Local students get priority enrollment

Cal State Long Beach will soon be giving high school students in Long Beach,  Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Paramount and the ABC Unified School District priority enrollment, said Keith I. Polakoff, vice president of Academic Affairs Wednesday.

The freshman class for fall 2001 are scheduled to be placed under these new enrollment parameters when they register in November, Polakoff said.

The campus enrollment committee gave the enrollment plan to CSULB President Robert Maxson in January 2000.

"We received verbal approval for plan the week before commencement," Polakoff said. "A couple of things still need to be worked out. But CSU 
Chancellor Charles B. Reed] has given us the green light to approve."

Polakoff denied the plan was a step towards affirmative action."We're not defending affirmative action, but economic opportunity. Historically that's been the role of CSU education."And "this is mandatory" because of the CSU Board of Trustees decision on San Diego State, he said.

San Diego is mandated by the CSU to give local students with minimum requirements slots on campus. "We won't put higher admission standards on students from local districts," Polakoff said.

The plan was constructed in a year and half, with statistical research conducted by psychology professor Patricia Bachelor, he said.

Since CSULB enrollment requirements would be more restrictive, the committee needed to know the plan's impact, Polakoff said. Specifically, it is essential to determine "who is affected? What type of freshman class will be produced?" 

"Another concern was that our campus is one of the most diverse campuses. We wanted to keep that."

Thus, the committee set out to see what impact any decision had in screening students.

"The number of high schools we have worked with have relatively low rates of college participation," Polakoff said. The schools send a lower portion of their students to college. To help raise the rates "priority enrollment" will be used.

The committee will continue to measure "the impact of the plan on the most recent freshman classes, he said. "You measure the feedback to go forward."The committee consisted of six to eight people. It included Dr. Simeon Crowther, the chair of the Academic Senate; Alan Nishio, vice president of Student Services; Thomas Enders, assistant vice president of Enrollment Services; Dorothy Goldish, chemistry professor; Carol Riley, director of the Credential Processing Center; and David Dowell, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts.