Graduate School Dean John Yopp said he is concerned that the elimination of funding programs may deny students an opportunity they rightfully have.

Everyone should have access to a graduate education, Yopp said. How do we show senators how much students are dependent on federal aid? This is the hot issue of the year.

According to Yopp, increasing cultural diversity is a primary objective for the Graduate School administration.

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It’s our objective to have a very diverse group of students in the grad school, he said. If women account for 50 percent of the population, we want 50 percent women in the grad school. If African-Americans account for 15 percent of the population, we want 15 percent African-Americans in the grad school. We want the graduate school to resemble the world.

This objective has been affected by the elimination of certain programs stemming from Title IX of the Education Act of 1964, associate dean M. Harry Daniels said.

Title IX programs are earmarked for students in underrepresented groups, he said. The elimination of certain programs has had a rather severe impact in general and on campus.

Daniels said reduction of a five year award for the Proactive Recruitment of Minority Professionals for Tomorrow (PROMPT) group was an immediate setback to the school.

PROMPT is a graduate association aiming to increase the number of minority graduate students at SIUC. Daniels said a five year, $350,000 grant for five qualified students was cut back to $70,000 for one year.

We attracted five students and now (the money) is not all going to be there, Daniels said.

Ronald Caffey, a management graduate student from Waukegan, said these eliminations will affect the enrollment of students in the graduate school.

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Lots of students can’t afford to leave the work force and return to school to pursue graduate degrees without support for their education, he said.

Another immediate setback was the elimination of the Patricia Roberts Harris scholarship, named in honor of a famous African-American woman.

The president zeroed it, and the House zeroed it, Daniels said. The amazing thing is that we had a long track record of success with the program.

The elimination of these programs has the graduate school looking for other sources of funding. Daniels said there are four sources of fundingfederal, state, local and private groups.

We’ve looked in all the categories, and the prospects for funding are bleak, Daniels said.

Two state programs Illinois Minority Graduate Incentive Program and Illinois Consortium for Educational Opportunity are sources of some hope, Daniels said.

These programs offer strong support, Daniels said. But if these two programs dry up, we’ll be hurting.

The downsizing of Affirmative Action (programs to increase opportunities for minorities) in California could someday spread to Illinois, Daniels said.

So far nothing has happened, he said. In candor, I have to be a little concerned. If it happened in California, it might happen in Illinois.

The graduate school will be monitoring enrollment of underrepresented groups and the availability of funds for individuals, Daniels said.

We’ll look at this empirical data to see how we stand as the current moves, he said.