UNM President Louis Caldera is back to revising a change in admissions standards at the University.
This comes after the regents delayed a vote on a revision offered by the administration at a May 13 meeting.
The policy would require students who need Introductory Studies courses to make up their deficiency in one area before gaining admittance to UNM, Caldera said at the meeting.
As it stands, students with deficient ACT or SAT exam scores are admitted to UNM, but required to take remedial courses before they can enroll in classes that count toward a degree.
"I didn't even know about this until the last minute," said Jamie Koch, president of the Board of Regents. He said the board needs more information and input from the community before it can make a decision of this importance.
Board member Sandra Begay-Campbell agreed.
"It's too early in this stage to make a decision," she said. "We need to have more time and more dialogue. It's very complex."
The regents heard arguments from members of the public at the meeting, many of whom spoke against the change.
Many argued it would disenfranchise minorities in New Mexico and discourage them from attending UNM because they are typically from poorer school districts and do worse on ACT and SAT exams.
Student Peter Estrada spoke out against the policy at the meeting. He said the proposal sends a message to minorities that "UNM says they're not worthy."
According to the proposal, 9.8 percent of American Indian, 7.8 percent of African-American and 6.8 percent of Hispanic freshmen admitted to UNM are required to take a remedial course. Only 1.6 percent of white students need the introductory courses.
Estrada asked the regents not to approve the policy and to look at other areas of improvement including faculty and staff.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"Students here aren't getting what they need," he said.
Since the meeting, Caldera said the proposal needs more work and the administration will be meeting with different groups in the community this fall to discuss the policy and how to help students succeed at UNM.
"The fundamental thing we need to focus on is student success," he said. "What we've seen in the past 10 years is an increase for the need of remedial courses in three areas."
Those three areas are math, English and writing.
Caldera, who has been working on the proposal for more than a year, said there is an 11 percent graduation rate over a six-year time frame for students who needed these courses.
"This shows we aren't serving the students well and we need to look at serving them better," he said. "We want to suggest to them that they will have better success of taking on challenges of a university education if they clear at least one deficiency."
Student Jesus Mu§oz said other alternatives have not been looked at and believes the proposal is based on race discrimination.
"I didn't get good scores on my ACT but I was lecturing at universities by the age of 18," he said.
Caldera said he was glad people showed up to give their point of view.
"But at the end of the day, I want to ask them to sit down with us and ask them about how to improve the success of students with an 11 percent graduation rate," he said. "We do a disservice to students to admit them and throw them into an environment they aren't prepared for."
UNM doesn't look at standardized test scores for admittance into the University, just for course placement, Caldera said in his presentation to the regents. There is a minimum GPA requirement of 2.25, which Caldera said he wants to gradually raise to 2.50.
"We don't set the standard very high," he said.
Regent Raymond Sanchez said he agreed but encouraged people to voice their concerns on the matter.
"We should really raise the bar but we need to look at other ways of doing that," he said.
