"Armed with my frustration, I was prepared to call the Office of the Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate and demand what progress had been made with their lengthy, complex resolutions that, as of yet, have not seemed to make waves of any kind in a long-stagnant sea of overwhelming whiteness.... I can’t commend them for their success, but I also cannot condemn them for what I thought was an apathetic and ignorant attitude toward minority experiences on campus.... However, we need tangible evidence that progress is being made...."
Writes a University of Wisconsin—Madison freshman in the student newspaper.
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"Office of the Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate" Hahahahaha.
"Armed with my frustration" seems to be a phrase that captures rather a lot about this certain type of leftist.
So in 2010 WI was 88% white and the UW was Thirteen percent of students and 17.6 percent of faculty at UW are ethnic minorities.
what is the issue other than using race to get a bigger share of the pie?
robinintn said...
"Office of the Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate"
I assume that is social climate, but at UW, who knows
"Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate"
And this is why college is too expensive for the middle class.
Besides, why pay out the nose for a "Harvard" education only to have all your classes taught by TAs?
That post of Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate sounds more Onion than Orwellian.
Unless I missed it, she never tells us what the goal ought to be, except "more diverse. "
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/photoshop/2/5/4/384254_v1.jpg
"microaggressions constantly remind students of color of the rampant ignorance and sometimes unbridled racism of their peers"
Micro-aggressions just want to grow to be aggressions. Why are you marginalizing them? Bigot.
Apparently, education is not valid if it is acquired in an insufficiently diverse multi-cultural environment.
By which they mean not black enough.
There aren't enough black students to go around. Perhaps UW should move its campus to a warmer state.
"Megan is a freshman majoring in biology."
Sidebet that by next fall she'll drop it for a double in Diversity and Climate studies
I'm waiting for the "You people are all assholes" freshman essay before I'm cheering.
Trashhauler said...
There aren't enough black students to go around. Perhaps UW should move its campus to a warmer state.
Or a different country. After all, borders are so 20th century. Aren't we all citizens of the world?
They could save the middle man and all those greenhouse gasses by charging instate tuition in Port-au-Prince or Lagos.
Lagos is plenty warm.
I say put back the six credits in Latin requirement and drop ethnic studies.
I read a few paragraphs. What's the right way to complain about Tony Robinson's behavior? Are there any forms of bad behavior that are the fault of the delinquent and not of the surrounding society?
madisonfella: http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/photoshop/2/5/4/384254_v1.jpg
Which one is the "white hispanic"?
William: "Are there any forms of bad behavior that are the fault of the delinquent and not of the surrounding society?"
You are not even allowed to ask that question.
"You people are all assholes"
I want THAT on my state-issued license plate.
Whoops...wrong thread.
"scientists everywhere are facing hyper-competition for limited resources... While in past years there has been a boom in biomedical research funding, increase in development could not be sustained on a long-term scale since money is disappearing."
I find it amazing you didn't think to direct this complaint toward the Climate portion of the Vice Provost's portfolio.
Currently, grant funding goes like this:
Proposal: Preparation of Carbon Nanotube Bioconjugates for Biomedical Applications
Cmte: [yawn] Denied
Revised Proposal: Effect of Climate Change on Preparation of Carbon Nanotube Bioconjugates for Biomedical Applications
Cmte: YES!YES!YES!, $3 million granted!
Is Fen trying to make a joke or does she really think that there is only one definition of the word "climate"?
I have to ask, because she has said some other really outrageous things that I thought was a joke but she was totally serious about.
Make sure to follow the student's argument. She's saying that she made some assumptions, but then saw it a different way. "Armed with my frustration" is used humorously and with self-awareness. She sees that the University has had plenty of well-intentioned programs for a long time. Demanding that the University start caring and start doing something no longer made sense.
Ann - explain me why a student organization based on skin color needs to exist.
"I have to ask, because she has said some other really outrageous things that I thought was a joke but she was totally serious about"
Whooosh!
White Girl Bleed a Lot.
