Ethnic diversity plan shows improvement at UW-Eau Claire 

The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire will submit the biennial report on racial and ethnic diversity on campus, which the original document is called Plan 2008, to the Board of Regents at the meeting to be held in Eau Claire campus Oct. 4 and 5.

Plan 2008 was originally organized by the UW System in 1997 as Design for Diversity, which is the previous plan of Plan 2008, was going to be ended in 1998. The UW System established seven goals along with detailed statements for each goal and asked all UW institutes to adapt the goals to their local needs.

UW-Eau Claire designed the committee to establish their own Plan 2008 in 1998 after asking many members of organizations, faculty and the student body to be a member of the committee and give as much variety of information as they could. Among the committee members there were many faculty members who were also involved with the previous plan, Design for Diversity.

“We employed programs that were already there before the plan and that the plan could make it better or help,” said Charles Vue, member of the Committee and Student Services Coordinator of American Ethnic Coordinating Office. “And we will employ and create new programs that fit into the plan and that Plan 2008 can possibly be a further help.”

There are several significant improvements in Plan 2008 within the past three years.

The Student Scholarship Recognition Banquet is the one that especially shows financial improvement. Five available scholarships in 1987 are grown to 20 and the total amount grew from $5,000 in 1988 to over $161,000 in fall 2000.

Sixty-three students received the scholarships at the Banquet Sept. 21 held at the Council Fire Room. The Jim Vance Diversity Scholarship is one of these scholarships created by Jim Vance, member of Committee and the Director of American Ethnic Coordinating Office, to recognize multicultural students who have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement.

Vance donates his additional salary coming from teaching "Diversity in the Workplace" course in the MBA program at UW-Eau Claire to this scholarship, according to the UW System news release.

Vance received the first UW System Board of Regents Administrative and Professional Academic Staff Excellence Award at the June meeting of the Board of Regents in 1998 as a result of his effort. He is also recognized as a model student services professional throughout the UW System and Wisconsin.

The Commanding English Program, providing incoming freshmen with a foundation of English as a second language to promote their academic success, is also one of the programs of Plan 2008.

The program is a collaborative effort of the department of Foreign Languages, Academic Skills Center, Admissions Office and Academic and Career Services. 

“The members (of the Commanding English Program) work closely with faculty and staff to identify and select applicants who appear to be well matched for participation in the program and who have the potential to be successful at UW-Eau Claire,” according to the biennial report of Plan 2008. “For fall 2000, 15 candidates completed the program with an average GPA of 2.85 for the fall semester. Seven of the 15 students had GPA’s of 3.0 or higher.”

Along with these improvements, the biennial report employed 16 new programs to the Plan 2008 and declared further needs of ongoing and continuing programs to develop much more diversity in UW-Eau Claire.

Erik Hendrickson, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy Department, said that the name, Plan 2008, should be a background, so students do not need to know the name itself. However, the programs that are stated in the plan should be encouraged to students to participate, and in order to do so, faculty members and staffs should be aware of the name and should work for it, he said.

Student Senate can get involved more with diversity programs, for example, by supporting collaborating events between academic organizations and ethnic organizations, Hendrickson said.

Hendrickson also said that if there is feedback toward what UW-Eau Claire has been doing for the Plan 2008, it will help department and all faculty members keep or change programs to improve diversity.

All members of the Board of Regents will read through the UW-Eau Claire’s biennial report of Plan 2008 after receiving it at the meeting, but there won’t be any official feedback from them, said Judith Temby, secretary of Office of Multicultural Affairs of UW System.

A visitation, however, by Andrea-Teresa "Tess" Arenas and Kristine Werner from UW System Office of Multicultural Affairs is being held Oct. 23 to discuss Plan 2008.

Arenas is in charge of overseeing plan 2008 throughout all UW institutes, while Werner is working as a liaison for UW-Eau Claire.