Looking forward to nice, bright, young people descending on campus Friday for Shadow Day, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Paul Barrows said he hopes UW-Madison students will make them feel welcome.
Shadow Day is an outreach and recruitment event aimed at students of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender high school students from around the state. The program introduces students to the campus, pairing them with university students who share their interests.
Originally set to take place in early November, Shadow Day was cancelled due to administrative concerns about recruiting LGBT students. As a result, the event was restructured to emphasize outreach over recruitment and is no longer funded by the Office of Admissions.
However, Shadow Day remains true to its mission, according to Ted Koehler, a UW-Madison sophomore and co-coordinator of Shadow Day.
\We're basically changing the focus of the day to get the same effect,"" he said. ""We still wanted most of the students to be minorities and LGBT, so we changed the focus to be more outreach.""
Barrows, who has been part of the Shadow Day planning process from the beginning, said he felt cooperation in planning and executing the event had improved dramatically since November.
""People are much more positive about [Shadow Day] this time around,"" he said.
Barrows said he had high hopes for the day.
""We, as an institution, have a responsibility to try to expose all of the students across the state to the benefits of higher education. And in particular we want to get them on our campus and have them have a real good feel for the place.""
Students participating in Shadow Day will attend seminars on the admissions process, financial aid and college-level writing conducted by members of the administration, but most importantly they will be able to interact one-on-one with students from UW-Madison, according to Koehler.
""[Shadowers and Shadowees] will have some free time to gather to ask personal questions,"" Koehler said. ""Things they wouldn't ask at SOAR, such as, 'Is it cool if I came out in the dorms?'""
Jennifer Epps, ASM Diversity Committee chair, noted the outpouring of support from students willing to volunteer for Shadow Day, saying that students clearly view diversity as a big issue at UW-Madison.
""It's about students figuring out what they want to see on our campus,"" Epps said.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, sponsored a resolution passed unanimously by the Madison Common Council declaring Friday ""Student Shadow Day.\
