8' Monday, June 16, 2008 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com ADMISSIONS From Page 1 admission paid enrollment depos- its, the same percentage of students who accepted admissions offers overall. Ted Spencer, associate vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admissions, said the number of minority applicants and enrolled students for this year was good, "relative to the fact that we were working under the con- straints of the proposition." "We're not happy where we are," Spencer said. "But we're happy they didn't drop off as drastically as they did in other places." After race- and gender-based affirmative action was banned in California, the University of Cali- fornia at Los Angeles saw a more than 50-percent decrease in the enrollment of underrepresented minority students. The 2008 admissions cycle was the most competitive in the Univer- sity's history. After receiving 29,794 applications,12,533students -about 42 percent - were offered admis- sion. Of the 2,771 underrepresented minority students who applied, 47 percent were offered admission. Despite an 8.6-percent increase in the number of students who applied to the University, the num- ber of underrepresented minority applicants decreased by 1.9 percent. University officials said the drop in minority applications could be attributed to perceptions that the campus isn't welcoming in the wake of the affirmative action ban - an image University officials and recruiters are working to dispel. So far, they've been successful, according to School of Education junior Kim Weidl, president of the Multicultural Greek Council. Weidl, who works in the office of Undergraduate Admissions to recruit Latino students, said stu- dents she worked with this year weren't concerned aboutthe impact of the affirmative action ban. They were more concerned with things like financial aid and leaving home to attend school. Spencer predicted the decline in applications would only be tem- porary. He pointed to the decrease in applications from underrepre- sented minorities after the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Gratz v. Bollinger that made the University stop awarding points based on race in the admissions process. Minority enrollment numbers dropped in 2004, but rose the next year to surpass 2003 levels, peak- ing at about 13 percent in 2005. University officials predict the declineinunderrepresentedminor- ity applicants is temporary. They said they have increased outreach efforts targeting middle school and high school students in Michigan and throughout the country. "We have many tools to achieve a diverse university community and proposition 2 does constrain our use of some of them, but it has caused us to redouble our efforts using others," Spencer said. Supporters of the affirmative action ban, like LSA senior Chris Irvine, former chair of the Univer- sity's chapter of the College Repub- licans, said the University should be targeting students based on socioeconomic status. "A decrease in underrepresent- ed minorities is not what we were shooting for," Irvine said of the affirmative action ban. "The goal is not to have more overrepresented groups." In an effort to recruit students from groups currently underrepre- sented on campus, including first- generation college students and those from lower-income families, the University uses the College Board's "geodemographic tool" Descriptor PLUS. The program col- lects data from census information and College Board testingprograms to sort students into 30 neighbor- hood and high school clusters and provide the University. with infor- mation about the socioeconomic, educational and racial breakdown of the applicant's community. Spencer said Descriptor PLUS has been an important mechanism to target underrepresented com- munities without considering race, but said it was just one of the ways the University is working to main- tain diversity on campus. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions reassigned one employ- ee and hired three new outreach interns to help recruit students. The University -opened the new Center for Educational Outreach and Academic Success in May, which coordinates community out- reach efforts. "We look at this year and certain- ly we've lost an important tool, and ithashadanimpactonournumbers, but we're hoping that in the future we can develop new measures to identify students and encourage them to enroll," Spencer said. Steve Grafton, president of the Univerity's Alumni Association, said he found the enrollment num- bers encouraging, as they weren't as low he had feared. "However, if we think we are over the hurdle, we are wrong," Grafton said. "We must be diligent if we have any hope to restore pre- vious levels and ultimately grow diversity at Michigan." - Daily Staff Reporters Sara Lynne Thelen and Trevor Calero contributed to this report. ZINGERMAN'S From Page 3 ners had invested more than two years and $100,000 in pre- liminary planning for the new 12,000- to 22,000-square-foot construction project. With the new space, he said Zingerman's had hoped to make a number of upgrades to its busi- ness,includingmore deliseating, a patio, a tasting and demonstra- tion kitchen, an event space that could accommodate up to 125 guests and a larger space for Zingtrain, the company's train- ing and consulting service. Though Saginaw said he wasn't sure what would be the company's next step toward expansion, he said that chal- lenging the commissioners' rul- ing was a definite possibility. "We don't think that they made a decision based on the merits of our argument, and that was disappointing and surprising," Saginaw said. "It just sounded like they were giving their opinions, and they thought that we didn't need to add space." Saginaw said he and his part- ners might challenge the deci- sion on grounds of procedural error at the state level. If that doesn't work, he said the next step would be to chal- lenge the rulingin district court, but he wasn't sure if it would go that far. If it does go to court, though, Saginaw said Zingerman's would have to present the development as an addition that would benefit the larger com- munity -- a case he said could definitelybe made. At its four locations through- out the city, Zingerman's has about 540 employees -- a num- ber that Saginaw said would have grown along with the expansion. Besides a larger staff, he said the new development would have also meant paying higher property taxes to the state and bringing in more profits - 10 percent of which the compa- ny donates back to non-profit groups in Ann Arbor every year. With all positive economic benefits that Saginaw said the expansion would bring, he said he didn't totally understand the commissioners' decision. "I was surprised," Saginaw said, "I didn't know that hand- ing out business advice was the purview of the Historic District Commission." Take a FREE practice test during Walk-In Wednesdays A1 T LSAT AM T PCAT GR E DAT OAT Visit Kaplan at 1214 S. University to take a FREE practice test any Wednesday between 10am - 6pm to find out how you'll score before Test Day! Call (734) 662-3149 to register today! Higher Scores. Brighter Futures. 1-800-KAP-TEST I kaptest.com Winner will receive two free burritos from Rio Wraps. Try to find the fake advertisement in this week's paper and throughout the month. If you think you've found it, e-mail your name, the page number of the ad and the ad caption to dailydisplay@gmail.com (subject: fake ad contest). One winner will be chosen at the end of each month and will be contacted by e-mail.