity was established by UW System Administration. Efforts to provide these service courses have been important to the campus but they have often had the consequence of limiting faculty time needed to focus on curricular and academic needs of majors and minors.

Recommendations:

1. Increase the faculty in the three Ethnic Studies programs—American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies and Chicano Studies—by at least one position apiece, plus fund long-term one shared visiting position by Spring 2003. The three positions will have 100-percent tenure home in the hiring program if requirements for that rule waiver are met.
2. Ethnic Studies programs and collaborating departments should continue to develop joint recruiting strategies to bring about better coordination of priorities for hiring and developing faculty and staff.
3. The three ethnic studies programs should continue to collaborate to strengthen their scholarly reputation. The programs are encouraged to take advantage of the cluster hiring initiative. The campus and UW Foundation will undertake targeted fund-raising for eventual endowed chairs in ethnic studies fields and for visiting professorships.
4. Each dean, program or department chair with faculty in ethnic studies fields will take the initiative to provide guidance to these faculty in finding and applying for grants to do scholarly work.
5. Ethnic Studies programs will work with the Academic Staff Executive Committee and the Dean of Letters and Science to strengthen and enhance the status of instructional academic staff in the programs.
6. The campus and the College of Letters and Science will provide adequate staffing and support for preservation of languages of targeted ethnic minorities. UW-Madison has been awarded the American Indian Language Preservation Pilot Project, which needs additional staff support. The campus should explore the development of the writing and teaching of the Hmong language.
7. Form a committee to focus on Puerto Rican student, faculty, staff issues, such as whether there is enough basis for a Puerto Rican Studies Program.

Recruiting Faculty and Staff (Goal 5)

The University continues to face major challenges in the recruitment and hiring of faculty of color. For Fall 1997, faculty of color (all ranks) constituted only 10 percent (220) of the legal faculty (2171)—(nationally, faculty of color constitute an average of 12.9 percent of the faculty on campus; source: ACE 1997-8 Status Report). When Asian-American faculty are left out of our count, the number drops to 4 percent (100). In almost every category, the University ranks near the bottom of its CIC peer group in the employment of faculty of color.

We received a boost in our efforts to hire a diverse faculty during the five year Madison Plan period, reaching our goal of recruiting 75 new faculty of color between 1988 and 1993. But, although elated that these 75 hires comprised more than the university had hired during the previous ten year period, we found that the number of new faculty of color hires again decreased during the next three year period. This was in part due to several years of funding cuts, resulting in the loss of 200 faculty positions and $20 million in base budget cuts.

The Strategic Hiring Initiative (SHI, 1996-1999, see Appendix G) has been instrumental in providing a boost to campus hiring efforts. The SHI provided funding which so far has aided in the hiring of 21 targeted faculty of color and the retention of two more. The administration no longer assigns permanent funding and positions as per the Madison Plan hires. Transitional funding is provided for up to three years after which the department/school or college is required to commit the funding and the FTE for the position.

The Anna Julia Cooper Post-Doctoral Fellowship has been useful in attracting talented junior faculty of color and getting them off to a strong start. A new pilot initiative to “buy-out the dissertation year” of talented scholars for early identification and consideration for possible future faculty hires is very promising.

Modest progress has been made in the recruitment of academic staff of color; and very little progress has been made in the recruitment of classified staff of color.

Recommendations:

1. To promote hiring of faculty of color, we will continue the diversity-related component of the Chancellor's Strategic Hiring Initiative and the Anna Julia-Cooper Post Doctoral Fellowship (see Appendix G) as an incentive while encouraging the utilization of positions available through normal attrition and turnover processes for the hiring of faculty of color.
2. We will strategically recruit faculty by several means, which include cooperative hiring of CIC institution PhDs and postdoctoral scholars, considering the establishment of a “Dissertator-in-Residence” program and a seminar fund for early identification of promising graduate students from CIC institutions and elsewhere for possible faculty positions, and seeking funding for visiting faculty/scholars positions who may be attracted to faculty positions at UW-Madison.
3. We will seek funding to broaden the strategic hiring program to target academic staff of color.
4. We will focus on the recruitment of classified staff of color for University-specific vacancies, including developing materials and working with community organizations to improve their recruitment and status.
5. We will conduct a review of the Limited Term Employee (LTE) system on campus to determine how employees of color are faring in these positions, and to determine if and how they can be moved to permanent positions (see Appendix H).
6. To increase the recruitment of faculty, academic and classified staff of color, we will broaden the pool of potential hires by encouraging schools and colleges to have their departments and units exercise targeted advertising in published materials and professional organizations specific to professionals of diverse racial and ethnic background, and develop such strategies as increasing and strengthening the role of Equity and Diversity committees in monitoring the hiring process.

