Committee on Admissions and Student Aid
Annual Report 1998-1999
1998-1999 Membership:
Barbara Black (chair), Peter Stake, Gove Effinger, Kent Jones, Mary Lou
Bates, Robert Shorb, Tina Levith, Monica Minor, Heather Gaydos, Galey
Carillo, Rafael Castillo.
CASA met six
times during the 1998-1999 academic year. In addition to receiving and
responding to regular reports from Mary Lou Bates, Director of Admissions,
and Bob Shorb, Director of Student Aid and Family Finance, the committee
turned its attention early in the year to defining its function as a newly
merged committee. This focus resulted in a revised operating code for
CASA.
Additionally,
CASA examined select issues that are key to the process of admissions,
several of which are becoming increasingly complex and/or controversial.
Jack Ling spoke to CASA about affirmative action and admissions, and CASA
also examined the role of gender in the admissions process. Of course,
both of these agenda items fall under the broader rubric of diversity.
Later in the year, Tim Brown came to explain the impact of athletic recruitment
on the admissions program. We also heard from student representatives
from the Honors Commission regarding a student-generated initiative to
include in the application process either an essay about the Honor Code
or, at minimum, greater education about Skidmore's Honor Code through
the admission materials themselves. Gordon Thompson spoke to CASA about
the workings of the Filene Music Scholarships; and, as the Dean of Enrollment
and College Relations, Kent Jones provided an update on the Porter Presidential
Merit Scholarships. Both presentations spoke to the committee's interest
in the relationship between admission and merit.
The core reading
for the year's work for CASA was a paper circulated by Kent Jones called
"Toward a Taxonomy of the Admissions Decision-Making Process" (authored
by Greg Perfetto, first presented at the Second College Board Conference
on Admissions Models in Vancouver, Canada, January 1999)--a text that
served as a kind of primer to explain the particular and distinct process
of admissions in a liberal arts college. As further work is done at Skidmore
on outcomes assessment, reconfiguration, and the Vision Statement and
its enumerated "core abilities", CASA will want to look closely at how
Admissions should represent the Skidmore experience to prospective students
and guidance counselors.
Respectfully
submitted,
Barbara Black
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