Following a lengthy discussion that included presentations from several students, the faculty voted 55 to 5 to endorse the Resource and Planning Committee (RPC) recommendation to transition to need-aware admissions. Nearly two thirds of the faculty were not present for the vote, which took place at Wednesday’s faculty meeting.

President Brian Rosenberg spoke at the beginning of the meeting about why he feels adopting the proposed recommendation is important to the college.

“My presumption is that I was hired to bring my best judgment to the college,” he said to the standing room only crowd gathered in Weyerhaueser Boardroom, “My best judgment is that we need to exercise control over the financial aid budget of the college… and increase fundraising, not do one or the other.”

Following Rosenberg’s remarks, current RPC chair Tom Halverson, a math professor, presented the resolution on which the faculty would be voting. A debate, which included presentations and questions from several students who support saving need-blind admissions, followed Halverson’s presentation.

The RPC recommendations that the faculty approved voted propose that Macalester establish of a financial aid budget that will allow the college to admit a larger proportion of students receiving financial aid than most comparison schools. The RPC also recommends that the college maintain its commitment to meeting the demonstrated need of all admitted students.

Furthermore, the RPC proposes that the college continually evaluate the proper level of the financial aid budget in order to accomplish Macalester’s overall goals of maintaining both quality and access.

“More than 10 years ago, we realized that [financial aid] was something we had to grapple with,” Halverson said. “I believe the RPC has produced a thorough analysis of the problem.”

Absent from the meeting was History Professor Peter Rachleff, a proponent of saving need-blind admissions. According to a number of faculty present at the meeting, Rachleff, who was in New York, sent an e-mail to many members of the faculty Wednesday urging them to vote against the RPC recommendations and to wait until an alternative proposal from a group calling itself Defend Need-Blind Admissions at Macalester (DNBAM) is released later in the semester.

Former RPC chair and Mathematics and Computer Science Professor Danny Kaplan, who did not receive Rachleff’s e-mail, said that he believes a better proposal than the RPC’s is unlikely.

“One can never rule out the possibility that there isn’t a better idea,” Kaplan said. “But, in all the talks I’ve had with students, I haven’t seen a better one.”

History Professor David Itzkowitz raised a question about the efficacy of the RPC’s recommendations on tuition revenue. He asked if the college could be sure that switching to need-aware admissions would guarantee that more students who paid full tuition actually enrolled at Macalester.

“How confident are you that doing this would be effective?” he asked. “[The college has] control over who we admit, but not those who come here.”

Kaplan responded by asserting that the RPC had based its analysis on a detailed model—prepared in conjunction with the Admissions Office and the financial aid office—that predicted the probability of a student enrolling at Macalester after he or she was admitted.

The model, which includes data from all of the applicants during the 2002-2003 school year, is based on analysis of such factors as SAT scores, high school grades and family income. Kaplan said that this report showed that admitting more students who could pay full tuition would increase their presence on campus.

Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) President Michael Barnes ’06 urged the faculty not to vote in favor of the RPC recommendations. He said his argument was based on discussions MCSG had with the student body.

The Legislative Body (LB) voted at its Oct. 19 meeting in favor of a resolution urging the Board of Trustees to wait until at least May 2005 to vote on the issue of need-blind admissions. The Board currently plans to vote on the issue at its retreat in Jan. 2005.

Barnes said that the LB’s rationale for passing this resolution was to allow the community to have more time to discuss the issue. He also said that voting in May will ensure that the Trustees are on campus to make the decision. Barnes also said that voting in May will allow enough time for any new proposal to be implemented for the first-years that will begin in the Fall of 2006.

Halverson and Provost Dan Hornbach said that delaying the vote until May would push back the implementation of any change to at least the Fall of 2007 because the college does not want to misinform high school juniors who will begin visiting Macalester in the spring.

Barnes also expressed concern that the RPC report does not place enough emphasis on Macalester’s values and that because there is no cap on need-aware admittees in the report that the percentage may grow larger if budget constraints worsen.

“The students concern is that there [are] not enough ‘teeth’ in the message to preserve the things we care about,” Barnes said.

David Boehnke ’07, who has been working with a group of students to draft an alternative proposal, said that the RPC report does not show that Macalester is indeed suffering from a financial crisis large enough to justify the elimination of need-blind admissions.

“It is important to understand that financial aid growth may not be out of control at all,” he said to the faculty. “The problem is certainly much smaller than the RPC says.”

Seth Schlotterbeck ’06, who is also part of the group drafting the alternative proposal, said that reading the RPC report did not convince him of the college’s financial problems.

Kaplan defended the RPC report and said that its findings were based on other studies, specifically a 2002 report on college finances. He also said that he believed that not including a cap on need-aware admissions would not threaten the socioeconomic diversity of the student body.

“The RPC considered, and rejected, a cap on need-aware admissions,” Kaplan said. “Because the admissions procedure is invisible, there is no way to tell if the college is keeping its word. We propose setting a financial aid budget that is 120 percent of that of our comparison schools. That number is publicly visible.”

Hornbach echoed Kaplan’s statement and said that the proposal does not threaten the college’s diversity.

“Assuming that this gets passed, Macalester will still be Macalester,” he said. “We won’t give up socioeconomic diversity. Faculty, alumni and the alumni board are committed to access. The ‘teeth’ are in the institution and its values, its alumni and its history.”

Economics Professor Paul Aslanian, who teaches a class on the economics of non-profit institutions which uses Macalester as a case study, said that the college must limit the escalating financial aid budget if it wishes to remain among elite liberal arts colleges.

“The question of whether there is a financial problem,” he said, “rests on whether Macalester sees itself competing with the Oberlins and Carletons of the world of whether it wants to settle in and be an Augsburg.”

Following the debate, a faculty member suggested that the faculty vote on the issue by mail rather than at the meeting in order to preserve the secrecy of faculty responses and increase participation.

The faculty voted 41 to 17 to stop debate on the proposal, which eliminated the option of a vote by mail and forced an immediate decision on the issue. In the resulting vote, faculty elected to support the RPC recommendations by a margin of 55-5. Four of the five dissenting voters sat together and did not participate in the debate.