Retaining Faculty and Staff (Goal 5)

Most critical to our campus diversity effort is the health and well-being of those faculty and staff of color that we employ on our campus. Over the past ten years the University has undertaken a number of efforts to review the status of faculty of color and academic staff. The University Committee in cooperation with ASEC appointed the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Minority Faculty and Academic Staff which met, held focus groups for faculty and academic staff of color and issued a report. A study was conducted on the retention rates of women faculty and faculty of color. Several faculty, academic and classified staff of color gave input on their issues and concerns at the hearings held as part of the development of Plan 2008 by UW System Administration, as well as during the NCA Reaccreditation study conducted recently. A study of the retention rates of the seventy-five faculty hired during the five year period of the Madison Plan indicates that the retention and promotion rates are comparable to those of the majority faculty (source: OBPA).

In assessing the issues and needs related to the retention and satisfaction of faculty and academic staff of color, The Human Resources Working Group has developed a number of new initiatives in the training area which are incorporated in its recommendations to expand faculty and staff development opportunities. The increase in tenure rates for women faculty has shown that the Mentor Program for Women Faculty has been very successful in assisting women faculty in getting connected, but no concrete steps have been undertaken to develop a similar mentor program targeted to faculty of color.

Recommendations:

1. We will continue orientation on the culture of the university to offer introduction and guidance to new and continuing faculty, and expand orientation and guidance for staff.
2. We will encourage faculty, academic staff and classified staff representative of the diverse racial and ethnic minority groups to establish mentor relationships with university colleagues to guide and promote their professional growth.
3. We will work to provide funding and promote broader participation in professional development programs for academic staff, including for-credit and non-credit courses, by making sure that the information and encouragement to take advantage of these programs are provided to all employees.
4. We will incorporate a Diversity Training Institute in the Human Resources Development training series as a collaborative effort by the Human Resources Development office and the EDRC.
5. We will foster the development of new administrators among faculty and staff of color by recruiting them as interns for future administrative and executive leadership posts at both college and central administrative levels, and expand the Leadership Institute to increase opportunities for more employees.
6. We will monitor pay, race equity and job security provisions including Limited Term appointment, Rolling Horizon and similar personnel actions.
7. We will develop ways to recognize faculty and staff for their service in diversity-related initiatives, and develop ways to reward supervisory staff for their success in diversity recruitment and retention.

Community and Alumni Cooperation (Goal 2)

The citizens of Wisconsin and the world are benefactors of the continued advancement and updating of the Wisconsin Idea. Through research, teaching and service, our faculty members are engaged with community leaders and practitioners in the critical issues that face Wisconsin today. From criminal justice to health care delivery, from arts development to technology transfer, from global competition to welfare reform, we are partners in building for the 21^st century.

Chancellor David Ward, “A Progress Report on Our Priorities,” A Vision for the Future 1/99

The University has a long history of outreach and service to all communities across the state (see Appendix I). Wisconsin was one of the first institutions to admit students of color in its undergraduate and graduate programs for many decades before the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

University faculty, students and staff have developed strong partnerships with the Madison Metropolitan School District, the city and county through the START SMART Program and through the Schools of Hope Project to improve the health and well being, and academic performance of students of color. The PEOPLE Program—one of a variety of pre-college programs—represents a very comprehensive outreach effort to young people in the Milwaukee Metropolitan School District. The Wisconsin Alumni Association has been instrumental in assisting with outreach efforts through sponsoring Alumni recruitment programs in Milwaukee, Chicago, New York and California.

The Inter-institutional Linkages Program has helped to promote outreach to the Lac Courte Oreille Community College and the College of the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin. Nationally, the Linkages Program has conducted outreach initiatives to Spelman College assisting with the design of their new science building and with joint visiting professorships; and with countless seminars and joint research projects with Clark Atlanta University, Prairie View A&M University, and with several of the institutions that comprise the University of Puerto Rico.

Recommendations:

1. The University's partnerships with K-12 schools, especially with key “feeder” schools and communities, will be expanded in various ways, including more involvement of students, faculty and staff.
2. The Chancellor will continue visits to schools and communities. This outreach involves programs and receptions with alumni and targeted community organizations and agencies to seek their support.
3. Students will coordinate their Madison schoo1 involvement and prepare documents for local children and their parents.
4. Establish a campus celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a national Day of Diversity in coordination with the City of Madison. The University of Michigan is a good model.
5. The University will continue efforts to increase the amount of contracts with and purchasing from minority and women vendors.
6. Work with the UW Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) to raise funds for scholarships.
7. Work with the WAA to recruit students, which the WAA is already making a high priority.
8. The University will work closely with the UW Foundation, the Wisconsin Alumni Association and the Madison community to establish a national UW-Madison Diversity Board of Visitors to provide advice, leadership, visibility and support for our diversity efforts.