The Drill SGT said...
robinintn said...
"Office of the Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate"
I assume that is social climate, but at UW, who knows
I assume social climate as well. It would be an outrage if the other kind of climate change weren't considered important enough to get its own provost.
Headline: "Campus diversity initiatives: Effort is there, but results are not"
Perhaps a wrong solution is being applied to a problem?
"Looking at statistics from 2004 to 2008 alone, four-year graduation rates of the “targeted minority groups” increased from 27.2 percent to 33.8 percent, with white student four-year graduation rates increasing from 53.8 percent to 59 percent. Minimal progress did occur. However, the statistics demonstrate the gap did not decrease as desired."
Would she be happy with the 33.8% if those pesky whites would have lowered their graduation rates? That would certainly decrease the gap.
Looking at statistics from 2004 to 2008 alone, four-year graduation rates of the “targeted minority groups” increased from 27.2 percent to 33.8 percent, with white student four-year graduation rates increasing from 53.8 percent to 59 percent. Minimal progress did occur. However, the statistics demonstrate the gap did not decrease as desired.
Both groups improved but the gap didn't decrease enough, so the initiative (which presumably was to close the gap and not "just" raise one group's rate) was a failure. Hey, wouldn't decreasing the rate of the group "ahead" also decrease the gap? I smell an opportunity...
However, initiatives mean nothing without action, and they certainly mean even less for the marginalized students on campus who need inclusivity the most.
This is obviously true, but her post doesn't answer the obvious question it raises: since she sees the determination and she presumably agrees with the recommendations (past and present), what's the cause of the lack of progress she bemoans? The effort is there, but what's needed is action (requiring effort) and results. Ok, cool. Since the effort has BEEN there, why don't you now see results? It seems like that's the question she should be answering.
We're getting lectured by a freshman?
I vote we bring back bullying.
At one time, my father was Head of the Earth Science Department at a small college in New Mexico. A functionary from the Department of Education informed him that funding would be constrained if the Department didn't hire a black PhD. My father informed the gentleman that he had reached out to ALL of the 13 black PhDs in the U.S., and all of them were already gainfully employed and chose to remain at their current institutions.
Later, as a student at UCLA film school, one of my colleagues on the film student council (a Latino) was complaining about the lack of Latino film students, implying that the University was discriminating against his race by not admitting Latinos to the school. I suggested that we investigate just how many had been turned away. It transpired that my colleague was the ONLY Latino who had applied for film school.
Sometimes "discrimination" ISN'T.
SCOTUS says that racial quotas are illegal.
Yet almost everyone who supports "diversity", and especially those who think like this young woman, look only to percentages.
Self awareness? She thinks that her white peers are not sufficiently race-conscious "(despite a 3-credit ethnic studies requirement)". Perhaps requiring 50 credits would do the trick.
Her link at the sentence (about the original Holley Report in '87) However, it was criticized for an “assimilationist perspective.” goes to an academic paper the abstract for which I have pasted below. Assimilationist perspective is a wonderful phrase and the abstract itself has several gems.
This article calls attention to the shifting conceptualizations of belonging and inclusion at universities in the U.S. through shifting framings of “educational disadvantage” and “diversity”. Historically these concepts have been used in various and shifting ways to think about the “Other” and to determine the lines of inclusion and exclusion to access to higher education spaces. This article uses a leading public university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as a historical case study to examine the ways the university has responded to those who have historically been excluded from public higher education spaces and the ways inclusion has been expanded and redefined through struggle. This case study is an invitation to carefully consider the current discourses and policy debates about university “diversity” efforts and the inclusion of “disadvantaged” students. We raise questions about what inclusion means.
HoodlumDoodlum said...
Both groups improved but the gap didn't decrease enough, so the initiative (which presumably was to close the gap and not "just" raise one group's rate) was a failure.
the problem is that increasing their numbers of minority candidates by reaching deeper into the pool, also decreases the Grad rates.
Doesn't the head of the Diversity and Climate Change make $150k/yr?
