In typically low-key setting, students press Coleman on diversity issues
Stephanie Steinberg
Daily Staff ReporterOctober 28th, 2009
The fire wasn’t the only thing heated at the University President’s monthly fireside chat yesterday.
At the first fireside chat of the year, University President Mary Sue Coleman spent an hour addressing questions raised by a group of about 30 students. Student attendance at the chats is by invitation only.
Students sat around a fireplace at the William Monroe Trotter Multicultural Center and brought up a range of concerns — including the state’s potential cut of the Michigan Promise Scholarship, cultural diversity, University tuition hikes and transportation problems between Central Campus and North Campus.
While fireside chats tend to be somewhat light-hearted, at this particular one, Coleman was repeatedly questioned on diversity and race issues at the University.
A report released by University officials two weeks ago showed underrepresented minority enrollment for freshmen at the University fell 11.4 percent from last year — 69 fewer students than last year's class. Overall freshman enrollment, however, rose 5.1 percent over last year.
Since the 2006 passage of a statewide constitutional amendment banning public institutions from using affirmative action as a factor in admissions, the number of underrepresented minorities enrolled at the University has fallen each year.
Despite the drop in underrepresented minority representation, the number of underrepresented minorities applying to the University has increased in the last two years.
Rackham student David Green asked what the University has been doing to maintain diversity at the University since the state banned affirmative action.
Coleman said despite the passage of that ban, she was pleased the University didn’t suffer the “dramatic decline” that schools in California and Washington experienced when the states passed similar proposals.
Another student asked if, similar to the rise in overall undergraduate applications, the number of minority applicants had increased.
Though Coleman didn’t know the exact number of minority students who applied, she said the increase was an “encouraging sign.” Coleman said though an increasing number of minority students were applying to the University and being admitted, fewer are choosing to enroll.
“If we were in a position where families are saying 'Look, Don’t even bother to apply to Michigan,’ ” Coleman said. “That’s a very different problem.”
Coleman said underrepresented minority students have many options when it comes to choosing a college and the University can't match schools that offer scholarships that the University cannot provide because of restrictions on minority-targeted scholarships.
While the University cannot give similar scholarships, Coleman said there are other things administrators can do to increase minority enrollment, like community outreach.
On Tuesday, Coleman traveled to Detroit and met with counselors, principals and the superintendent of Detroit Public Schools to discuss strategies for increasing minority enrollment at the University.
“We had a wonderful conversation about things that we could do to help,” Coleman said. “So we’re on it.”
However, one student said minorities often are discouraged from applying to the University — citing his high school counselor who told him not to apply to the University because he wouldn’t succeed.
Coleman said she had a similar conversation while talking this week with educators in Detroit who said they didn’t want students to be discouraged by the University’s academic vigor when the work is easier at other colleges.
In response, Coleman said students should never be discouraged from applying in fear that they won’t achieve academic success.
“I said ‘Look, first of all, you can’t predict (what will happen). You come in, you get going, you’ll blossom and it’s so worth it to you at the end of the day to have this Michigan degree,’ ” Coleman said.
Walter Lacy, a Kinesiology student currently taking time off, said campus segregation exists. He questioned Coleman on how racial tensions can be eased.
Coleman said she believes it’s very important that students, faculty and administrators see each other as human beings and that the University has many programs that encourage inter-group dialogue.
“I think we have a number of ways to try to get people to get to know each other and see each other as individuals and as human beings and not as members of any particular group,” she said.
She added that many students come from “very homogeneous” high schools, where they haven’t interacted with people of other races, backgrounds or religious beliefs.
“It becomes a matter of how do you break down those walls. How you get people to see each other,” she said. “It’s an issue.”
However, Coleman noted that a high percentage of alumni has responded in surveys that their exposure to diversity at the University helped them be successful in their careers.
“That’s not to say that things don’t happen on the campus, but I think we work pretty hard at it, and it’s pretty effective,” she said. “But we’ve got to always work at it.”
After the chat, Lacy said in an interview that he was not satisfied with Coleman’s answers about race and diversity.
“It sounded like a general statement. It’s something I’ve heard before in public speeches and just in general discussion,” Lacy said. “That is the response you get about race. That is, ‘we’re doing the best we can.’ ”
He added that he thinks there is “deep-seated racism that exists at Michigan.”
LSA senior Andrew Dalack, outreach chair for Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a pro-Palestinian campus group, had a different opinion and said he thought the chat went well.
“I always admire President Coleman,” he said. “I think she has great leadership style, and she has great pioneering ideas for the University.”
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