Affirmative Action rulings are to blame for the SIU School of Medicine’s low enrollment of minority students, a school official says.

But another school official says the numbers are dropping because Illinois high schools are not preparing students to qualify for medical schools.

Changes in the legal ramifications for Affirmative Action are the cause for declining enrollment, Erin Graham, director of admissions, said. We’re relying less on numbers and more on non-cognitive characteristics in the selection process.

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The U.S. Department of Education ruled in 1991 to allow a four-year transition period for universities to cut back on state and federal funding for minority students and to forbid race-exclusive scholarships paid for by state and local governments. All graduate programs at SIU’s School of Medicine were affected because of lost funding.

The School of Medicine has 72 open positions for medical students. In 1995, the final year of state and government race-exclusive scholarships, the School of Medicine had 10 minorities admitted, while the following year the minorities admitted dropped to zero. This year, one minority student was admitted to the school.

We’re trying to strengthen our relations with inner-city Chicago high school students, Graham said. We realized that you almost have to educate students about medical professions before college.

But Erik J. Constance, associate dean for Student Affairs, said Affirmative Action is not the reason that minority enrollment is down, but the fact that there are fewer qualified applicants across Illinois.

It has nothing to do with Affirmative Action. That’s too easy of an excuse. It’s a cop-out, Constance said. That’s (Affirmative Action) a worry all over the country, and we do practice Affirmative Action.

If you’re not getting qualified applicants, then there is nothing we can do about that.

Constance said Illinois schools need to better prepare students interested in a field of medicine.

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We need stronger school systems to produce more qualified applicants, he said. There are much fewer qualified students all over the state of Illinois.

The Illinois Board of Higher Education encouraged the SIU School of Medicine to meet with a Chicago-based group called Champs in an attempt to increase the enrollment of minorities in the School of Medicine. The two groups met at the end of September, and officials from the Champs program say that they are prepared to work together with SIU.

We’re going to do everything to encourage minority students to apply to SIU, Dr. Reggie Jones, director of the Champs program, said. We’re going to expose SIU’s medical school to the students that we deal with.

Champs is a summer program implemented 18 years ago that has worked with students from the sixth grade through high school.

Students spend the summer taking classes and observing professionals in various fields, including medicine, to help them explore and discover their interests, Jones said.

The Champs program is involved with seven of Illinois’ eight medical schools and three dental schools. The one medical school omitted in the past was SIU.

Constance said the new relationship with the Champs program will benefit the School of Medicine by having more qualified students apply to the school.

What we’re trying to do is strengthen the pipeline of students that enter our program, Constance said. Getting involved with the Champs program will help us do just that.