Fen said...
"Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate"
And this is why college is too expensive for the middle class.
It isn't just bogus positions like this that are driving up the costs of college. I doubt this person is at the bottom leaf of an org chart. More likely, there are a host of people working under this person with titles like (exaggerated only slightly for effect) "Third Deputy Assistant to the Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate."
madisonfella,
Just apply for a "UPPLRAHLS" vanity plate.
Althouse: "Demanding that the University start caring and start doing something no longer made sense."
At what point did something making sense enter into any of this?
She could give up her space.....
Seeing Red: "Doesn't the head of the Diversity and Climate Change make $150k/yr?"
$50 says the head of the other white dominated depts make at least $155k/yr.
No Justice No Peace!
From the picture the Red Gymn looks like a neat building, although the downspouts harm the lines a bit.
The Drill SGT said...the problem is that increasing their numbers of minority candidates by reaching deeper into the pool, also decreases the Grad rates.
Then the clear solution is to admit less-qualified non-white candidates, Sgt., or hire me as Non-White Party Provost, let me run some bitchin' blasts for the pale college ladies, really ding their GPAs, shrink that gap right up.
Mind the Gap, man.
What if other schools shrink their gaps faster? We could have a gap gap on our hands!
A scandal like that, GapGate, could take down a whole Administration.
Wisconsin demographics strongly imply that the institution has reached about maximum diversity, and that disparate graduation rates may be due to trying to shove it too high with "holistic admissions":
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/55000.html
88.1% white in the state as a whole. 6.3% black.
It is very hard for this university to pull out-of-state minority students to levels that exceed WI state demographics, because the out-of-state tuition is $26,650 per year compared to in-state $10,400 per year. The total cost for an out-of-state resident to attend UW for a year is currently estimated at more than $41,000.
I'm trying to phrase this tactfully, but maybe it's not possible to do so. Wisconsin's climate is not a selling point to students from warmer climes, and while it is a very good school, scholastically talented sought-after minority groups are in short supply and will tend to go to institutions with academic reputations a notch above UW's.
So I would hazard that UW has to pay at least $35,000 a year to obtain a scholastically decent minority out-of-state candidate.
I'm not sure what the author of this piece expects. Is it FAIR for a state school to so favor out-of-state residents? Shouldn't UW's diversity goals logically be related to the state demographics?
And then, there's a paradox - spend too much money on these out-of-state diversity boosters, and you are going to wind up cutting needed funding for in-state residents with disadvantaged backgrounds. The purpose of a state university has traditionally been to afford educational opportunity to precisely those individuals.
HoodlumDoodlum said...
The answer to the Gap gap is to ease the restrictions on the "Race Box" and let folks self identify as black.
If it works for gender, why not race.
Think Liz Warren. If she can be indian why can't most middle class WI high school seniors self identify as black. Do they like BBall? Rap? Beyonce?
problem solved...
The official policy is to violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Too many white people. Too many Asians. Too many Jews. A few blacks. Just right. Diversity.
It's easy to understand how pro-choice policy progresses from classifying human life as a commodity with variable value to human life that is interchangeable and disposable.
I want THAT on my state-issued license plate.
Whoops...wrong thread.
Wrong thread or not, I would LOVE to have that plate myself.
Diversity is a CROCK!!!
This ignorant frosh should be grateful she has an opportunity to learn without the burden of classes diluted to the lowest of the common denominator.
Dumb girl!
88.1% white in the state as a whole. 6.3% black.
This why all the wisconsin fretting about diversity tends to be hilarious.
Not everyone wants to live in a frozen tundra.
From the Freshperson's editorial: "Thirteen percent of students and 17.6 percent of faculty at UW are ethnic minorities. These facts seem to suggest to me the university had, until recently, not taken diversity seriously."
In other words, a slightly higher percentage of students (13%) and a larger percentage of faculty (17.6%) at the state university are minorities than the percentage of minorities in the state's general population (11.9%, 2013 census estimate).
