Plan 2008

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IN MADISON PLAN 2008

In this summary we only list the recommendations. For further information, see the Implementation Table (Appendix A) where we also list the point person/s, the participants, the cost, the outcome, and the time frame, where we indicate whether the recommendation is on-going or new.

TAKING LEADERSHIP and RESPONSIBILITY (Goal 7)

1. Every person on campus is invited to be involved.
2. Every unit, including department, 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.
3. The appropriate governance committees and vice chancellor will work to implement, monitor, and assess the plan’s progress.
4. A Student Advisory Committee to the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs will assure the continuing involvement of students. Students will be appointed to serve in advisory capacities on committees in Undergraduate Admissions, and in the Graduate and Professional Schools.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. The Chancellor will include a progress “report card” on the implementation of Plan 2008 in the annual report to the UW System President and campus shared governance bodies, including best practices. The biennial Diversity Update will serve as a report from the administration.
9. Campus point people and an external review team will complete a thorough evaluative four-year review by no later than June 2003, after which the oversight committee and administration will make modifications to the second five-year period of the plan.

PRE-COLLEGE PREPARATION AND PROGRAMS (Goals 2, 1, 3)

1. All units of the campus will enhance and strengthen the many existing linkages that connect the University to K-12 education in Wisconsin.
2. With successful fundraising the offices of the Chancellor and Provost will establish PEOPLE (Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence) to provide 3 years of summer enrichment for a new cohort of 100 inner-city Milwaukee high school students every year, starting summer 1999.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

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

1. 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.⁹ At the same time, work to bring the pool of qualified high school graduates of color in Wisconsin up to the state proportions of all high school graduates.
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. Provide permanent funding for a Southeast Asian recruiting 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 3 biennial budget cycles, seek an additional $3.4 million for 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)

1. Continue to determine and use successful strategies for improving the retention and graduation rates for each of the targeted groups to reduce the gap in the retention and graduation rates between majority and targeted students by 50 percent by 2008.
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 to track students from pre-college through graduate levels.
4. Appoint a committee to fast-track researching and planning for a freshman seminar experience as a way to improve academic performance, retention, and multi-cultural understanding for all students.
5. Enhance the effectiveness of mentor programs.
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.
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. 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.
10. Review the learning outcomes of ethnic studies requirement along with all other courses during the 1999-2000 academic year.
11. Schools and colleges other than Letters and Science develop ethnic studies courses where appropriate.
12. Incorporate diversity-related content into courses where appropriate.

GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL STUDENTS

Recruiting and Financial Aid (Goals 3, 4)

1. Continue inter-institutional linkage programs.
2. Seek additional funding from extramural sources to expand undergraduate research programs.
3. Secure $3.7 million in new funding for Advanced Opportunity Fellowships (AOF) over the next 3 biennial budgets, and use these funds to leverage other institutional funds.
4. Enhance existing and develop new recruitment initiatives which focus on the biological and physical sciences.

Retention and Financial Aid (Goals 3, 4)

1. Address the $3.7 million dollars unmet need in graduate and professional student fellowships by seeking funds from the state (AOP funding), 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. Establish a mentor program for graduate students.
3. Continue to combine (leverage) fellowships with assistantships.
4. Increase funding for research and professional development, for example travel support, for graduate and professional students of color.
5. Strengthen graduate and professional student of color organizations.

FACULTY AND STAFF

Ethnic Studies Department and Programs (Goals 5, 6)

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.
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.
4. Provide guidance to Ethnic Studies faculty applying for grants to do scholarly work.
5. Ethnic Studies programs should strengthen and enhance the status of instructional academic staff in their programs.
6. The campus and the College of Letters and Science will provide adequate staffing and support for preservation of languages, especially the American Indian Language Preservation Pilot Project, and will explore the writing and teaching of the Hmong language.
7. Form a committee to focus on Puerto Rican student, faculty, staff issues.

Recruiting Faculty and Staff (Goal 5)

1. Continue diversity-related strategic hiring of faculty and Anna-Julie Cooper postdoctoral positions, and use positions available from faculty turnover to promote hiring faculty of color.
2. Strategically recruit faculty by several means, including CIC cooperation, a possible “Dissertator-in-Residence” program, a seminar fund for early identification of promising graduate students from CIC institutions and elsewhere for possible faculty positions, and possible funding for visiting faculty/scholars positions who may be attracted to faculty positions at UW-Madison.
3. Seek funding to broaden the strategic hiring program to target academic staff of color.
4. 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. Appoint a committee that will look at the status of people of color in limited term employee appointments (LTE), and consider ways to help them move to permanent positions.
6. Continue to monitor departments to ensure they are using targeted advertising of positions.

Retaining Faculty and Staff (Goal 5)

1. Continue orientation and guidance for new faculty, and expand orientation and guidance for staff.
2. Encourage mentor relationships.
3. Increase professional development for academic staff.
4. Incorporate a Diversity Training Institute in human resource development.
5. Plan an administrative internship program and expand the Leadership Institute for faculty and academic staff.
6. Monitor equity for classified staff.
7. Recognize success in diversity initiatives.

COMMUNITY AND ALUMNI COOPERATION (Goal 2)

1. Strengthen partnerships with K-12 schools in key communities throughout Wisconsin, including more involvement of students, faculty and staff.
2. Continue the Chancellor’s outreach to communities, with the help of alumni.
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. Increase 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. 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.

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’ 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

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 to the Puerto Rican students.
4. Expand student leadership training.
5. Sponsor days other than Martin Luther King Day dedicated to programs highlighting ethnic groups. This has been successful at increasing retention at the University of Illinois.
6. Pay graduate students a stipend to be mentors to undergraduate students.
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. 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. Continue to work on providing more space for the ethnic studies programs.
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.

⁹ The Recruitment Strategic Plan and the 1998 Update are available from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs.

File last updated: December 14, 2005
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