Despite deciding not to seek state funding for a proposed summer outreach program for minority prospective students, the University will continue to develop minority recruitment programs, University President John T. Casteen III said yesterday.
While Casteen expressed continued support for the summer program, he said that it could not be implemented in its original form without state funding.
"A program of the scale we proposed requires either the Governor's direct support by way of inclusion in the budget bill or widespread support from having all of the colleges [in Virginia] propose it at the same time," he said.
The proposal surfaced in September when the University requested state funding for the program, but in December Governor James S. Gilmore III (R) did not allocate any money in the state budget for it. Last month, the University decided not to request funds from the General Assembly.
Instead, the University decided to request state support for programs higher on its list of priorities, said Nancy Rivers, assistant to the vice president for management and budget and director of state governmental relations. The proposed program would have involved recruiting 700 economically-disadvantaged minority prospective students after their eighth-grade year and having the students attend a two-week session every summer until their senior year so that they can prepare for college.
Casteen said some current and previously existing University programs have been effective in recruiting minority students, but "all are restricted in size because they have limited funds, and none reaches down into the middle schools and continues with students and their families through high school and on to college."
He said the state may decide to pursue other alternatives. "The State's Department of Education might propose something like the Governor's Schools, but with disadvantaged students targeted," he added.
Dean of Admissions John A. Blackburn said no new programs are now being developed at the University in lieu of the original program. Blackburn called the original proposal a "wonderful program" which would "do good things for the state of Virginia."
Board of Visitors member Terence P. Ross proposed the program last year as a way of strengthening minority recruitment, but many thought the program would bring the University one step closer to eliminating the race factor in its admissions process.
"I always thought that it was some kind of ploy," African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner said. "I believe the University never had any intention of funding a summer program," he said.
Board Secretary Alexander G. Gilliam, Jr. said Ross proposed the program not as a substitute for the use of race as a factor in admissions, but simply as a way to "do a better job of recruiting minority students."
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