5'

NEWS

The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 11

M inority admissions decrease by
11 percent; total applicants drop

ADMISSIONS
Continued from Page 1
cent. She noted that some students didn't have the patience to fill out
the new essays.
"There were students who chose not to fill out the application
because they felt it was too hard to fill out, or they were concerned
about how their essays would be rated," Pierce said. "It's a difficult
application."
Counseling staff at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School &
Academy also reported a 14 percent drop in applications to the University
this year, based on a Jan. 5 preliminary report from the University's
admissions office. Lynn Rinke, the college counseling secretary at that
school, said the report indicated that 67 of its students had applied to the
University as of Jan. 5, compared to 78 by the same date last year.
But despite the declining numbers, University officials maintain that
the group of students applyng to the University remains just as strong
as in previous years.
Prospective students whcrare likely to attend the University seem to
be largely unaffected by th° new application. According to the back-
ground admissions report, paid enrollment deposits have increased
slightly since last year. In aldition, this year's enrollment for Campus
Day - a spring tour of University facilities which according to the
report is attended by the sttdents who are most likely to enroll - is
currently running at 97 percent of last year's number, which was the
highest in the University's history.
Nancy Siegel, a guidance punselor at Millburn High School in New
Jersey, said she sees "better than 20 applications a year" to the Univer-
sity, and that the new applicaion has not affected that number.
"Kids at Millburn consider Michigan a public Ivy," Siegel said. "(The
new application) certainly doesn't have any effect on them at all."
Still, the University's report concedes that administrators are "con-

cerned" that applications from underrepresented minority students
have decreased at a greater rate than the applicant pool as a whole. The
report speculates that controversy over the past year regarding affirma-
tive action policies - including last June's Supreme Court decision
and the "hostile language" surrounding the Michigan Civil Rights Ini-
tiative to ban affirmative action - may have discouraged some minor-
ity students from sending in applications.
But the final application numbers, which will be released in the fall,
may prove less troubling than the preliminary data. According to the
report, minority applicants tend to apply relatively late in the admissions
cycle. A comparison between two admissions reports released February 8
and March 30 lends credence to that observation - in the later report,
minority admissions were down 11 percent from the same date last year,
while in the earlier report the drop was close to 30 percent.

Michelle Marcotte, whose daughter graduated from Columbine Hgh School, visits a memorial site in Lit-
tleton, Coo., yesterday afternoon for those killed in the Columbine High School shooting.


NAKED MILE
Continued from Page 1
Emilie expressed similar concerns with the
social implications of the DPS and AAPD's
crackdown on public nudity.
"It's a superficial expression, but a true one,
that I can own my body," she said.
Not all of the runners, however, described
their motivations as political. Some said it was
"nice" to end their time at colfge with friends.
"We got to smack our asses at Starbucks;"
Emile said. "What could be bte'r?"
DPS spokeswoman Diane 3rown said she
had not heard that a naked rui would be tak-
SVA
Continued from Page 1
has not set a date for the estabishment of the
student advisory committee. Tlr first meeting
will be in September or Octobe Harper said.
Hollerbach said the delay insetting up the
committee has caused some ccncerns among
students because the University Board of
Regents will vote on the budge and tuition in
July. He said he wants student to be able to
look at the budget and expresstheir concerns
b before administrators finiizt it ."
Michigan Student Assemdly President

ing place tonight, and that DPS had scheduled
patrols for tomorrow night in anticipation of
nude runners.
While running naked in public is a crime
with a $500 dollar fine and punishable for up
to one year in prison, Brown said the Univer-
sity's concern with the Naked Mile is the dan-
ger students expose themselves to if they are
brave enough to run in the event.
Brown said in the past the event has often
been a hotbed for illegal activities. "It's a mix-
ture of drunken people, illegal behavior, too
many people, and too many people with ill
intentions converging."
Many times the behavior results in runners

being trampled or creating traffic accidents,
Brown said.
Brown also added, "We have dangers of
sexual assault. We had a report one year of a
person in the crowd hitting naked people with
a bullwhip."
In recent years, the University has also
expressed worries on how many runners in
the Naked Mile are videotaped, DPS Director
Bill Bess said.
"When there are a number of persons
watching the event, these spectators are fre-
quently taking digital photos, which may end
up on the Internet or TV We have no control
over that," he said.

