Members of the UW System Board of Regents’ task force on campus climate expressed concerns about instances of racism and homophobia on UW System campuses during a meeting Friday.
David Blough, senior policy and planning analyst for the UW System, spoke about compositional diversity of all system students as a whole.
Among Blough’s findings were that the portion of non-white students in UW System schools has increased over the past 10 years and employee diversity also has increased, although less significantly than student diversity.
Blough also presented graphs about the portion of first-generation college students, the number of students registering to receive disability services and the percentage of LGBT students.
Task force members discussed recent surveys they conducted at their schools and the initiatives that were being produced as a result of these findings.
LaRuth McAfee, assistant dean for diversity, inclusion and funding for UW-Madison’s graduate school, said UW-Madison’s campus climate survey had been answered by roughly 20 percent of the student body. The survey closed earlier this week and data are still being analyzed.
McAfee mentioned the video game developed for UW-Madison, “Fair Play,” which follows the life of an African-American student as he navigates the everyday hardships of racism on a college campus.
McAfee also discussed the Women in Science and Engineering Institute and their commitment to minimizing a conscious bias against women in engineering.
Katrina Morrison, a student founder of Our Wisconsin, the two-part workshop on diversity training offered to freshmen at UW-Madison, also reported that data processing was in effect to draw conclusions about the program.
Morrison said that provided the pilot resulted in an increased measure of education surrounding diverse groups on campus, Our Wisconsin would be expanded to all students, staff and faculty over the course of five years.
The task force on campus climate plans to meet again after the new year.
