Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 24, 1995 TAG: 9507240101
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
``If you want diversity, you have to seek it,'' said Martha Rogers, vice president for enrollment management at Virginia Wesleyan College.
``It's in all our very best interests to see that as many people as possible go to college,'' said David R. Bousquet, admissions director at Virginia Tech. ``College graduates tend to make more money over the course of a lifetime. They pay more in taxes. To be a diverse community, you need a critical mass of people.''
In California last week, the state university system dropped affirmative action from all of its admissions and hiring programs. Several Virginia educators said California will simply have to use different methods now to work toward similar goals.
Virginia colleges and universities use many methods to attract minority students, and not all are truly affirmative action. That term specifically refers to programs that give enrollment preference to minorities, sometimes even if their scores are not as good as non-minority applicants.
Virginia schools have been reviewing their affirmative action policies, he said, even before the controversy in California. Earlier this year, Gov. George Allen sought to curtail affirmative action programs at state-supported colleges and universities.
But the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates rejected Allen's plan, a move that allowed state institutions to maintain preferential programs for admissions, faculty appointments and employment.
Mark Christie, Allen's deputy counselor, said the governor's proposal differed from the action taken in California because it would not have eliminated preferential treatment altogether.
``It was not to wipe out affirmative action with a clean slate,'' Christie said. ``It was to make sure it was narrowly tailored.''
The idea, Christie said, was to allow colleges and universities to develop outreach programs aimed at increasing the diversity of the pool of applicants.
Robert Belle, associate director for student affairs with the State Council on Higher Education, and others said one challenge for universities - balancing race against such other factors as test scores, interviews and family connections - will not go away.
``If I understand some of the other Supreme Court decisions on this, while race could not be used as an exclusive factor, it could be used as a factor - one factor,'' Belle said.
While large schools such as the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech use affirmative action policies, among others, to sort out applicants, small schools such as Virginia Wesleyan may not.
``We recruit aggressively in a variety of ways,'' Rogers said. ``For example, there's a school in Atlanta that we visit which is traditionally and predominantly African-American. We make sure we are there every year.''
Universities compete heavily, Bousquet said. ``For some institutions, their location will allow them to attract a diverse population. For others, their reputation will do that. And for others, it's very difficult to do without affirmative action measures.''
He said: ``I think we're living in very mean-spirited times, as a nation. I'm hoping the citizens of Virginia are a bit more compassionate than what we've seen elsewhere in the country.''
by CNB