"At what point did something making sense enter into any of this?"
It made sense (of a sort) after the Bakke case made racial quotas illegal. In order to justify racial preferences, higher academia began to claim that "diversity" was essential for truly superior education.
Which is almost complete nonsense. There is no empirical evidence that diversity improves any educational or work process. It is merely one of those assumptions we are told we cannot question.
The author of the article should consider a transfer. Howard is a fine school (#147 per US News), and she won't be blinded by the white there.
Campus diversity initiatives: Effort is there, but results are not
Since diversity initiatives are already in place, what performance metrics, if any, are used to determine if progress is being made?
I assume she supports Scott Walker, since he did his part to reduce the gap when he was in college.
The Godfather said...
The author of the article should consider a transfer. Howard is a fine school (#147 per US News),
Howard has gone down hill in the last 40 years. Then, the top black girl in my California HS class went off to Howard. Now she would get scholarship offers from 5 Ivy's. Affirmative Action competition for the rare black student who can really compete at the top level has decimated Howard.
Megan Stefkovich probably chose to attend UW-Madison since it is a very selective public university, sort of a public "Ivy" in most people's minds. It appears she is from New Jersey, so she is likely paying out of state tuition. If they were to radically open up UW-M for diversity, it might not be so selective any more. Why is she even there, if she isn't happy with it as it is?
How 'bout some learnin'?
No.
Okay, then. Enjoy the Student Union.
The black-white (and others) educational gap is not unique to your university, or to universities, or to the United States.
It is not often presented in its true universal (and apparently universally intractable) context, so I suppose its understandable that the young lady is not quite getting that the results of all the various efforts in her own institution are likely no better or worse than all other efforts by anyone anywhere.
Education researchers and those few who bother to follow them understand the nature of the problem. But its rarely presented to the public in an accessible way. I suppose the press and many more general educational materials shy away from the subject.
Wisconsin Minority Populations as of2000 and 2010
Number Percent of total Number Percent of total
African American 300,245 5.6% 350,898 6.2%
American Indian 43,980 0.8% 48,511 0.9%
Asian 87,995 1.6% 128,052 2.3%
Hispanic/Latino 192,921 3.6% 336,056 5.9%
The first number and percent are from 2000. the second from 2010.
About two thirds of the population gain of the state from 2000-10 came from these groups.
The big question is why these efforts are bringing such mediocre results. Maybe the next article, if she really is as aware as Althouse hopes.
If you can find it (it hasn't been suppressed but is not easy to find) read the ETS study from 2005 entitled "Characteristics of Minority Students Who Excel in SAT and the Classroom."
It's an uplifting title but the message is that by a widely disproportionate margin minority students are not excelling. The result was so discouragingly non PC that ETS has not dared venture into that territory again.
The center of the problem resides not in Madison but in secondary and elementary school classrooms, homes and neighborhoods.
We have done very little that is effective to change that. Yet we keep trying the same stuff from the same sources.
Oh. They were serious.
That is sad.
Megan can improve the ratio of other ethnicities at UW by dropping out. Can we challenge her to do her part?
Here's one of those "well-intentioned" diversity programs at UW-Madison: PEOPLE Program
I only became aware of this program a few weeks ago when my daughter's high school counselors recommended her for participation. She's applied despite my misgivings about the dubious value of spending 8 weeks of her summer in a classroom instead of traveling, for example. Also, at 14 she already has her heart set on attending my wife's alma mater.
Take note of the percentage of program participants who enroll in UW-Madison even with the incentive of a 5-year tuition scholarship. Talented minority students have many options to choose from and UW-Madison isn't necessarily the first choice. Others fall away for any number of other reasons.
My eldest son is currently a senior biology major at Madison graduating in May. He chose UW primarily because 5 of his friends from grade school were accepted and they've all roomed together for the past 4 years. His best friend chose West Point over UW; again illustrating the choices available to talented minority students.
"Office of the Vice Provost on Diversity and Climate" ... Sounds like a good candidate for cost cutting.
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