In 1921, UW-Madison students covered Bascom Hill with hundreds of tombstones to draw attention to a famine in China.
In the 1970s, students covered it with pink flamingos as a prank.
Wednesday, the hill was covered with 45 silhouettes to symbolize the 45 students of color who left the university after their freshman year in 1998. They would have graduated this year.
\We wanted to do something on the hill and that's what we came up with,"" said Marion Ecks, a UW-Madison senior and co-coordinator of the Associated Students of Madison's Plan 2008 campaign which was responsible for the display.
Plan 2008 is a UW System initiative with a number of campus climate and diversity goals to be reached by 2008.
The campaign, along with other ASM campaigns, announced its projects for the semester at a press conference Wednesday.
Ecks said retention will be a main focus of the Plan 2008 campaign. The ""shadow of 'targeted minority' freshmen who withdrew from UW-Madison highlights this issue, she said. UW-Madison senior and ASM representative Scott Spector thought of the idea, Ecks added.
""The university has no idea, and thus, no valid way of improving the campus to retain the students of color who do choose to attend UW-Madison,"" said UW-Madison senior and ASM Chair Jessica Miller.
Ecks said she agreed with Miller's statement.
""Nobody's actually talked to the students who've left and applied that information to policy,"" she said. ""Diversity affects not just students of color, but all of us.""
Two more projects the campaign will focus on this semester include adding an ""exit survey"" to the withdrawal process from the university along with a survey asking minority students ""how is this campus working for you.""
Christine Pagelsdorf, a UW-Madison senior, is a member of Promoting Racial and Ethnic Awareness, an organization comprised of predominantly white students who aim to educate their peers on issues surrounding diversity and race. She said she thought a survey campaign would yield positive results.
""I think it would bring to light some of the reasons that are often overlooked by the administration,"" she said.
The surveys, due out next week, will be in places like the Natatorium and Memorial Union.
""Ultimately, the goal would be to use the information to create programs to better the rate of retention,"" Ecks said.
The issue of retention will include all UW-Madison students who leave, Ecks said, not just those minorities who leave the university.
The Plan 2008 campaign meets Thursdays at 7 p.m. in the Multicultural Student Lounge in the Red Gym.