Opportunities to be Involved

Students

1. Be a friend to a student of diverse color and ethnic background.
2. Volunteer to help recruit students of color and/or to work at SOAR.
3. Be a friend and/or tutor to a local student of color and the student's family. Bring them as welcome guests to the University.
4. Volunteer to work in the community, and ask a fellow student of a different ethnic background to join you.
5. Take a service-learning course.
6. Read this plan thoughtfully, and creatively find other ways and places to help.
7. Join SHAPE, Students Helping Advance Public Education.

Faculty and Staff

1. Get involved with a local family as a friend. Bring them as welcome guests to the University.
2. Volunteer to work in the community, and ask someone of a different ethnic background to join you.
3. Donate a year's tuition (about $3200) to the Chancellor's Scholarship Fund. Recruit 20 other people for similar donations, and provide the endowment for one student-year. There are about 6500 faculty and staff, with the potential for supporting 325 student-years, or about 80 students.
4. Incorporate diversity into your curriculum, if it is suitable in your discipline.
5. Join Music Professor Richard Davis's R.A.P. (Retention Action Project) discussions and activities to create a welcoming campus and classroom.
6. Be a mentor to an undergraduate or graduate student of color through the student's whole career. Become familiar with that student's cultural background.
7. Get connected to a residential community.
8. Read this plan thoughtfully, particularly Appendix I, and creatively find other ways and places to help.

Alumni

1. Continue local recruiting efforts.
2. Donate to scholarships.
3. Speak up about the need for graduates who have experience living and working in a diverse environment.
4. Get involved with a local family as a friend. Tell them about the University.

Ideas to Consider

This is a list of suggestions to consider, written into the University's Plan 2008 to ensure that they are not lost.

1. Student advisory committees to the director of admissions and the deans of the graduate and professional schools will assure the continuing involvement of students.
2. Provide funding for a Puerto Rican recruiting position.
3. Hire a Puerto Rican faculty or academic staff member who can be an informal adviser and provide support to the Puerto Rican students.
4. Expand student leadership training.
5. Sponsor days other than Martin Luther King Jr. Day dedicated to programs highlighting ethnic groups.
6. Pay graduate students a stipend to be mentors to undergraduate students. This has been successful at increasing retention at the University of Illinois.
7. The campus and UW Foundation could undertake targeted fund-raising for eventual endowed chairs and visiting professorships in ethnic studies fields.
8. Institute a CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation, consisting of the Big Eleven plus the University of Chicago) “virtual department” of one or more ethnic studies disciplines.
9. Work to provide dedicated space for students in an informal academic rather than social setting, so they can be near professors, for example within the Ethnic Studies programs' homes.
10. The ethnic studies programs have only marginally adequate space and should be provided more as feasible.
11. Recruit out of state with the aim of raising the percentage entering out-of-state students of color until their proportions minimally equal the corresponding racial/ethnic proportions of the national high school graduation class qualified for admission.
12. Have receptions for each minority group early in the semester.
13. Establish a standing Committee on Diversity Planning and Review, with the oversight committee recommended in this plan as a first step. This committee would work systematically and thoughtfully to address the opportunities created by a diverse University and the challenges to creating such a University. It would have three major functions, to review, plan, coordinate the University's efforts to achieve the Regents' goals.
1. Review: The first function of the committee will be to review each department, school, and administrative unit's plans to address the Regents goals. This will be the committee that will develop and implement a system for giving feedback to these plans, monitor their implementation, and evaluate their effectiveness.
2. Plan: The second function of the committee will be to systematically plan ways to increase the presence and improve the experience of individuals from historically disadvantaged groups on this campus.
3. Coordinate: The third function will be to coordinate efforts across the University to attain the Regents' 7 goals

¹¹ The Recruitment Strategic Plan and the 1998 Update are available from the Office of the Provost.

¹² For the 1992 cohort, the overall 6th year retention rate for targeted minorities at UW-Madison is approximately 50 percent. The 6th year rate for all UW-Madison students is approximately 72 percent and white non-resident female students achieve the highest 6th year graduation rate (75.8 percent) of all students (Source: 1998-99 Data Digest, published by OBPA). According to the 1997-98 ACE Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education, the national 6th year retention rates are 38 percent for African-American students, 45 percent for Hispanics; and 37 percent for American Indians.

¹³ Quoted from David Ward, Chancellor, in A Vision for the Future, 1995.

File last updated: December 12, 2005
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