COLUMBINE
Continued from Page 1
weapons in trench coats, which Strand and Evans
said were banned at their high schools after the
incidents.
Last December, history prof. Matt Lassiter won
the Golden Apple Award, chosen by students for
his dedication to teaching. In January, Lassiter
gave his "ideal last lecture" at the award presenta-
tion, where he discussed the post-Columbine
media hype and questioned politicians who
blamed mass culture for the massacre.
"In a political culture that spent the entire
decade celebrating the triumph of free-market
capitalism, suddenly a broad consensus emerged
that mass culture was to blame," said Lassiter,
who studies post-World War II America and the
emergence of American suburbia. "The exploita-
tive media coverage, and the hysterical political
debates that followed, completely obscured the
fact that there was no statistical epidemic of
school violence, that students are far safer at
school than they are at home and that maybe
Columbine actually wasn't a window into the
souls of a new youth generation."
But Columbine was not the only school that
experienced such tragedies in the late 1990s. In
March 1998, two middle schoolers killed four stu-
dents and one teacher during a false fire alarm at
Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark. One
month later, 14-year-old Andrew Wurst killed a
teacher and wounded two students at a school
dance in Edinboro, Pa. In February 2000, a 7-year-
old boy from Flint killed a 6-year-old girl with a
gun he found in his house.
As a result, schools began -to crack down on
weapons policies and "zero tolerance" became

the new buzzword for secondary education.
Evans said she thought her high school's
increase of security and implementation of zero
tolerance was beneficial for education.
"It makes the schools more safe," she said.
Engineering freshman Stephanie Freiwald
agreed, noting that schools needed to enact
stricter policies because they could not rely on all
parents to discipline their children.
"Parents don't pay attention," Freiwald said,
adding that Columbine administrators had
very little foresight into Klebold and Harris's
lives. "There is not much the school could
have done."
But Burlingame disagreed, saying he thought
clamping down might just hinder teenagers' free-
dom of expression, and possibly stimulate more
detrimental behavior. He added that he thought
high schools and teenagers needed to be more tol-
erant of different kinds of people.
"I almost think the closed-mindedness proba-
bly fueled the kids who did the shooting,"
Burlingame said, adding that zero tolerance
"doesn't allow them to be who they are."
Strand said he felt the national crackdown did-
n't make a difference either way.
"There have still been school shootings," he said.
But Lassiter said he saw zero tolerance as part
of a bigger mission to prevent middle and high
school students from speaking their minds.
"The zero tolerance crackdown includes the
random drug testing of students without prob-
able cause, the surveillance systems now in
place that have turned high schools into
miniature- police states and the criminaliza-
tion of behavior once considered a typical
part of'adoleseence or, a permissible form, of
political dissent," Lassiter said, in January.


Jason Mironov said MSA is working to
assemble a team of students to evaluate the
budget with Courant in the summer. "We will
have students in place in the summer to
review budget materials," Mironov added.
The Division of Student Affairs is also tak-
ing time to form the committee because it is
currently focusing on gathering a wide range
of information about different student groups'
opinions. "We want to do this in a thoughtful
way, not a hasty way," said Susan Wilson,
director of the Office of Student Activities
and-Lea e sbip. ,
The student advisory committee will differ

from the Michigan Round Table, Hollerbach
said. The Round Table, a group of students
that Harper relies on for input, doesn't really
have any power, he added.
He said the new committee will give stu-
dents a voice, although he could not say how.
"Students won't necessarily have power ...
just be able to have a say," he said.
The Division of Student Affairs hopes to
improve communication between students and
the administration through this committee, Wil-
son said. "We want to get information and 2so
communicate information about what we're
doing before it becomes a crisis," she added.


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FacultylStaff Mentors are needed for the Fall 2004 semester in
\Mentorship. Vsit our web site to learn rpore about the program and to apply
\ online: htp://www.onsp.umich.e9 u/mentorship/facultystaff.html
Mar Ammerlaan Naomi A dre Juliet Ballard
Jay Ba en David 1taum Kevin Benham
Paul Berm V hatia Pamela Bogart
President MarSCuoterm ---' Sacha Coupet Pamela Dixon
Maria Dorantes Tesenga Duncan Mary Dwyer
Jennie Evenson Niedja Fedrigo Ken Fischer
Ian Fulcher Priya Gopwani Katherine Gottschalk
Brenda Gunderson Ray Guthrie Kurt Hill
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Richard Ohye 1 aura Olsen Marc Pierce
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