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Volume20
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October IO, 1997
Issues
Straight away £,
, News Fliers accuse
AAS dept. of racism Page 3
Fliers posted
Commentary <-
Parking a driving
issue at Auraria; students lash out with anger Page 16
Features
Jenny Sparks/The Metropolitan
Metro soccer player Uam Bames scores at practice Oct. 8 at Washington Park. Barnes, a first year Metro player, Is gaining a reputation as a hard-nosed competitor with a fiery personality on the field. Story on page 19.
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Minorities trend to graduate Metro exceeds goal, rates grow for sixth consecutive year
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By Perry Swanson The Metropolitan
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Metro exceeded its goal for ethnic minority graduations this year by about 2 percent, continuing a trend of rising rates over the past six years. Nearly 20 percent of Metro graduates from July I, 1996 to June 30, 1997 were minorities, according to figures from the office of Institutional Research. The official figure, 19.4 percent, is 2.1 percent above a goal set by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education for that time period. Vernon Haley, Metro's vice president of Student Services, said intervention services have helped students who might drop out because of financial or academic difficulty. Haley said Metro has identified students with academic and financial problems and has moved to address them. "We want to get more people into the service loop as soon as possible," Haley said. Minority enrollment at Metro has also ,
increased to 23.4 percent this fall, up 4.4 percent from 1996, according to a Sept. 15 press release from the office of College Communications. The Colorado legislature directed the CCHE in 1987 to develop a policy to increase the proportion of college graduates who are minorities. The following year, the commission announced a statewide minority graduation goal for the year 2000 of 18.6 percent. This percentage reflects the number of 1988 Colorado high ~chool graduates who are minorities. Colorado colleges and universities have different minority graduation goals for 2000, depending on the local minority population. Metro's goal is 21.2 percent. It is higher than the state average because more minorities live in the metro area where the college draws most of its students. Metro President Sheila Kaplan has talked tough about diversity and minority graduation rates since arriving at the college in 1993. Back then, minorities made up 13.5
percent of Metro graduates, a rate Kaplan called "terrible." Since then, Kaplan has consistently noted increases in the minority graduation rate as a victory for her administration. From 1993 to 1997, the rates climbed about 6 percent, and now ethnic minorities are almost as well represented among Metro graduates as they are among Metro students. ''I'm not sure how everyone else is doing, but I hope we will always be the college which exceeds these numbers," Kaplan said. Kaplan recently criticized colleges in Texas and California for abandoning affirmative action in their student appliq1.tion policies. Metro won't take that road unless Colorado law changes, she said. The CCHE requires colleges that don 't meet their yearly goals to submit a plan explaining how they will increase recruitment, retention, graduation and transfer of minority students. The commission also requires those schools to increase budgets for programs to keep minorities in school.
Cirque du Soleil worth the effort Page 11
Aerial contortion
Sports Men~
soccer mired in 6-game losing streak Page 20 Todd Padgett
Quotable
"I'll play It first and tell you what It is
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later." -Miies Davis