by Andy Hoag The Saginaw News
Saturday September 13, 2008, 4:42 AM
Michigan's ban on affirmative action has hurt minority recruiting at some colleges, but Saginaw Valley State University isn't among them.
By using focused recruiting and special scholarships as tools, SVSU has increased its share of under-represented minorities -- blacks, Hispanics and American Indians -- by 4.25 percent this fall, to 245 freshmen from 235.This is the first full freshman class since voters passed Proposal 2 in November 2006, banning preferential treatment based on race. Some minorities already had received scholarships for fall 2007 before the proposal's passage.
It has hampered colleges such as Grand Valley State University in Allendale, where the number of under-represented minorities is down 30 percent this fall.
At Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan, which defended its affirmative action policy all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, enrollment of minority students dropped to 10.47 percent this year from 10.85 percent last year.
While accepting students based on ethnicity is illegal in Michigan, encouraging diversity and actively searching for it is not, U-M officials say.
That's what SVSU -- it has never had separate admissions criteria based on race -- has done, officials said.
"We make sure our admissions representatives are visiting high schools that have a large percentage of minority students," SVSU spokesman J.J. Boehm said.
SVSU also has relied on other scholarships -- private ones, which Proposal 2 does not affect -- to keep up minority freshmen enrollment. [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.mlive.com/saginawnews/news/index.ssf/2008/09/saginaw_valley_state_universit_9.html ]
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